Looking back at the last off-season and the moves the Sox made, I have a theory...
The Sox didn't take the plunge on guys like BJ Ryan and sluggers like Thome, Delgado, etc...because they were concerned that many performances would drop significantly due to steroids, and they didn't want to get stuck with big contracts for little hitters...
Needing a corner infielder, and having a Delgado and Thome available, why didn't they make a run at one of them? A big problem they had last year was no protection for Manny. My theory is that they believed that many sluggers around the league were going to experience huge power losses due to the new drug testing policies. There definitely seemed to be a fear against going for a few big of the big name sluggers.
The reason that I was thinking about this was they went and signed non-power guys like Loretta and Gonzalez (and Crisp). Guys who get base hits, have some speed (not Loretta) and can field. They quickly moved away from the long ball and turned to defense as a philosophy. Why? Defense definitely helped them win the WS, no doubt about that, but having that offense didn't hurt them...
I know that most of the guys they got fit the bill with OBP, but, I have to think that Henry and company (the way they view it all as a business) didn't want to take a chance on bringing in a 40HR guy at 10+MM, only to have him test positive or show up at camp a singles hitter.
And not saying that any of the Sox pitchers were past abusers, but some of them dropped in velocity considerably (many pitchers around the league did...especially bullpen guys). Maybe this was the reason they didn't take the chance on guys like BJ Ryan. I am not saying Ryan was a user. I don't think he was/is. But maybe they said, "look we're heading into a transition year, anyway AND there is going to be dropoff on many hitters and pitchers now that juicing is out. Let's play it safe and not spend the money on....etc....".
It seemed like their entire philosophy changed, and very quickly. Something must have triggered it. I believe that a conversation about not getting burned by a steroid scandal (I have to believe most teams thought about this) took place. Especially with how careful the FO has been about constructing an image.
I guess that we will see what happens this off-season since no one big got caught cheating this year (why was that??? was there really no big name guy juicing??? that just seems so unlikely)...
I know that this post is a little disjointed, but I was just sort of thinking of the effect the new testing policies might have had on some of the off season moves the Sox made last year...I am sure the discussion on this topic will tighten up this post...
For anyone just visiting this site, by the way, I am not claiming that ANYONE I mentioned in this post USED STEROIDS or any other type of performance enhancing drugs...My point is that there must have been speculation that some big names were going to get caught, and that teams didn't want to eat huge amounts of money if they did...
ReplyDeleteI mentioned Thome and Delgado and Ryan only because they were FAs this offseason.
It's an interesting theory. Something I mentioned months ago (too lazy to look it up) is sort of related, though I didn't think of it as a conscious decision by the FO - the effect of banning greenies. Hard to say how that could affect choices of FA's, but it might've contributed to all the resting of good players (leaving the JV squad) earlier in the season.
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