Bobby Valentine Lashes Out at “Lazy Journalism”
Following one of the worse September collapses in baseball history, the already wildly speculative and hyperbolic world of Boston sports writing has reached a new level of crazy. At the center of things is the often-controversial new manger, Bobby Valentine. After a seemingly endless managerial search, the former New York Mets and Texas Ranger skipper was named the Boston Red Sox manager, taking over a team that Terry Francona had lead for eight seasons. Whether or not they agreed that Valentine was the right man for the job, baseball writers everywhere had to crack a smile.
Bobby Valentine is great copy. The gregarious new skipper is the polar opposite of the departed Francona. Tito was a master at answering questions without saying anything of substance. He shielded his players from criticism and keep internal divisions out of the public eye. Valentine had public battles with his front office as manger of the New York Mets and as a manager in the Nippon Professional League. He publicly called out players like Ricky Henderson when they showed a lack of effort and mused to the media about the unsustainable nature of Rey Ordonez’s bat. Whatever you’re opinion of his baseball acumen, if you write about baseball, Valentine is a god-send. He is a refreshing change from the well-wrought clichés that keeps the sportswriter on the outside of the clubhouse. He talks about what is on his mind, and writers love it.
However, the Boston media is beginning to see that this cuts both ways. Take this latest example from the never-lazy Brian MacPherson of the Providence Journal:
“Bobby Valentine doesn’t think he’s engaged in a power struggle with Ben Cherington.
“I think it’s lazy journalism,” Valentine said. “That’s what I think. I think it’s an easy story to write that has no validity to it. … I could have written it on Dec. 3. Are you kidding me?”
Valentine is reacting to a number of pieces that have caught reader’s eyes in past few days, especially this one from Boston Globe columnist Christopher Gaspar. Without so much as the inference of a source in the organization, Gasper muses that a rift is developing between GM Ben Cherington and Bobby Valentine. The issues fueling this supposed rift are the starting shortstop position and the role of Daniel Bard.
Valentine has described Jose Iglesias, the Red Sox top SS prospect, as “major-league ready” and a number of fans and writers have taken this to mean that Iglesias is his clear choice, an interpretation partly driven by the irrational distrust of Mike Aviles, the other top candidate for that spot. Meanwhile, Valentine has been quite impressed with Aviles, saying, “he’s taken to the position like a duck to water.”
The debate over Daniel Bard’s role has been the off-season’s biggest controversy. When the plan to convert the ace reliever in to a starter first came out, there was a sizable backlash. The fervor of the opposition has only been stoked by a statistically weak Spring Training run. Those who want nothing more than to see Bard shipped back to the pen took comfort in a few choice words from Bobby Valentine, following a tough Daniel Bard outing. Valentine criticized the lack o a change up during Bard’s March 21 start, and expressed concerns over both his efficiency and the walks he issued. As harsh as Valentine seemed then, he was positively glowing after Bard’s next start, despite the fact that the flame throwing righty gave up more runs. TheBoston manager told MacPherson, “I liked everything; He threw all of his pitches today. His changeup, at times, was devastating. His slider was sharp at times.”
The most telling thing Valentine said to MacPherson as he lashed out against the media hype was “”I try to keep any of my opinions real close to the vest. I don’t know that anybody knows totally what I’m thinking.” This seems to be absolutely true. While Valentine is far more talkative than Francona would have ever been, he isn’t saying as much as the media often makes it seem. Thus far, he has contradicted the positions that writers like Gaspar have assumed of him as often as he has supported. Rob Bradford of WEEI does an excellent job refuting claims like the ones Gaspar makes, using actual evidence in place of wild assumptions.
What I see happen here is fairly simple. Writers are assigning their own desires to Valentine, cherry-picking the quotes that support their view of who should play shortstop, what role Daniel Bard should have and other positions they want to advance. Boston has a sizable contingent of scribes who don’t want to hear about why RBIs are a poor tool for evaluating individual performance or be forced to deal with the complexities of wildly fluctuating defensive metrics like UZR andDRS. Unfortunately this “moneyball” philosophy (as Gaspar still insists on calling it), is far better equipped to explain the decisions of Ben Cherington and his team than their preferred perspective. I wouldn’t go as far as Valentine does and say that such writing is “lazy.” It is more just sensationalist. The idea
For this group, Bobby Valentine seems to be a ray of light. He comes from the National League mentality. He coached in Japan, where they emphasize fundamentals. He talks about small ball and up-the-middle defense and all of the things this group wants a manger to talk about. However, while they might like his verbiage, they don’t have any real insight into his true philosophy of baseball. Valentine, for all his interesting talk, has been just as vague about how he will run the 2012 Boston Red Sox as Francona was. Certainly, there will be a different style of play. The new manager will be creative in his lineups, in his bullpen use and with in-game strategies. That is why Ben Cherington brought him here. However, just what that new style will be is still undetermined and unknowable.
What will not change is the rational in Boston, deliberate way in which decisions will be made. Valentine has said as much. Regardless of where Boston lands on these headline issues, Cherington, Valentine and the entire staff will weight in, agreeing and disagreeing in places and debating such issues from every angle. Scouting reports and observation will be used in connection with the most cutting edge statistical analysis to shape the Red Sox 2012 march toward October. Where Valentine really stands on such things is not nearly simple enough to be reduced to a few of his many printable lines.
I wouldn’t go as far as Valentine does and say that such writing is “lazy.” The writers advancing this storyline are professionals and they know their work. That is why they do it. It is more sensationalistic than lazy. The idea that Valentine is the knowing old baseball master, flying in the face of Cherington’s heartless adherence to charts and graphs is an appealing narrative, riling up both sides of a divide that is primarily fictitious within the confines of the baseball front office at this point. If Valentine does prefer the slick-fielding Jose Iglesias, such writers want to make write the story of how he knows the value of a great glove at short better than Cherington’s computer. If he prefers Bard in the bullpen to start the year, he is finally squashing the front-office’s wild experiment once and for all. This is type of highly readable narrative has become the life blood of talk radio and certain corners of the internet, but it is almost always inaccurate.
Bobby Valentine is not some uncontrollable baseball mad-scientist of legend. He just plays that role on TV. As much fun as it might be to watch, just remember, it isn’t real.
Update: Jose Iglesias has been optioned to the minors as of March 27, 12:30 PM. Valentine spoke with Brian MacPherson about the process of making this decision saying:
“It was never a debate. I never even knew what side he was taking and I don’t know if he ever knew what side — if that’s what it was — that I was taking. We spoke of both players every day, evaluated them, not only me and Ben, I mean as a staff, this was a staff meeting last night. I think it was a pretty universal — I wouldn’t say 100 percent — but it was a group decision where everyone was on the same page.”
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