Weekend Think Links: Manny Being Slammied; Olympic Swimmers
August 4, 2008 by SML
Some quick hits on the events of the past weekend:
Adding a bit to D-Wil’s early post on the Manny Ramirez trade, and Boston Red Sox management’s general habit of tarnishing or diminishing the character of their former players almost immediately after trading them, here is a recap of the stories out of Boston, and LA, since the trade.
Almost immediately after the trade broke, The Boston Globe had this story, entitled “Manny lobbied to stay” about how Manny’s agent Scott Boras called the Sox one hour after the trade, to tell the Sox the follow:
“If the Sox dropped the option years on his contract – which they had agreed to do if they traded him – Boras said Ramírez would not be a problem the rest of the season.”
The story served the purpose of advancing the storyline that Manny Ramirez was guilty of “disruptive conduct” (it just sounds like a crime of some sort, doesn’t it?), and that the Sox were the ones taking a stand here, not Manny:
“The Sox told him thanks but no thanks, what was done was done, and pack plenty of sunscreen.”
That Red Sox management (read: Theo Epstein) sure are some bad ass, tough mo-fos, right? Pack plenty of sunscreen! Yo, that’s some real Clint Eastwood ish right there!
ESPN picked up the story, of course, and ran with it for a few days. Not nearly as interesting, to the media, particularly ESPN, was Scott Boras’ response to the article, as covered here by the LA Times:
Agent Scott Boras dismissed a report in the Boston Globe that he had tried to salvage the relationship between Manny Ramirez and the Boston Red Sox after the team had traded the left fielder to the Dodgers as “completely inaccurate.”
You think? Inaccurate? Well, it seems like a he-said, they-said kinda deal. Who should I believe? The guy with the no-trade clause in his contract, who willingly agreed to waive it to allow this trade to happen (on the condition that the last two option years on the contract are voided, so he can become a free agent in November), or the Sox tough guy management?
I’m going to guess that what really occurred here is that Manny probably told the Sox that he would “behave” if they voided the last two years of his contract. Since he did, in fact, tell the Sox that about three days before the trade occurred, via an interview with ESPNDeportes. I doubt he would have called the Sox one hour after the trade to remind them of that “offer”.
That just seems more likely to me than any of the propaganda being put forth by the Sox front office.
Of course, that hasn’t kept the east coast media from using this opportunity to push forth the Sox’s agenda. There were some pretty rough stuff in the NY Daily News (the sports department is vehemently pro-Sox, as the most influential person – Mike Lupica – is a Sox fan) and the NY Times (read the disclosure: The Times owns 8% of the Sox), but surprisingly it was a NY Post columnist that really went the hardest after Manny. Joel Sherman thinks “Bud Selig should probe Manny’s actions” leading up to the trade.
Because the “competitive integrity” of Manny is being questioned. Perhaps Bud Selig should look into that. But he may want to look into “the competitive integrity” of the Kansas City Royals and the Pittsburgh Pirates (who happened to be the much needed middlemen in the Manny trade, giving up an established power hitting star in Jason Bay for a bunch of so-so prospects), whose owners somehow make a profit from revenue sharing every year despite not bringing anything to the table in terms of quality teams. But I digress.
In other news:
One more marginal NBA player is heading overseas to play in Europe: Carlos Arroyo. Arroyo signed a 3-year deal with Maccabi Tel Aviv. It is the biggest deal in Maccabi Tel Aviv’s history, paying Arroyo about $4.5 million a year ($2.5 million net). MTA had originally pursued Jason Williams, but that didn’t work out.
It’s interesting to note that MTA felt pressure to sign a NBAer to keep up with the rest of the big EuroLeague teams. This offseason may turn out to be an abnormally, if the Euro teams decide that it’s not worth it to sign NBA players to large contracts (by Euro standards). Or, if it works out for most of the teams, then you might see more and more bench players in the NBA – backups in the rotation, basically – getting signed by Euro teams as they get more and more competitive with each other.
Finally, some Olympic swimming stuff:
Here is a long feature article on Michael Phelps in the LA Times. Phelps will be the poster boy for this year’s Olympics, as he tries once again to break Mark Spitz record of 7 golds in the same Olympics.
What’s interesting here is that swimming has surpassed the “tarnished” track events as the main event of the Olympics. Of course, that’s because track events have too many dopers, making hard for the “average fan” to root for these “cheaters” (read: minorities). Swimming, on the other hand, has no such issues. There is no controversy in swimming.
By the way, does anyone else smell something in this “controversial swimsuit” discussion? Remember when the excuses for McGwire and Sosa breaking records in 1998 was Creatine and Andro? The excuses for swimming records shattering all over the place in 2008 (41 new records in the last year) is this dynamic swimsuit! Yep, nothing to see here, just keep moving along everyone. Nothing of interest here, just a new bathing suit.
Something smells. Sorta like red herring.
******Addenum: Because I am having a tough time replying to the comments below, and because it is worth adding into the body of the post, here is a further breakdown of the Olympic Swimming portion of this post:
The Marathon Man, Boney: You make good points about the suit. I admit I rushed this article up. I wanted to get it in, when it really deserves it’s own post.
I clearly focused on only the negative stuff here, but I have pointed out in past posts that the suit is controversial because it is so effective. Here is a link to The Economist article on that topic:
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11529388
However, I still think there is a bit of a double standard here. Track sports are now being covered, and reported on, with a negative light. Any broken record in track is met with skeptical responses.
Yet swimming is getting a pass, or much more wiggle room, than track. I admit I did a poor job of providing evidence of this, so here is some:
“Alan Abrahamson of NBC Sports writes that USA Swimming would never associate with anyone like Trevor Graham, the convicted perjurer and coach of many elite track stars like Marion Jones.”
From: http://mesomorphosis.com/blog/2008/07/09/anabolic-steroids-and-the-culture-of-american-swimming/
In that very same link, Dara Torres (the 41 year old swimmer who only recently hit her career stride) is quoted as claiming to have competed against “swimmers who were dirty” her whole life.
Swimmers themselves are calling out other swimmers. Gary Hall Jr (I was about to write a post on him, since he the son of Gary Hall Sr., ironically… Hall Sr. was the guy who finished runnerup to Mark Spitz in the 1972 Olympics, and now his son seems likely to also finish runnerup to Phelps) called out an Australian, Eamon Sullivan, on doping-related charges:
“I have been in this sport for a very long time and I have never seen such a drop in time from an elite level swimmer. Similar drops have been made by athletes that were later proven cheaters.
“It’s no fault of Eamon that a lot of people are going to look at his swim suspiciously, unless of course he did cheat. The public has a right to be suspicious of doping when they see a drop like that.”
He made those statements in April of 2008. Soon afterwards the Speedo swimsuit stories started taking off. Apparently Hall Jr did not get the memo that it is the swimsuit that is responsible for the 41 broken records over the past six months.
I’m not pretending that I have all the answers. But I do have questions – two of them:
1) The same question that often comes up in the discussion of the super swimsuit: How is it different from doping? I don’t care one way or the other, but the general case that is made against doping is two-fold: one, that it makes it for an unfair advantage, versus historical achievements in that event. Two, that’s it’s bad for the athletes, or for the kids trying to become professional athletes. Now, putting the latter claim aside (since it hasn’t necessarily be proven yet), the former claim – the one about the unfair advantage – would seem to also pertain to the super swimsuit.
I have no problems with technology advancements in sports; I just wonder why technological advancements get such a pass, where as biological advancements get automatically dismissed as “cheating”.
2) With other swimmers questioning whether everyone in swimming is clean, isn’t it a distinct possibility that this Super Swimsuit could be a red herring? That was the main point of second half of my post… we fans supposedly got fooled once before, in MLB in 1998, by obvious red herrings that were suppose to explain why records were getting shattered left and right. Now, 10 years later, records are falling in swimming. We are being told that it’s because of a reduced drag underwater. I’ll be the first to admit that I have no idea how much better of a swimmer the suit makes you. The Economist article seems pretty scientific, and breaks it down as such.
I’m just raising the possibility that it is a red herring. And there is value – to NBC, to the Olympics, to everyone involved – in having swimming seem “clean” this year, since track and field have become tarnished. Swimming, and Michael Phelps, will be the big story this year. The conspiracy theorist in me sees the suit as a convenient cover for other stuff.
One last comment: the black/white aspect of track vs. swimming shouldn’t be discounted. Reporters have delved deep into the track and field industry, and every story involving a track star failing a drug test is heavily reported. Swimming gets a pass relative to track. Even the Dara Torres story, which made some reporters raise some questions, has been under-reported. Track may be a bigger sport than swimming, hence the disparity in coverage, but I’m betting that swimming will soon be on par with track in terms of money. Michael Phelps will make more endorsement money than any track star from this Olympics. In the end I think swimming will get a bigger pass than track, and that will be partially because of the black/white aspect to the two sports. White reporters are more likely to look the other way when it comes to white athletes than black athletes. They aren’t going to dig too deeply.
started off strong and then something about investigating the Pirates for trading Bay for a bunch of so so prospects and then ended with swimsuit confusion…
It’s not a figment of our imagination to see track stars, namely sprinters, fall victim to failed drug tests. Track is still an olympic favorite, especially the 200m and 400m men and women’s race.
Brandon Moss is a so so prospect, Craig Hansen is a former 1st round pick who is a solid off speed pitch away from being a closer, Andy LaRoche was one of the Dodgers top prospects, and Bryan Morris was the #12 prospect in the Dodgers’ system (he was a former 1st round pick the same year Kershaw was selected).
4 players in total for Bay. Quite a haul if you ask me considering the Red Sox gave up Manny too.
The swimsuits actually have been rather controversial and instead of just skimming over and giving a nudge nudge and a *wink wink to it, add some research to how much faster a compression body suit makes you when it squeezes you so tight 3 people have to help you put the damn thing on.
started off strong though, I’ll give you that.
For comparison’s sake:
Detroit gave up 5 players for Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis. 2 of which were top prospects, the others were just fillers. Burke Badenhop, Andrew Miller, Cameron Maybin, Mike Rabelo and one other guy.
The Yankees gave up 1 solid prospect and some scraps for Xavier Nady and his contract (who hasn’t had near the production that Bay has had) and Damaso Marte (middle reliever).
4 prospects for Jason Bay? Quite a haul… even if only 1 was a top prospect and the rest were so so, that’s not a bad pull.
The Speedo swimsuit is so different than anything else previously designed that it has indeed directly resulted in the drop in times over the past year. It’s impact has been so deep, in fact, that both Nike and TYR – Speedo’s prmiary competitors – have threatened to file suit over the copyright on the technology and the monopoly that they fear will result.
Earlier this year, one Nike athlete simply chose to forego endorsement obligations and wore a Speedo suit order to remain competitive.
By contrast, track companies have had significant troubles developing shoes and equipment that are much sleeker/faster. For example, Nike has only now produced a track spike that is lighter than the well-known Golden spikes worn by Michael Johnson over a decade ago in Atlanta. The only reason Johnson was able to use those shoes was due to his perfect leg strike. On top of that, he still used different handcrafted spikes for his 200m and 400m races. Lesser runners have since been unable to make it a full 400m in shoes of a similar weight and design.
Moreover, swimming is the only event being shown live in primetime in the US not because of track’s doping dilemma, but in spite of best efforts of NBC to adjust the schedule to have track in primetime. There was coverage of the whole affair that was relegated to the back pages, but it was there.
The reason for this lengthy reply is simple: it is important that those of us who care about how sport is conveyed through the lens of the mainstream media be careful in throwing around the idea that NBC and other outlets are using swimming as the highlight sportbecause swimming is ‘less tainted’ or more white. True or not, the argument presented is not helpful in proving that case.
Good comments, guys. I appreciate the feedback.
With regard to the prospects in the Bay deal: Not a great haul, in my opinion. Moss is so-so, and calling Bryan Morris the #12 prospect in the Dodgers system pretty much seals the deal for me. In other words, he’s not even a top-10 prospect for the Dodgers – he’ll probably never see major playing time in the Majors. Hanson is a good catch, but Andy LaRoche seems to have lost his glitter as a top prospect. His time as passed, apparently.
The larger point was that these teams, the Royals and Pirates, refuse to spend money, even on their own major free agents (see Carlos Beltran, or Bay, Nady and Marte this year), and instead continiously churn out major leaguers only to trade them when they are about to become free agents. It seems disgenious to me to talk about “competitive integrity” in baseball when you have owners who won’t spend the money necessary to make their team competitive, that’s all. This is the same league, MLB, that currently isn’t interested in having Mark Cuban buy one of their teams.
On the flip side, I admit that was a tangent from the original point, which was that the Post columnist was a bit over the top in suggesting that Manny Ramirez needs to be investigated by the commissioner for “competitive integrity” purposes. I didn’t need to navigate the conversation into a remote, unrelated topic. With that said: investigating Manny is still a pretty silly idea.
My response to the swimming comments upcoming…
Well the argument could once be said for the Florida Marlins too, but they keep competing. Perhaps it’s more in the scouting of the players rather than how big of a check these guys cut. The argument could also include the Twins, Expos/Nationals, Indians, etc.
Perhaps they should worry more about their scouting department than not paying their players. Let’s look at the scouting department for the Pirates or even the Royals:
How many supreme talents have these teams drafted with top 10 picks that they receive year in and year out? How many of those teams draft guys based on their “signability” rather than drafting the best talent available? You know why “signability” is a concern? Check out Luke Hochevar’s travels from 1st round pick to independent league back to Royals farmhand. Luckily Joe Mauer has panned out for Minnesota because “signability” was an issue with Mark Prior, look at how that turned out. Noone wants to play for these teams, it’s a dead end zone. It’s like being a wide receiver and having the Lions draft you in the first round.
Nady was a free agent signing for the Pirates, Marte was an acquisition from the White Sox in a trade. Beltran was a farm hand for the Royals, so losing him is like the Indians losing Manny and Jim Thome. Bay was acquired via trade with the Padres, another deadline deal just like the Manny deal. They dealt likely a stud or a former “big name” for a #1 prospect from another team. Bay panned out, but he was more of a sure thing in the Pirates’ organization than anything else.
The Pirates have been unsuccessful in their attempts to raise a talent in their farm system. All of their #1 overall picks flounder in the minors before they embarrass themselves in the majors. It’s not a money issue, they’re never in a position to trade prospects for talent. Noone wants their prospects, their prospects are horrible. Their management team also isn’t going to take a risk like the Detroit Tigers and sign a Pudge Rodriguez to a ridiculous contract to try and attract free agent attention to the team. That’s negative attention to a team that has a hard time selling out the stadium.
Andy LaRoche is a 24 year old 3rd baseman who was a top prospect in the Dodgers’ system, who they held onto for a year or two too long. Bryan Morris is #12 because he is coming off of Tommy John surgery. Moss is a so so prospect, but he fills the holes left by Bay and Nady. However you look at it, 4 players for Bay is a good deal. Bay is not some all world talent, but he’s no slouch either. To say though that a #12 prospect in an organization has no value is to not know much about baseball.
Name some names to this discussion about how the Pirates and Royals raise talent other than Carlos Beltran, and then we can talk. Otherwise, it’s an easy out to just blame a small market team for not spending money. It’s easy to sign a guy like Nady to a small deal because he really has no value other than the compensatory pick you receive when another team signs him as a free agent.
and yes, investigating Manny is stupid.
I agree with that.
The other problem, Boney, I have with the Pirates and Royals, as opposed to the Marlins and Twins, is their investments in scouting. Poor scouting isn’t coincidentally. They cut back big on their scouting budget, versus other teams in MLB. Even the Twins spend money on scouting – note that Johan Santana (a Venezuelan) and Francisco Liriano (a Dominican) were picked up as international free agents. Who have the Royals or Pirates picked up over the past two decades internationally that has been any good?
They simply aren’t trying, as opposed to the Twins and Marlins and Rays, who do try, but have less means than the big teams. But I guess that’s debateable….
MODI
It’s like our minds work alike. I thought the same thing about the swimmers and that bullshit swimsuit excuse.
My bad SML, I thought this was a MODI piece. I guess I have a mind link with you too.
I just think it weird that all these world records are falling all of a sudden. Track athletes have gotten caught, but that’s doesn’t mean they are the only ones guilty.
dude
Liriano was acquired from the Giants in the trade for AJ Pierzynski (sp?). The Twins haven’t done anything overly special with their scouting department either. They pieced together a couple of solid drafts (all with high picks I’ll add) and brought them up through the ranks. Boof Bonser was acquired in the AJ trade. Joe Nathan was acquired in the AJ trade. Santana was acquired in the Rule 5 draft by the Twins. Outside of Torii Hunter who is no longer with the team, Justin Morneau, and Joe Mauer what has the team really done?
I’ll tell you what they’ve done, they’ve gotten extremely lucky but they let their players leave without signing them too.
Back to the swimsuit “controversy”. It’s easy to speak about swimsuits and all the records being broken when you don’t follow the science of how the suits are put together and how they allow the swimmers to skim through the water with hardly any drag slowing them down. It’s harder to put on one of the body suits than it is to put on a wet scuba suit. Track athletes aren’t the only ones who are guilty, but to sarcastically put “swimsuits” in quotes with a smirk and a *wink wink when you don’t comment on the science of the equipment is pretty, well I hate to say it because Big Man you and I have agreed on things lately but, it’s pretty ignorant.
http://brainstuff.howstuffworks.com/2008/04/21/how-the-fastest-swim-suit-works/
yeah, Big Man, it’s SML, but I’m right there with him…
in the 1990′s it was the ball that was juiced…
now its the swimsuit (which helps some, but c’mon)
But the biggest free pass is golf which is juiced like crazy. A few years ago nobody but Tiger could drive the ball. Now everybody can. Yeah, i know, it’s the new golfing equipment… ask gary player what’s up…
It’s inappropriate to compare juiced baseballs (for which there was zero evidence ever provided) and the new Speedo suit (for which there is much evidence). This is why I referred to the Michael Johnson shoes from 1996. He absolutely crushed the competition because he was the greatest athlete with access to unparalleled technology (again, shoes have until now never again been duplicated to match their weight and performance).
Furthermore, by ignoring the fact that NBC, which spent billions for Olympic broadcast rights, is relying upon live coverage of swimming to bring in viewers, you ignore the strength of the profit motive in the choice to provide such flowery coverage to swimmers. Networks and newspapers have little to no motivation to promote Walter Dix or Allyson Felix when so little of the country will even catch their races or even know the events in which they will compete. It’s hard to recall how many Maurice Greene human interest stories were written or shown in 2004, although it is safe to say that it was comparable to Michael Phelps since track was given top billing in Athens.
Likewise, The Speedo suit is novel and will be a prominent feature of the TV landscape for the next two weeks. Sure, inches of print could just as easily be used in discussing the development of Jeremy Wariner’s handcrafted Adidas 400m spikes, or Nike’s new Flywires, but, again, why ‘waste’ resources for a sport which will receive limited coverage? Also, it’s safe to assume that the conditions in Beijing will limit record-breaking performances to a bare minimum, so, again, why hype events which won’t be aired live and won’t feature earth-shattering times?
The idea here is not to discount the notion that there is a racial element to the coverage – there most certainly is – but rather to suggest a much less malevolent and profit-based motive for the handling of the two sports in the run-up to the Olympics.
Fair points, Marathon Man. Very valid – I agree that the profit motive is the primary reason for the “flowery” coverage of swimming in general.
I would argue that swimming is a better sell, or more profitable, because of the combination of racial factors (it’s always easier to sell American white star athletes winning, versus foreign stars, or American black stars) and other factors (time slotting). And because it is more profitable, all the principal players – NBC, the Olympic Committee, etc – are going to work overtime to make sure that the coverage is as positive as possible, right?
I totally disagree with this, though: “It’s inappropriate to compare juiced baseballs (for which there was zero evidence ever provided) and the new Speedo suit (for which there is much evidence).”
I was actually going to make the exact same analogy as Modi. I remember in the mid to late 90′s reading various articles that suggested that the increase in home runs throughout baseball (when it became hard to ignore that 30 HRs seasons, once reserved for superstars like Mike Schmidt and Dale Murphy and Andre Dawson, where now commonplace, and 40 and even 50 HR seasons were “the new 30-HR”) was due to the juiced baseball. They even explained how MLB switched factories from somewhere in Central America (Panama?) to somewhere else (Nicaragua?), where they made baseballs “tighter”. Hence, 7% more distance!
Seriously, I remember reading these articles in places like The Sporting News, USA Today, ESPN, and I’m sure in every major local paper. Bill Madden, Daily News baseball columnist for a long time, used to publish an article every season that tried to “explain” the increase in HRs. He always used the juiced ball excuse (scientific evidence explaining the HR increase), plus other factors (smaller ballparks! Coors Stadium!).
The point is that there was scientific explanation given back then for the increase in HRs, including changes in equipment/technology. We would only later find out that the it wasn’t the ball that was juiced, but the players.
In the end, I don’t care if players juice or not – baseball, swimmers, whatever. But I’m just saying I wouldn’t be too surprised if in 10 years we found out that it wasn’t just the new swimsuit that accounted for the records being broken. Just like baseball throw out those stories about “tighter wound baseballs” in the 90′s to help cover up for the clear increase in homers, maybe Olympic swimming is also throwing out a nice cover story for what’s going on in swimming. Because if not for this convenient Speedo swimsuit explanation, a lot of people would be quite skeptical, right?
The Pirates’ cheapness does impact their putrid farm system. In the draft, they often put signability above all else. And until this year, they have had next to no organization in Latin America.
Still, the trade for Bay wasn’t bad. Certainly a step up from some of the embarrasing trades in recent years.
By the way, isn’t sex appeal arguably the number one reason that swimming has taken the lead in these Olympics?
1. Olympics are the one sporting event that actually attract women viewers. So, giving them Michael Phelps makes sense.
2. The women’s team has started marketing itself like women’s tennis.
I do agree that it is probably easier to market white athletes than black athletes. But that didn’t stop Carl Lewis, Edwin Moses or FloJo from becoming household names. Track athletes have become harder to market in recent years due to a number of factors – doping, perceived arrogance, money, etc. It’s not like after 50 years, Americans suddenly realized that the best sprinters were black.
You know why swimming is more popular than track now? There are no household names involved in track anymore. There is no more Carl Lewis or Michael Johnson, Justin Gatlin, FloJo, etc.
There is a household name in swimming, Michael Phelps.
There is no “convenient” swimsuit discussion. Go to the link, do some reading about the science of the equipment, read about the recent winners of the swimming events and then compare it to who actually wins. There is no need for the sarcasm when you can’t justify your racial argument by speaking facts about “convenient” suits and how they affect the reporting of track athletes compared to swimmers. This swimsuit discussion has been discussed for years, it’s not new news.
Myron,
I agree about the Pirates, but teams still should be able to develop talent. It’s not like they’re drafting 2nd round talents in their top 10 picks because of signability.
Boney,
I present to you: Daniel Moskos.
If everything goes right, the Pirates used the #4 pick in the 2007 MLB draft on a player who could end up being a decent middle reliever someday.
Being a Pirates fan is a unique torture. The team has limited tools at its disposal but simply refuses to use even those.
The Ogdens have figured out what Donald Sterling figured out 25 years ago. You can make a tidy profit in professional sports simply by fielding a team every day. Winning costs money; there is actually more profit in losing.
17pjole3swf200g9