One might point out that Tony La Russa went to the playoffs three straight years after Mc Gwire retired, and won at least two rounds in those playoffs.
I have to go and recommend seeing a game at Busch Stadium. There was a Sports Illustrated article a few years ago about the fans being so great. They were getting comments from other players like, “The fans applaud when the pitcher gets down a bunt. They applaud us when we make a good play. It’s impossible to hate them.”
When the Cardinals get a new stadium, the experience should get even better.
Boy, he must have made the effort when I wasn’t watching. I saw him play a few times this year in person and I haven’t seen a left fielder that bad since Kevin Reimer (nobody has ever been as bad as Reimer.) In one memorable game, the BoSox lost a game to the Jays in which they led 6-0, and Ramirez’s defense probably cost them six runs; he botched at least four catchable fly balls, all in innings in which Toronto scored a pile of runs, most of them with two men out. I’ve never seen an outfielder play a worse game. (Except, of course, Reimer.) He couldn’t get to anything, seemd to have trouble running after a fly in a straight line, and frankly he didn’t appear to even be trying very hard, or else he was remarkably tentative for a guy with about a thousand games under his belt. After blowing two or three catchable flies he let the batter/runner advance to second on what should have been a clean single just for variety. Then he couldn’t go back on a catchable fly ball and let it tip off his glove for a triple, and the floodgates were open. I saw him later in the season and he was just as terrible, although they didn’t hit as many flies to left so he didn’t have the opportunity to blow the game.
I made a point of watching him on TV whenever I could. I think he’s absolutely brutal. He doesn’t often drop the ball when he gets to it, and he does have a really good arm. But he just doesn’t get to the ball. It’s not that he’s too slow, he just seems unwilling to commit to going in the right direction right away. I almost wonder if his DHing a lot hurts his defense.
If LF is the place to stash a slugger, Ramirez is living proof. He has the arm, but holy crap, other than his arm, he sucks.
Yeah, Rick, you missed it. He had a lot of trouble on plastic fields like yours, but so do a lot of guys. But, if you followed the Sox all year, you’d have seen him run down and catch a lot of balls that we’d become used to seeing him let drop. He even got reasonably skilled at playing caroms off the Wall without pulling up and letting Damon do it - well, he got as good as Rice and Greenwell were anyway, but that was still a major improvement and it’s good enough. There won’t be any Gold Gloves coming his way, granted, but he did make the kind of effort he’s paid to and he did save a few hits. Since you ask, he didn’t DH once this year that I recall - that was Ortiz’s full-time job after some early-season rotating.
It may be time for a John Henry / Larry Lucchino pitting. They apparently had decided to let Grady Little go long before the playoffs, for the crime of not worshipping stats as much as they do, no matter how well he held the team together and got more out of them than anyone really thought they could. The Bill James influence, for example, got them as excited as anyone could be about a couple of relievers who became available midseason, and had the kind of numbers James loves. But, next year, without the baseball minds having any control, we’re going to see more Bruce Chens and Rudy Seanezes here, and will be lucky to make the playoffs at all. We might as well have kept Dan Duquette as GM.