An Emergency Podcast and Other Monday Musings
On coaching changes, non-sensical baseball titles, the Cleveland Cavaliers, record-breaking runs and more.
Hi Everybody!
Well, I finished. I have written FIFTY SEASONS, my countdown of the 50 baseball player seasons that echo. I am sending it to my editor this morning, and I’m excited, and I’m relieved, and I’m drained, and I have a thousand emotions swirling around.
“Are you happy?” Margo asked me, and I am happy, yes, of course, but also I feel like I’m in that fuzzy state after a movie ends, when you walk into bright sunshine, and a million thoughts fill your mind, and you’re still trying to make sense of things. FIFTY SEASONS is unlike any book I’ve ever written. I get this feeling it’s unlike any baseball book anyone has ever written. That’s not to say better. I don’t know that. But it’s a big swing. It will take time — and some feedback — for me to fully understand this wonderful, maddening, silly, weighty, and elusive thing that I have been wrestling with for a year.
But right now, I feel this vague but real hope that it’s the baseball book I’ve been wanting to write all my life.
If the timing works out, you won’t have to wait long. This book will come out in early 2027 — maybe as early as February.
On Friday, I mentioned that we just added a special BIG FAN event here in Charlotte two days before the book officially releases. At the time, I thought it would be a non-ticketed event — but I guess because of demand, it actually will be ticketed.
So here’s the ticket page! Once again, this will be at the Charlotte Barnes and Noble at the Arboretum — my home B&N! — on Sunday, May 17, starting at 2 p.m. Ticket prices include a book that is pre-signed by Mike and me. I’ll talk a bit about BIG FAN, and then I’ll stay to personalize books however you like. Perfect for a Father’s Day gift! Or a slightly late Mother’s Day gift! Or that Christmas gift that you SAID you would buy in 2023, but, be honest, you never did.
Space is super limited, so if you plan on coming, please pick up tickets as soon as you can. I’d love to see you out there to kick off the BIG FAN Tour!
OK, there’s SO much baseball and sports to cover, too much baseball and sports to cover, and my mind is still entirely scattered, so all I can really do in my current mind space is kind of give you a rambling stream of consciousness about the sports stuff that broke through my FIFTY SEASONS bubble. I cannot promise that any of this will make sense. But when has that stopped us at JoeBlogs before?
First, the Red Sox. Obviously. Mike is in Italy filming his new show DIG with Amy Poehler, but he came out of hibernation for an emergency PosCast that I imagine will be released today. Here’s a sneak preview:
Here’s my stream of consciousness Red Sox thought: A little less than a year ago, I went HARD after the team during the whole Rafael Devers fiasco. Maybe too hard. A whole bunch of Red Sox fans clapped back at me, and they made a lot of salient points, and I did find myself wondering if I just didn’t understand the situation well enough.
You might remember: The Red Sox signed Alex Bregman and told Devers he was no longer their third baseman — he would need to retire the glove and become a designated hitter. Devers was really upset by that. He’s not a good third baseman, no, but he said (and I believe him) that the team promised when he signed a 10-year, $313 million deal in 2023 that he would be their third baseman.
The new management team essentially told Devers that promise was part of the OLD GM and that this is the NEW GM.
OK. So Devers glumly accepted his fate — he didn’t really have a choice — but he was not happy about it and, related or not, he got off to a terrible start. Then, the Red Sox first base situation blew up, and they came to Devers and told him to fish his glove out of the garbage and go play a position he’d never played before.
Devers said he didn’t want to do that. And then all sorts of people — most of them unnamed — were quoted bashing Devers for being selfish, for not being a team player, etc. And then the team traded Devers to San Francisco, bashing him all the way across the country.
Did Devers cover himself in glory here? Of course not. But Devers was also a 28-year-old baseball star who had been told repeatedly that he was the face of the Red Sox franchise. It seemed obvious to me that the New GM Red Sox had treated him poorly and probably trashed him just to get out of his contract, and, to me, that clearly showed that this is, in many ways, a dreadful organization.
Fast forward to Saturday, when the Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer* Craig Breslow basically fired everybody, including manager Alex Cora, because, apparently, he thinks he’s built a great team and the only reason they could possibly be off to a slow start is that the manager and his coaching staff are screwing it up.
*What was wrong with calling the guy who calls the baseball shots the “General Manager?” Was that really a problem? The new titles in baseball — in sports — drive me absolutely batty. As part of the bloodletting, the Red Sox reassigned “Game Planning and Run Prevention Coach Jason Varitek.” I don’t believe that I’ve seen many stupider word salads than “Game Planning and Run Prevention Coach.” Hey Jason, we’d like you to plan this game for us and see if you can prevent a few runs while you’re at it.
You think I’m exaggerating about Breslow believing that he’s built a titan, but here’s what he said about the firing:
“This is a decisive and convicted demonstration of the confidence we have in our player group.”
Sure, it is. The worst part is that Breslow really seems to believe this garbage. Apparently, Breslow and new manager Chad Tracy met with the players for a VERY brief meeting, at which no questions were allowed, and here’s what pitcher Garrett Whitlock said: “They made it clear that we get paid to play baseball, and we need to just focus on playing baseball.”
There’s a winning message!
I feel confident in saying now that my instincts were right during the Devers mess: This organization is toxic and broken. It’s hard to believe that the Boston Red Sox, the envy of baseball for so many years, have become so dysfunctional. But, hey, this was the team that got rid of Mookie Betts and then tried to blame him for it. So we probably should have seen this coming for a long time.
In any case, there are now reports of Alex Cora telling people that he’s so happy to be out of that Boston nightmare.
The Red Sox have taken up all of the “Bad organization” oxygen in baseball, but over in the National League East, the New York Mets just got swept at home by the Rockies, and the Philadelphia Phillies have lost 11 of their last 12 — the Phils needed a four-run ninth to get their sole victory in the stretch — and I’m still trying to make sense of it all.
The scary thing about the Phillies’ collapse is that their best players — Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, Cris Sánchez — are all doing just about what you would expect them to be doing. Harper is slugging .500. Schwarbs has nine home runs. Sanchez had a rough outing last time out, but he had a 1.59 ERA coming into that game. There’s not a lot of upward mobility for those guys … so where is the improvement going to come from? Zack Wheeler returns soon, so that should help. Trea Turner will probably not have an 81 OPS+ for much longer.
But, I mean, Alec Bohm looks entirely lost, Bryson Stott doesn’t look much better, Aaron Nola and Jesus Luzárdo can’t get anybody out, I’m just not sure who or what kick-starts this team. I don’t want to go against my own statistical bent, but it seems to me that the Phillies in many ways are a vibes team, and the vibes now are very bad.
As for the Mets, I’m obsessed by the swirling rumors that Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto loathe each other. I have no idea if it’s true, but if it is true, yikes. I don’t know how you come back from that. Sure, there have been successful organizations where the biggest stars are not, as the sportswriter lingo goes, “on the same page.” The Big Red Machine won even though Pete Rose and Johnny Bench were not always on the same page. Reggie Jackson and Thurman Munson were definitely not on the same page when playing for the Bronx Zoo Yankees. You can think of other examples.
But there was a positive energy that tended to come out of the tension — Rose and Bench drove each other to be better. Munson and Jackson drove each other to be better. It does not appear that Soto and Lindor have THAT kind of relationship.
The Mets have the second-highest payroll in baseball history. But when you watch this team play, you just don’t see a roster that merits that sort of history. I mean, say what you want about the Dodgers, but when you watch them play, you’re like: OK, this is a cavalcade of stars.
When you watch the Mets, it’s like, OK, Lindor and Soto are huge stars even if they’re not playing like it yet, and then there’s Bo Bichette, he’s kind of a star, and Marcus Semien definitely used to be a star, and Luis Robert Jr., I guess he was briefly a star, and Clay Holmes, um, and Devin Williams, he was good once, and ugh.
I don’t see a way back for this team right now. But I will say Nolan McLean is fun.
OK, here’s your Shohei fact of the day, courtesy of Tom Tango: Since 2021, Ohtani is No. 2 in wOBA behind only Aaron Judge. Since 2021, minimum of 400 innings pitched, Ohtani has the lowest ERA in MLB. Mike Schur says it, and he’s right: As much as we talk about Ohtani, we don’t talk about him enough.
I’ve been trying to get into the Cleveland Cavaliers’ playoff spirit, but honestly, this has become a brutal team to watch play. I’ve said many times before that I think James Harden is a wonder. I’m obsessed with players who are just different from everybody else, and Harden certainly is that — his first step, his passing vision, his ability to break down a defense, his ability to get to the line, his three-point hot streaks, there’s never been anyone like him.
But man, he’s been KILLING the Cavs, particularly in the late minutes. I know, if you’re a Sixers fan or Clippers fan or Houston fan or Brooklyn fan, you’re no doubt saying, “Um, yeah, what did you expect?” And I don’t know what I expected. I’d spent my time observing Harden casually. Now, watching him emotionally, those bad shots, those sloppy turnovers, those gut-wrenching dribble-out-the-clock possessions hit me a whole different way. Cavs and Raptors are tied 2-2.
As my pal Dave Fleming points out, while all of us were spending our time watching the meaningless NFL Draft — meaningless because we have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how any of these players are going to turn out — a Kenyan runner named Sebastian Sawe was moving humanity forward. Sawe ran the London Marathon in less than two hours, the first to ever do that.
Impossibly, Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha, who was — this can’t be true — running in his first marathon, also broke two hours.
We are definitely a flawed species. But we are also capable of remarkable things.