Monday Rewind: A Vote of Confidence

Flattering the Time Bomb in Colorado

As you might know, we here at JoeBlogs are always at the ready to offer our services to:

1. Politicians who want to talk about sports without sounding ridiculous.

2. Commissioner Rob Manfred before he says, er, anything.

3. Anyone in sports who decides, for whatever reason, to issue a press release or statement that guarantees mockery.

Well, today we offer this bit of general advice to sports owners and general managers everywhere:

Do not give votes of confidence. Ever. No exceptions.

For the latest proof of this ironclad rule, we go to Colorado, where the Rockies are playing, perhaps, the worst baseball any team has ever played … a rather sobering thing considering that last year’s White Sox lost 121 games. The White Sox and Rockies play a three-game set in Denver over Independence Day weekend, and Mike Schur and I are talking about getting there for this bit of epic baseball history. I mean, when Halley’s Comet is streaking across the sky and on course to hit the moon — or when there’s a solar eclipse over Coors Field and Pope Park at the same time* — you have to make plans.

On Saturday afternoon, Rockies general manager Bill Schmidt was asked about manager Bud Black. It was a fair question: Black has been with the Rockies for nine years, and for the last seven, the team has been dreadful. This isn’t really Bud’s fault — no more than it was Derek Shelton’s fault the Pirates were awful. It’s funny how we ask the people most responsible for a team’s failure what they think about the manager.

Still, fair question. And the correct answer is always a non-answer, always something like: “We obviously think the world of Bud. We’re all disappointed with how the season has gone — Bud is as disappointed as anyone — and our focus is entirely on turning things around.”

And when the inevitable follow-up comes — “Does that mean you’re thinking about firing Bud Black?” — the follow-up answer should be even more vague: “We’re only thinking about how to get better, and that’s true across the organization.”

The wrong answer is to give your manager a vote of confidence.

“I think our guys are still playing hard, and that’s what I look at,” Schmidt told the Denver Post (which, I imagine, was the only outlet that cared enough to even ask). “Guys are working hard every day, they come with energy, for the most part. I don’t think we are [at the point of firing Black]. Guys still believe in what we are doing and where we are headed.”

A few hours later, the Rockies lost to the Padres 21–0.

The next day, Schmidt fired Bud Black.

If it feels like this happens all the time — a coach or manager gets fired within 72 hours of receiving a vote of confidence — that’s because it does happen all the time. And there’s a reason for it: Votes of confidence are stupid, pointless, and self-fulfilling. The people giving them absurdly think it will ease the pressure, that saying “We still have faith in our guy” will make the questions go away.

But that’s not how it works. Once people start asking when you’re going to fire the manager, the bomb has already been armed. The only thing that defuses it is winning. That’s it.

You can’t talk to the bomb.

You can’t flatter the bomb into deactivating itself.

You can’t stare the bomb down and say you’re done answering questions.

Team wins? The bomb is defused.

Team doesn’t win? The bomb goes off. Every time.

Bill Schmidt actually committed a double whammy. In addition to saying he wasn’t at the point of firing Black (which all but guaranteed that he was), he also leaned into my least favorite bit of pseudo-praise: the team is playing hard.

I’ve written so much about this over the years — especially when it comes to the Cleveland Browns. Saying a terrible team is “playing hard” means one of three things:

A) It’s a lie.

B) You’ve built a hopelessly bad team.

C) Both A and B.

It’s also completely beside the point. What does playing hard even mean? If an outfielder runs full speed after a fly ball, dives, and the ball still lands two feet in front of him and rolls to the wall for an inside-the-park homer — sure, he’s playing hard. So hard. So what? “Playing hard” might be the most overrated trait in sports.

Playing smart? Crucial.

Playing hard? Whatever.

I always think of Hall of Fame tight end Tony Gonzalez’s response to a young receiver who bragged about how hard he practiced: “Everybody practices hard,” Tony said. “That’s the bare minimum.”

That’s exactly how I feel about playing hard. It’s the bare minimum.

When you start praising a team for playing hard — or, worse, a coach or manager for getting a team to play hard — you’ve lost the plot.

After Bill Schmidt gave the vote of confidence and praised Bud Black for having his team play hard, the end was inevitable. I mean, sure, the Rockies probably would’ve lost 21–0 and fired Black no matter what Schmidt said. But he could have looked a lot less ridiculous.

Shohei Ohtani, Logo Edition

I didn’t have time for this. I’ve got about seven weeks to finish this crazy-wonderful project I’m working on (yikes!). I’ve got some trips coming up. I’ve got family things happening. I absolutely did not have all morning to work on this one dumb thing.

But I did it anyway.

I woke up with this idea — you all saw the iconic image of Shohei Ohtani after he hit the walk-off home run Friday night, right?

Well, I woke up thinking about the MLB logo. I love the MLB logo. I really do. I love its iconic look. I love that it’s been around since 1968 — so basically since the start of the Expansion Era. I love that the artist insists it was not modeled on Harmon Killebrew, even though it was obviously modeled on Harmon Killebrew. I love that depending on how you adjust your view, the batter can appear to be hitting right-handed or left-handed.

And I thought: You know what? That Ohtani image should be, like, a City Connect MLB logo. Every team ought to have its own MLB logo based on one iconic image. And I thought, “Hey, maybe I’ll make all 30 MLB logos over the next few months, you know, as a fun little treat for JoeBlogs readers.”

And then I remembered: “Oh yeah, you have no artistic abilities whatsoever.”

But I was ultra-focused on it. So I put aside the writing that I should have been doing, and told my family that I would join them for Mother’s Day in a little bit, and I sat at this computer with Canva and Adobe Illustrator and a whole bunch of other art applications that I have no idea how to use.

Finally, this is what I came up with.

I kind of like it. I mean, it’s rough, and I probably should have spent my morning and early afternoon writing. But … I kind of like it.'

The Devers Mess

It feels very strange to disagree with so many smart people on this Rafael Devers mess. In almost every situation in my life where I have found myself on the other side of smart people, I reconsider. I figure: They’re probably right and I’m probably wrong. I can think of a hundred examples.

But, so far anyway, I find myself unpersuaded that Devers is the villain of this story.

Let’s review: A little more than two years ago, in the aftermath of some deeply unpopular moves that included trading Greatest Living American Mookie Betts, the Boston Red Sox desperately needed a win to prove to the fans that they were not turning into the Pittsburgh Pirates. And so they signed their ultra-popular third baseman Rafael Devers to a 10-year, $331 million deal — which was not only the largest contract in franchise history, it was more than double their previous high.

This came two days after owner Tom Werner was mercilessly booed at the NHL’s Winter Classic at Fenway Park.

“Raffy fits perfectly into what we’re building,” then-Red Sox GM Chaim Bloom gushed.

“It’s a great day for the organization,” manager Alex Cora added.

“We think his best years are even ahead of him,” Werner said.

“My thought was they wouldn’t come all the way down to the Dominican Republic for no reason,” Devers chirped happily.

“He’s not just a star,” Bloom said. “He’s our star.”

Great. Theo Epstein has talked about how the best day of a free agent signing is often that very first day, the announcement day, when all is possibility. Chaim Bloom got canned shortly after this. But the point is that it was a big day for all, and promises were made, and hope was abundant, and Devers posted a 133 OPS+ in 2023-2024 and got MVP votes each season.

Devers also struggled defensively at third base — no surprise to anyone, including the Red Sox; he’d led the league in errors the previous five seasons before they signed him. As far as I know, there was little to no concern within the organization about him as a defensive liability. The Yankees kept Derek Jeter at shortstop for almost 20 years — he never played another position — and he was a defensive liability. When you have special players, you live with their flaws.

What the Red Sox could not live with, however, was a lineup overloaded with left-handed hitters. With Devers, Triston Casas, Jarren Duran, Wilyer Abreu, Masataka Yoshida all hitting from the left side in 2024, the heart of the lineup really struggled against lefties. When righty Tyler O’Neill signed with Baltimore, the situation became dire. The Red Sox desperately wanted a righty power hitter to anchor in the middle of their lineup.

The best available power righty was Astros icon Alex Bregman.

And Alex Bregman plays an excellent third base.

Bregman actually said he’d be fine moving to second base … but the Red Sox already had plans for an ultra-promising (right-handed) second baseman, Kristian Campbell. Boston made the call: They signed Bregman and asked Devers to become a full-time designated hitter for the good of the team. Devers refused. He said that the team had promised he would be their third baseman; that was part of the reason he had signed the deal. And then the Red Sox TOLD Devers he would become a full-time designated hitter for the good of the team.

Almost all the smart people I mentioned earlier sided with the Red Sox. Whatever promises were made in 2023, back when Chaim Bloom was still around, were null and void. Bregman is a better third baseman. Boston is paying Devers more than $300 million. As for Devers’ hurt feelings and professional pride? As Don Draper said — and my pal Joe Sheehan quoted — “That’s what the money is for.”

It’s not that I fully disagree with that — it would obviously have been admirable for Devers to sacrifice for the team. But I think the Red Sox lied to Devers. I think they signed him under false pretenses. I think they callously discarded Devers’ feelings — not just his emotions but his sense of self as a third baseman and a baseball player — for a short-term right-handed bat (Bregman may indeed stay in Boston, but he has opt-outs each of the next two years). I don’t think a team should be celebrated for treating their best people badly.

Then, the story continued. Devers got off to a shockingly bad start. He was striking out every time up, it seemed (even now, he leads the league in strikeouts). But slowly the DH story faded from the news, and Devers — because he’s a world-class hitter — began to adjust to his new reality. In his last dozen games, he’s hitting .367/.446/.633 and looking a lot more like himself.

Only then, Red Sox first baseman Triston Casas — who was the most vocal of all Red Sox players in standing up for Devers — got hurt. And, yep, you guessed it, the Red Sox went to Devers and asked him to play first base.

And yes, you guessed it — Devers told them to shove it.

“In spring training, they talked to me and basically told me to put away my glove and I wasn’t going to play any other position but DH,” he said. “I had only two months playing this position to all of a sudden have me try to play another position … I know I’m a ballplayer, but at the same time, they can’t expect me to play every position out there.”

Now everybody’s furious at Devers again — teammates are grumbling, fans are outraged, so many smart people I know in and around the game are crashing down on Devers — and once again, I get it: Playing first base would be the team-first thing to do.

But, once again, I think this is the Red Sox mess. They created it. I don’t know what motivations, what incentives, what inspirations Rafael Devers needs to produce his high-level batting. We all have said it countless times: Hitting a baseball is the hardest thing in sports, and Devers is one of the best in the world at hitting a baseball. Maybe part of that for him is playing third base. Maybe part of that for him is stability. Maybe part of that for him is feeling appreciated. I don’t know Raffy. But I do know that the Red Sox have been treating him like a $300 million piece of art they can hang wherever they want in the house, and human beings don’t work like that.

Now, there are rumors the Red Sox will trade him — the Mets have come up as a possibility — and maybe that’s how this whole thing has to end.

There is a real irony here, by the way: Mookie Betts is the best right fielder on earth, and he’s playing shortstop now because that’s where the Dodgers need him. I wonder how the Red Sox could find someone like that.

Kathleen’s Corner

• It’s Yogi Berra’s birthday. Here’s Joe’s birthday post from 2017, available on Medium, and a short memorial post from 2015 when Berra passed away.

• Yilda Diaz, mother of Royals catcher Salvador Perez, threw out the first pitch on Sunday and delivered a strike right into her son’s glove.

• Red Sox fan Anna has been crocheting during every Garrett Crochet start. You can check out the progress she’s made on the sweater in this MLB interview.

• Romeo Sanabria, a Padres prospect playing for the Double-A San Antonio Missions, hit a walk-off home run and celebrated with a triple bat flip on Saturday.

• The Tampa Bay Rays had a little fun with their first rain delay, handing out commemorative ponchos to mark the occasion.