Feeding the Monster

by Seth Mnookin

  Martinez and his agent nixed any deal that would allow any part of the contract to be voided, but both sides agreed they’d moved closer to a deal. Still, both Henry and Lucchino returned to the United States feeling confused. On the one hand, it seemed as if they were closing in on a deal; on the other, both men sensed that Martinez wasn’t excited about returning.

  “I never had the feeling that he wanted to re-sign,” says Henry. “That’s just my perception, which could be totally flawed. And it didn’t matter—we were going to try to sign him. But I didn’t think he wanted to come back.” Lucchino wondered how much Schilling’s success was weighing on Martinez’s mind. “He’s certainly a very proud person,” Lucchino says, “and he’s earned a whole lot of self-confidence. His performance justifies that…but I do think there were personality issues involved. I don’t know if it was so much wanting equal status, but there were some issues at the end of the year [in 2004], and that may have been a factor. I do think the Mets approach to him—‘You’ll be the rock on which we’ll build this church’—had to have a lot of appeal.”

  By Saturday, December 11, Martinez’s agent told the Red Sox that if they offered three guaranteed years, with a fourth year as a club option, the pitcher would return to Boston. Amid much debate, the team agreed to Martinez’s demands, topping the Mets with an offer of a guaranteed $40.5 million for three years, with a $13.5 million option for the 2008 season. That, Lucchino thought, settled the issue: the Red Sox would start 2005 with Martinez once again wearing No. 45.

  “I was led to believe that if we did a third year, we would have a deal,” says Lucchino. “So we went to a third year.” All that was left was working out some final details, which would be handled by Epstein and Cuza, both of whom were in Anaheim for baseball’s annual winter meetings. But at some point on Sunday, December 12, Cuza told the Mets about Boston’s latest offer and gave Omar Minaya another chance to increase his bid. Minaya did just that, offering Martinez a guaranteed four-year, $54 million contract. By Monday morning, the news that Martinez would sign with the Mets had been leaked to New York papers.

  For the Red Sox, Martinez’s departure meant losing their second franchise icon in less than six months. Behind the scenes, the failure to re-sign the pitcher widened the already sizable rift between Theo Epstein and Larry Lucchino. In some ways, Pedro Martinez represented exactly the kind of player Theo Epstein thought the Red Sox shouldn’t be over-committing to: a difficult, expensive superstar on the downside of his career. The only way the Red Sox could consistently compete with the Yankees, Epstein thought, was by avoiding these costly mistakes. Falling irrationally in love with a superstar was fine for the fans, but it wouldn’t lead to long-term success. Lucchino, on the other hand, was more sentimental. “I’m often the guy who’s in favor of making a less seismic change,” he says.

  Lucchino knew Epstein had been conflicted about re-signing Martinez, and at times it sounded as if he suspected his general manager had not done everything he could to see that Martinez’s contract was signed. “We thought we had [come to terms],” Lucchino says. “Theo was [in Anaheim] doing the day-to-day…. I think if we had gotten to that point earlier in the process, it would’ve gotten done.” At least one of Lucchino’s allies on the club told reporters in background conversations that Epstein had purposefully dragged his feet with Cuza because of the general manager’s loyalty to Terry Francona—a shocking (and false) accusation. As had been the case in the aftermath of the Alex Rodriguez negotiations, Lucchino didn’t approach Epstein about his concerns. And to everyone except Lucchino’s and Epstein’s closest confidants on the club, it seemed as if the Red Sox were a well-oiled machine, preparing to do battle once again.

  *Martinez’s two best seasons were, in fact, superior to Koufax’s two best years. In 1999 and 2000, when Martinez was 27 and 28, Martinez went 41-10 with 597 strikeouts and a combined 1.90 ERA. Koufax, during 1963 and 1964, arguably his finest two seasons, was 44-10 with 529 strikeouts and a 1.82 ERA. But Koufax pitched on a higher mound during an era of decreased offense, and his home park, Dodger Stadium, tended to suppress scoring. Martinez was pitching during an era of much greater offensive production. In those years, Martinez’s ERA+, a figure that compares a pitcher’s ERA to that of the league, averaged out to 265. Koufax’s averaged to 174. Martinez’s 2000 ERA+ of 285 is the best of the modern era, and his 2000 WHIP, or walks+hits per inning pitched, is the lowest ever, at .7373.

  *A pitcher’s arm slot is where he brings his arm over his shoulder before releasing the ball. For a full overhead arm slot, the pitcher’s arm would be, at full extension, pointing straight up to the sky and be perpendicular to the ground. When a pitcher lowers his arm slot, the angle formed between his arm and the ground gets smaller, and less pressure is exerted on the shoulder.

  *Even though Martinez had started Game 5 and Schilling Game 6 of the American League Championship Series, the Red Sox wanted Schilling to start Game 2 of the World Series at Fenway so he wouldn’t need to bat when the Series traveled to St. Louis for Game 3, which would be played under National League rules. The decision meant Martinez didn’t get a chance to pitch a World Series game at Fenway.

  Chapter 37

  Theo Epstein Looks

  to the Future

  WITH MARTINEZ GONE and the Red Sox not interested in re-signing Derek Lowe, Epstein set about trying to remake the pitching rotation. He pursued Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling’s former teammate in Arizona, whom the Diamondbacks were looking to trade, and also went after 28-year-old Carl Pavano, a free agent who had gone 18-8 with a 3.00 earned run average for the Florida Marlins in 2004. Since both pitchers seemed more inclined to sign with the Yankees, Epstein also looked elsewhere. Within a week of Pedro Martinez’s departure, the Red Sox had added two new pitchers to Boston’s starting rotation: 41-year-old David Wells and 30-year-old Matt Clement.

  Wells and Clement could not have been more different. The left-handed Wells was known as much for his off-field rabble-rousing as his on-field performances. He was overweight and loud, and bragged in his autobiography that he’d pitched a perfect game while still half-drunk from the night before. (He later admitted this was an exaggeration.) A curveball specialist, Wells was one of the best control pitchers in the game, and often posted one of the lowest walk totals in baseball. He was also incredibly durable: Since 1996, he’d made fewer than 30 starts only once.* His brash—some would say obnoxious—personality rubbed many people the wrong way, and, Epstein believed, caused some teams to overlook his talent. As far as Epstein was concerned, he was one of the most underrated pitchers in the game, and in an out-of-control market for starting pitchers, Wells at a guaranteed $8 million over two years was much more attractive to the team than some of the pitchers demanding $30 million for three years.

  Clement, on the other hand, was a skinny right-hander who featured a great slider and a sinking fastball. A onetime San Diego Padres prospect, Clement had frustrated team after team with his inability to put together a full season’s worth of performances indicative of his talent. He had control problems—since 1999, he’d averaged 90 walks a season, compared to 33 for Wells—and a reputation for becoming too easily intimidated. The Red Sox hoped that Clement’s 2004 season, in which he’d held opposing batters to a .229 average and posted a 3.68 ERA, was a sign that the pitcher had finally turned a corner. They signed him to a three-year, $25.5 million deal.

  Wells and Clement did not, at first glance, seem like adequate replacements for Martinez and Lowe. Whereas the departing Red Sox pitchers had gone 30-21 in 2004, the new additions had posted only a 21-21 record. But in 2004, Wells and Clement had thrown almost as many innings as their predecessors, 377 compared to 400, and had a significantly better combined earned run average, 3.71 compared to 4.59. Martinez and Lowe together would have likely cost the Red Sox somewhere between $23 and $25 million per year; Wells and Clement required shorter commitments and would cost only between $10 and $17 million a year, depending on how many of h
is incentives Wells reached. For a savings of anywhere from $6 to $15 million, there was a good chance the Red Sox had just made their 2005 rotation better.

  Before the end of the month, Epstein also picked up a pair of pitchers whose careers had been sidetracked by injuries. At 31, Matt Mantei should have been looking at another four or five years of productive relief work. As recently as 2003, he’d notched 29 saves as the Arizona Diamondbacks closer, but elbow and shoulder surgeries had sidelined the pitcher. The 28-year-old Wade Miller had been one of the best young pitchers in the National League just a year earlier, but had badly injured his rotator cuff in 2004. The Red Sox signed Mantei for $750,000 and Miller for $1.5 million, while giving both pitchers appearance and performance incentives that could triple their salaries.

  Two years earlier, in Epstein’s first offseason as general manager, Boston had picked up Todd Walker, Jeremy Giambi, Kevin Millar, Bill Mueller, and David Ortiz for a combined $10.85 million. If the Red Sox had believed that midlevel offensive players with a penchant for getting on base had been undervalued in 2002, the team was now indicating that there was a crop of pitchers that could be had for low risk and the possibility of high return: Wells, Mantei, and Miller—two quality starters and a solid reliever—had cost a total of just $6.25 million in guaranteed money.

  Before the end of the year, Boston had filled its other two major remaining holes. Convinced Jason Varitek could be the rare catcher who remained productive into his mid-thirties, the Red Sox decided he was worth overpaying, and re-signed him to a four-year, $40 million deal. For the same price, they also nabbed free agent shortstop Edgar Renteria. Renteria, a four-time All-Star and two-time Gold Glove winner, was just 29, had an excellent defensive reputation, was a strong hitter, and had been relatively injury free. All that remained was the annual Manny Ramirez sweepstakes. At one point, the Red Sox came very close to a deal that would have sent Ramirez and Byung-Hyun Kim to the New York Mets for outfielder Cliff Floyd and minor league prospects, including the promising Venezuelan pitcher Yusmeiro Petit. Boston then would have used the money Ramirez’s departure had freed up to go after another big bat, such as free agent J. D. Drew. (Drew ended up signing a five-year deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers for $55 million.) But at the last minute, Mets general manager Omar Minaya asked for between $4 and $5 million a year to offset Ramirez’s salary, killing the proposed trade.*

  With Ramirez seemingly on board for another season, spring training in 2005 brought a Red Sox team that looked quite similar to the one from 2004. Eight of the team’s nine everyday starting players had returned, with Renteria the only addition. Three-fifths of the starting rotation were also holdovers, as were the three men at the back end of the Red Sox bullpen—Keith Foulke, Alan Embree, and Mike Timlin.

  But the clubhouse felt like a much different place. For the first time since 1997, there was no Nomar Garciaparra—not that he would be missed.† In the first half of 2004, he had, as one player put it, “sat by himself in a corner, mad at the whole world.” “People didn’t notice Nomar in the clubhouse,” says pitcher Bronson Arroyo. “If Nomar had been a very vocal guy, like a Millar, and was voicing the negativity, then maybe it would’ve affected the clubhouse. But it never did.” Still, Garciaparra was one of the most iconic players in the history of the club. Having him gone felt, at the very least, odd.

  Pedro Martinez and Derek Lowe, on the other hand, had been active presences. Even when Martinez didn’t show up at the park everyday, his quirky sense of humor and impish enthusiasm pervaded Boston’s clubhouse.‡ When Orlando Cabrera had arrived in Boston, Martinez had presented him with a STOP SMOKING poster the pitcher had posed for several years earlier. “I’m a flamin’ mullion with a big pecker and a big bank account,” Martinez had scrawled, before signing the poster with a flourish: “Pedro Martinez, #45.” He’d famously brought Nelson de la Rosa, a 28-inch Dominican dwarf, into the Red Sox clubhouse the previous September as a good luck charm. (De la Rosa’s previous claim to fame was a role alongside Marlon Brando in The Island of Dr. Moreau.) There was the time Martinez wore a Yoda mask in the Boston dugout during a game, the times he did a chicken dance at opposing batters who took walks from Red Sox pitchers, the time he did wobbly cartwheels along the infield grass or allowed himself to be duct-taped to a dugout pole like a hazed high-school freshman.

  Lowe was just as animated, if more tortured, a presence. He’d shout across the team’s cramped clubhouse to anyone who happened to be in his field of vision, offering opinions on football or beer or babes or anything else that was on his mind. For seven seasons, these two pitchers had helped set the tone for the team. “Both of those guys brought a lot of personality to the [team],” says Arroyo. Two-thousand five would be different. Curt Schilling was an outsized personality, but he didn’t have Martinez’s infectious joie de vivre. Jason Varitek, who’d been appointed the team’s captain after re-upping with Boston in December, was more comfortable leading by example than actively setting the mood for the team. There were plenty of self-proclaimed “idiots” still around, guys like Johnny Damon and Kevin Millar, but the freewheeling, anything goes ethos that had defined the Red Sox for the previous two seasons was undeniably changing.

  As far as Theo Epstein was concerned, that was a good thing. When he was named general manager in 2002, he set three immediate goals for himself: winning a World Series, rebuilding the team’s minor league system, and managing the transition away from the team dominated by the 2004 free agent class. Two-thousand five would be the second year of that transition, and it was going well. This year, instead of the prospect of Garciaparra, Lowe, Martinez, Trot Nixon, and Varitek all reaching free agency at once, the Red Sox had only two players in the last year of their contracts whom they’d likely try to retain, Damon and knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, along with two they’d likely let sign elsewhere, Millar and third baseman Bill Mueller.

  There was, of course, still one significant contract issue the Red Sox still had to deal with: Epstein’s initial three-year deal was set to expire on October 31, 2005. The young general manager’s popularity had only grown in the wake of the Red Sox’s World Series victory. The Boston Globe’s Sunday magazine had recently named him Bostonian of the year, and he was arguably as recognizable a star as any of the team’s players. Epstein’s contract negotiations were not expected to be as contentious as those of Garciaparra or Martinez. For one thing, there would be no agents mucking up the negotiations, since the team had a policy of not allowing its front office personnel to use agents. More important, both Epstein and the team’s owners had expressed their strong desire to continue their working relationship.

  Going into spring training, Epstein was hopeful he’d be able to work out a deal before the season began. There was certainly precedent for re-signing an executive before his deal expired. Larry Lucchino’s initial eight-year deal had been scheduled to conclude before the 2009 season, but in January 2004, John Henry and Tom Werner signed the team’s CEO to a four-year extension that would run through February 2012.* Surely Epstein could expect similar treatment.

  At spring training, Henry and Epstein had a brief discussion about the future. The two men had an unusually close relationship. In Epstein, Henry had found the rare general manager who was open to fresh ideas and not obsessed with fan reaction. The Garciaparra trade, Henry says, was “one of the bravest moves anyone could make in baseball. It shows how incredibly special and selfless Theo is and was to do that for the club.” In Henry, Epstein found an owner who agreed with him about the proper way to put together winning ball clubs. They would, they both thought, work together for years to come.

  But John Henry isn’t the Red Sox CEO, and Henry and Epstein felt it would be more appropriate for Epstein to work out the specifics of his new deal with Larry Lucchino, the man who’d helped bring Epstein into baseball. Before the season began, Epstein sent an email to Lucchino in which he expressed his desire to stay with the team and said he was amenable to beginning discussions anytime. W
hat Henry didn’t know at the time, and what perhaps neither Epstein nor Lucchino fully realized, was the extent to which the unspoken bitterness of the previous years had affected both the general manager and the chief executive officer.

  By the end of spring training, Epstein felt confident that the 2005 Red Sox team had more depth than the ’04 team had had. The Sox had traded Dave Roberts to the San Diego Padres for outfielder Jay Payton, who didn’t have Roberts’s speed but was a much better hitter. Kevin Youkilis was ready to spell Bill Mueller in the field, which would give the 34-year-old Mueller’s knees some much-needed rest. Doug Mientkiewicz was gone, but there was a low-cost option as a potential first base backup in 34-year-old Roberto Petagine, who’d been a star in Japan for the previous six years. Getting all of these players adequate time on the field didn’t look like it would be a problem; the team’s average age was almost 32, and plenty of players would need rest before the season was over. Even the news that Curt Schilling hadn’t fully recovered from his offseason ankle surgery and would start the season on the disabled list wasn’t too worrisome. The Red Sox rotation was deep enough to withstand a couple of weeks without its ace.

  The regular season began on April 3, a cold and wet New York night at Yankee Stadium. Randy Johnson, New York’s left-handed pickup, handily outpitched David Wells, Boston’s left-handed pickup, and the Red Sox began the season with a 9–2 loss. They lost the next day, too, before winning a pair, then losing two more. The season was only a week old, but the Olde Towne Team’s disappointing 2-4 record would have been, in many years, reasons enough for the locals to begin to panic. (The Boston Herald once famously ran “Wait Till Next Year” as a headline after an Opening Day loss.) But in 2005, everyone remained calm. After all, the Red Sox were the World Series champions, and this was only the start of a very long season. This year, of all years, would be different.