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Carlton Fisk: Sox Changed, Thanks To Postal Snafu

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Even in this modern era, with MLBTR tracking the prospects of any conceivable free agent and setting a clock to the service time of every top prospect this side of Sidd Finch, the story still astounds:

A future Hall-of-Famer freed by … postal laxity?

Thirty-six years ago, the biggest gaffe in baseball postmarking history—a case made for Contract Law 101—freed Carlton Fisk from the Red Sox. Boston GM/owner Haywood Sullivan mailed out contract renewals to two players in their option year, Fisk and Fred Lynn, past the mandated Dec. 20 deadline.

The flub freed up Fisk—ironically, an unyielding New Englander who never sought to leave the Red Sox—as an unrestricted free agent.

Let’s dig deeper into one of the odder offseason occurrences in baseball history.

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Carlton Fisk: Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I never planned to leave Boston.

Honestly, it broke my heart to leave New England. I grew up there, in a little town in New Hampshire called Charlestown. It was one of those towns, look right, look left, and you’ve seen everything. No movie theater. No swimming pool. No traffic lights. It was a thousand people. My graduating class was the biggest ever: 32 kids! It was in me—still is. And as kids, we all dreamed of wearing a Red Sox uniform or a Celtics jersey.

So, why’d I leave? Well, I was 33 years old. I’d made money in the game, sure, but ownership wasn’t exactly giving it away. I had my family to think of, and my own pride. I wanted to be paid fairly—and the plain fact is that from the moment I was drafted [1967] I’d been underpaid by the Red Sox. That’s how it was in those days.

Also, Boston was in a sort of transition. Honestly, it didn’t seem clear to me that the front office was dedicated to our core group of guys, or to winning.

Indeed, the two baseball Soxes seemed to be working in opposite directions in 1981.

Boston was just five seasons removed from the thrill of the 1975 World Series, which it lost in dramatic fashion in seven games to the Cincinnati Reds, and a few years past its historic, regular-season AL East division race collapse, culminating in Bucky F’ing Dent’s tiebreaker game-winning home run in 1978.

Meanwhile, in Chicago, excitement greeted the 1981 season after Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn purchased the club from Bill Veeck and signaled that the days of Veeck’s hamstrung purse strings were over. With a promising young pitching staff already in place and a solid base of position players, the team felt it was just one key offensive acquisition away from contention.

Jerry Reinsdorf: We didn’t come in with an agenda to make a “splash,” but looking around at the state of things, we wanted to make it clear to fans that things would change. We tripled the promotional budget. We made efforts to upgrade Comiskey Park. And we were willing to look into any way we could help the club, be it by trading for a player or signing one.

Eddie Einhorn*: We were excited to get our hands dirty and improve the ballclub. We kept Roland Hemond, the GM who built our first great White Sox team, and we had some money to spend if an opportunity came along. [Note: Einhorn died in 2016; the interview referenced in this article was conducted during Spring Training 2011.]

Roland Hemond: Bill Veeck had already spent some of Edward DeBartolo’s money after DeBartolo agreed to buy the White Sox. Not many people remember this, but Bill never was supposed to leave the White Sox. He sold the White Sox to DeBartolo for $20 million and the promise of staying on with the team as President. But American League owners had it out for him, and rejected the sale two different times.

But initially, Bill was excited to have some financial freedom, which he hadn’t enjoyed for the five years he’d owned the team in the 1970s. We picked up Ronnie LeFlore from Montreal. We signed a catcher, Jim Essian, to some big money.

Reinsdorf: Those deals were made under a prospective DeBartolo ownership, but once the owners rejected DeBartolo and voted for us, we were on the hook for the contracts.

More than the roster, we honestly thought we had a bigger issue with the off-field things like improving an aging ballpark, and increasing attendance. We knew the White Sox were an up-and-coming team, and figured its natural development in 1981 would be a step forward, without any other acquisitions.

Einhorn: But then we heard Carlton Fisk was a free agent.

When the Red Sox missed their deadline to renew the Fisk and Lynn contracts in December 1980, an unprecedented situation arose. Never before in the free agency era had a player been freed from his contract because of a clerical error. With no precedent from which to base a decision, an arbitration date was set in January 1981 to determine Fisk’s fate.

Fisk: The easiest solution would have been for the Red Sox to rip up my old contract and make me a fair market offer. I generally knew what I was worth. People talk. It wouldn’t have been complicated. Treat me fairly, and I’m right back in Florida with the Red Sox in spring training, with a few more dollars in my pocket. But the Red Sox never made a fair market offer. Their offer was so low it wasn’t even worth considering.

Lynn, who received his 1981 contract even later than Fisk, bailed out on the arbitration process early on by agreeing to a deal that would send him to his hometown California Angels along with pitcher Steve Renko for Joe Rudi and Frank Tanana. The center fielder also received a contract from Angels owner Gene Autry for $5 million over four years.

Fisk, on the other hand, didn’t have a trump card in negotiations like driving a trade to his hometown—the New Hampshire native was already there, with the Red Sox. But without an offer worth considering from Boston, the veteran was driven by principle to see the arbitration process through.

Fisk: I didn’t have any doubt we’d win in arbitration. It was very simple: Haywood Sullivan did not tender me a contract. The Red Sox sort of admitted, ‘Well, we forgot.’ One of their defenses was that they didn’t understand the agreements with the Players’ Association. I thought, ‘Hey, wait a minute, we’re talking about the uniform player’s contract that they’ve been using for 100 years!’ That’s when I knew for sure we’d win, and we did.

It was reported that Boston had offered Fisk a three-year, $1.5 million deal, but some felt it was merely a face-saving pitch, made after the fact.

Fisk: I can say that offer is definitely not true, because if I was offered that, I may have taken it—at least we would have been close, and negotiated from there. The Red Sox weren’t even in the ballpark with the money or the years they offered, believe me.

Even still, they had a chance to sign me. Make a fair offer—I’m an unrestricted free agent now, so you’re going to compete against other teams, and the offer needs to be competitive—and I’ll stay.

But while I was still waiting to hear something concrete from Boston, Chicago called and made an offer I couldn’t turn down.

Because of the unique and late nature of the contract infraction, and the somewhat protracted arbitration process, Fisk was declared a free agent late in the offseason, after teams had already reported to spring training. The entire process generated a sort of Fisk Watch: Would he leave the Red Sox? Where would he go?

Reinsdorf: We had Essian, and we’d signed another catcher, Marc Hill, but when Fisk became available, you had to consider him. Remember, this was late in the offseason, way late. Signing Carlton had the potential to be disruptive. But we had to pick up the phone and call.

Einhorn: We were still so new to everything. I was doing all sorts of things to put our stamp on the team, like staffing up the front office, even choosing a new mascot. Jerry was trying to improve ticket sales and fix up the ballpark. The initial reaction to us in Chicago had been a little lackluster; the White Sox hadn’t won in a while, and fans were tired of five-year plans. So getting a chance to reach out to Carlton was a timely opportunity.

After some protracted negotiation and last-minute twists, Fisk signed with the White Sox for five years and $3 million, almost tripling his 1980 salary. Getting Fisk to change his Sox wasn’t as universally lauded as hindsight might lead us to think today—at the time, the veteran backstop was 33 years old, and many thought his best days were behind him.

Fisk: Yeah, I’d hear that from some people. It’s a little trick management plays on you. When you’re younger and outproducing your salary, the team talks about how young you are, you’re still unproven, there’s a pecking order with salaries, don’t breed dissent with the veterans. When you get older, teams say that you’re over the hill, even if you’re still producing. You think, wait, do I even get one season to be paid fairly?

But the White Sox were upfront with me. They played up the opportunity there, with a young pitching staff and a mix of younger players and veterans, a changing of the guard in ownership. They looked to me for leadership and encouraged that, without it sounding like a burden. They pointed out there were opportunities with advertisers that I might not get in Boston. Jerry and Eddie were enthusiastic guys. They seemed fair. It was a really difficult decision, but in the end, my gut said it would be a good move for me and my family.

Later on, Haywood Sullivan was talking about how the White Sox pressured me and gave me a take-it-or-leave-it deal. Do I look like a guy who’s going to let himself get strongarmed?

For catcher Jim Essian—who had signed a club record four-year, $1 million contract just a couple of months earlier—the Fisk signing was a mixed bag.

Essian: Of course, I wanted to get my 400 at-bats that year. That’s why I came back to Chicago. The White Sox had made me a priority. It’s easy to forget today, but a million-dollar contract, even over several years, was a big deal in 1981. I was really proud. It was a validation of a lot of hard work I’d put in to be a major leaguer.

Well, in comes Fisk, and there goes my chance to start. For a while [manager] Tony [La Russa] was talking like me and Carlton would split the catching duties. But even if that was the plan, I knew that if Fisk started hitting, he’d be playing every day. He was an All-Star. He wasn’t the kind of guy who begged out of games, even if he was in a rough stretch. But Fisk was a class guy, and a leader, and we needed that.

While Essian played little in 1981 and was dealt to the Seattle Mariners after the season, the Fisk signing also had an unintended, negative impact on Chicago’s key superstar. Center fielder Chet Lemon, a two-time All-Star and by far the most valuable position player on the club in 1980 (notching 4.2 WAR in his age 25 season), took notice of the deal—and wasn’t digging it.

Lemon: I was very comfortable in Chicago. I loved the team, and playing for the White Sox fans. The new ownership and Roland Hemond sat down with me in spring training in 1981 and laid out a five-year contract extension [1983-87] that would have made me the highest-paid on the team. Everything went smoothly, but I never got around to signing the deal.

While the contract was just sitting on the table, a couple of weeks later they signed Carlton Fisk. For the team, that was great. For me, suddenly I wouldn’t be the highest-paid player on the club. I thought I’d done a lot for the White Sox in my five seasons, and it hurt a little bit that a new guy, even Carlton Fisk, would sweep right in like that.

I can look back now and see that it’s a little childish to be caught up in who makes the most money, but I was still a young kid and it mattered to me. I decided I wouldn’t sign the contract, and that we’d talk again after the season.

After the 1981 season, pressure was mounting on the White Sox to get a return for Lemon in case he bolted as a free agent after the 1982 season. At the end of November, and without significant extension discussions, Chicago dealt Lemon to the Detroit Tigers for Steve Kemp—ironically, a player also in the last year of his contract who was a risk to bolt the White Sox after the season. (Kemp indeed signed elsewhere, with the New York Yankees, in 1983.) Meanwhile, Lemon signed a 10-year deal—the longest in the majors at the time—with Detroit and produced 23.0 WAR over the five seasons that his unsigned extension with the White Sox would have covered.

Lemon: Things worked out great for me in Detroit [the Tigers won the World Series in 1984]. But I’ve always loved the White Sox fans. Things could have been different.

At the time of the Fisk signing, everyone in baseball felt the clock was ticking on the catcher’s career—even the White Sox, who despite shelling out millions weren’t certain the catcher would finish out his contract (two mutual option years at the end of the deal were understood to be fulfilling a future front office position, not a roster spot). 

Yet somewhat amazingly, Fisk ended up playing far beyond his five-year contract, and 343 more games for the White Sox than he played in Boston. He remained a catcher his entire career (97% of Fisk’s games were at catcher), retiring after being released in mid-season in 1993, at age 45. With Fisk’s final game, he broke Bob Boone’s record for games caught, with 2,226—a record he held for 16 years, until it was broken by Ivan Rodriguez.

Ozzie Guillen [who spent the most games as Fisk’s White Sox teammate]: We loved to give Fisk s— about his age, and he gave it right back. We had a great, young pitching staff in the early 1990s and they didn’t want to put up with his old man bulls— [imitates all of Fisk’s mannerisms]: adjusting his chest protector, his cup, his mask, walking out to the mound every other pitch and barking instructions to the infield. Remember when Joe Mauer was catching for Minnesota, walking out to the mound every other pitch? That was Fisk. We had an aggressive staff: Black Jack [McDowell], [Alex] Fernandez, [Jason] Bere, [Wilson] Alvarez. They wanted to attack guys but Fisk was like a human stop sign.

Don’t get me wrong. Carlton Fisk was a great player and a great teammate. Best catcher I ever played with on the Sox. But it was time. No player wants to admit it—I f—— didn’t, for sure. But it was his time.

Of everyone involved in Fisk changing Sox, no one suffered more than Sullivan. The GM/owner was already under heavy criticism after the 1978 collapse, as he dealt away or released many of the team’s assets (including Luis Tiant, Bill Lee, Bernie Carbo, Reggie Cleveland, Ferguson Jenkins, and Jim Willoughby) and drafting poorly (most notably picking his own son, non-prospect Marc, in the second round in 1979). In 1983, Sullivan’s last year as GM, he watched Fisk’s move to No. 2 in the batting order spur the White Sox to an AL West title and 99 wins, while overseeing a 78-84 season in Boston. 

Sullivan always had maintained the reason that the Fisk and Lynn contracts weren’t mailed promptly was the fact that, due to mutually agreed-upon clauses, the two players were already under contract for 1981.

Fisk: Haywood claimed he offered me more money, more years, more everything. Again, there’s an easy answer to that: If he had, I would have taken it and stayed in Boston my entire career.

It’s funny, at the time people were talking about me betraying the Boston Red Sox. Everyone made a big deal about December 20, like it was some fluke, and the Red Sox got cheated because of [the deadline]. What no one talks about is the Red Sox had seven months to offer me a contract—they never did. Even during the hearing, the Red Sox could have made it all go away with a fair offer. They didn’t. I wasn’t interested in beating the Red Sox—but I did want what’s fair.

Once his White Sox career began, Fisk would take particular relish in sticking it to the Red Sox—especially at Fenway. A career .300 hitter in Boston, Fisk upped that average to .314 as a member of the White Sox. Fisk hit homers in 3.8% of his career plate appearances and 4.4% of his Fenway appearances, but as a member of the White Sox visiting Fenway upped his longball rate to 6.9%. In the end, over 107 career games vs. the Red Sox Fisk hit .310, with 27 homers and 68 RBI.

And there was never a more dramatic a moment for Fisk as a visitor to Fenway Park than in his first game there, on Opening Day 1981, when he hit the an eventual game-winning, three-run homer in the top of the eighth to spur a 5-3 White Sox win.

With the White Sox, Fisk would produce another 28.8 WAR, ending his career with 68.3. At age 37 in 1985, he put up career numbers of 37 home runs and 107 RBI.

Yet in spite of an acrimonious divorce and more time logged in White Sox than Red, Fisk was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2000 as a member of the Red Sox.

Fisk: There was nothing hard about the decision to go into the Hall of Fame as a member of the Red Sox. Boston is my hometown and my home team. There’s no way I can ever divorce myself from that home run—not a day goes by when I don’t hear about it from someone. With all respect to the White Sox and my long career there, that particular decision wasn’t difficult at all.

Brett Ballantini has been a sportswriter for two decades, drawing on hundreds of interviews over the years to compile oral histories of great moments in major league baseball, basketball, and hockey. Follow him on Twitter @PoetryinPros.

‘Lucky Charm’ Jared Porter On Metrics, D-Backs’ 2017 Roster

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This is the second half of an interview with Diamondbacks assistant GM Jared Porter, conducted by MLBTR contributor Brett Ballantini. Click here to read Part 1. 

In the second part of the conversation, Porter addresses the intricacies of his job, including his go-to stats, and taking the “macro” view on the Diamondbacks’ future:

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You were with the Cubs when the Diamondbacks traded for Shelby Miller, which from the jump seemed a significant overpay by Arizona. What was your impression?

It’s impossible for me to weigh in heavily due to the fact that I wasn’t here and don’t know all of the circumstances surrounding the trade. With that said, we are really excited to have a pitcher of Shelby Miller’s quality in our rotation. It’s been great getting to know Shelby as a person over the course of the last month or so and has been exciting to watch him feature such explosive stuff in his first two spring outings. He’s in impeccable physical shape and has a great mindset heading into the season. We’re lucky to have Shelby on the Diamondbacks.

Analytics is a rabbit hole that ultimately yields greater and greater understanding of the game. We’re so far from sheer batting average or pitching wins now, we can never go back. But clearly, each front office doesn’t just have a Baseball-Reference stock ticker of WAR numbers that steers evaluation. There are nuances wrapped in projections inside of data. Even among your own equfront office, with a relatively flat hierarchy, each of you must have your own pet data or go-to projections. If you can give me the Shake n’ Bake without revealing its flavor, what is your go-to stat?

Great question. I don’t think I have a “go-to stat,” but what I like the most is the data that helps prove things that are hard for our eyes to see or that can be hard to gauge within a scouting report. Player evaluation is so tough, even for the best evaluators, that any advantages we can find and use are so important.

For me, I’ve really been gravitating towards run prevention data lately. Some examples of this are PITCHf/x data (movement qualities of the pitch), pitch results data (how a pitcher’s stuff impacts the way hitters put balls into play) and pitch sequencing data (how a pitcher uses his pitches); defensive data and defensive positioning data; and catcher defense analysis.

One area that tends to get over-reported is catcher framing. While I’m a firm believer in the value of catcher framing and the impact it makes, the story often stops with catcher framing data and not enough attention is paid to the importance of game-calling and game leadership when it comes to evaluating catchers. A big part of a pitcher’s conviction in the stuff he’s throwing has to do with how the game is called and led behind the plate.

Your most significant trade of the offseason sent Jean Segura to the Seattle Mariners for Taijuan Walker and Ketel Marte. Was that a matter of selling high on Segura, buying low on Walker, or a little bit of both?

We’re really excited to have Taijuan Walker and Ketel Marte in Diamondbacks uniforms right now. We gave up a very talented and well-rounded impact player in Jean Segura as the centerpiece of the deal for Seattle, but continuing to add young, controllable, high-ceiling players like Taijuan and Ketel will make our talent pool deeper and more sustainable from a macro viewpoint.

Taijuan is a pitcher who all three organizations I’ve worked for have tried to acquire over the last two or three years. Getting to know him a bit over the course of the last month has given us a lot of confidence in the person he is. He wants to be great, and he wants to win. We’re very excited to have such a talented athlete in our program.

You have an exhausting number of responsibilities, overseeing player personnel, baseball operations, and the medical staff. But arguably your more significant responsibility with Arizona is in pro scouting. I’m guessing that amateur scouting—confirming blue chips or uncovering hidden treasure—is significantly different from pro scouting, where we imagine a half-dozen guys with radar guns trying to pick the bones of this summer’s early rebuilders. How do the roles of amateur and pro scouts differ?

The nature of all scouting is the same: Consistently beat other teams by evaluating and recommending talented, championship-caliber players for your organization. The types of scouting that I have the most significant responsibility for within Arizona are professional (other teams’ minor league players, and the independent leagues), major league (other teams’ major league players, and advance scouting), and international professional (typically NPB, KBO, and Cuban players who don’t fall under the amateur cap).

There are a few major differences between amateur and professional scouting that stand out. Every year there is a draft, so it’s a fact that an enormous pool of amateur players will be selected and signed to play professional baseball every June. For this reason, there’s a culminating point in every draft cycle. We don’t have as much information on amateur players. Although the information available is growing at an astonishing rate, there still isn’t as much information available in comparison to professional players. We haven’t had the opportunity to see amateur players compete against their professional peers on a daily basis yet, so the accuracy of evaluations is more volatile and higher risk. It becomes critical to mitigate the risk as much as you can while continuing to maximize the upside and the potential impact of players you’re bringing in.

On the professional and major league side, we have significantly more information, but oftentimes the assets you’re giving up in player or financial capital are so great that it makes the margin for error within these decisions minuscule. Also, the player pool to select from is more finite. Professional scouting is more of an ongoing process with regards to acquisition. Although there are a few big dates, like the Trade Deadline or Winter Meetings, the professional player acquisition period is literally 365 days a year, because a transaction can happen at any time.

Which scouting is a greater challenge, or more fun? 

The best way for me to describe it is that it’s all awesome, and it’s all really challenging. You can never learn enough about player evaluation with regards to organizational building and roster construction.

You have inherited a Diamondbacks team that seems a given to put 69 wins in the rearview mirror, with not just superstars like Zack Greinke, Paul Goldschmidt and A.J. Pollock, but quite a few budding stars as well. Obviously, you’ve got a long-term vision of remaking the team, but how jazzed are you regarding your immediate, 2017 prospects?

We’re all very excited about the talent on our 40-man roster and certainly feel fortunate to inherit so many talented and athletic players with high ceilings. [Rookie manager] Torey Lovullo has set a great tone in camp, with everyone being part of a unified group headed in the same, positive direction. It’s been a point of emphasis for us this offseason to put a well-rounded, versatile, and deep group of major league players together going into the season. It’s still roughly a month to go before Opening Day, but so far, so good. Personally, I’ve enjoyed getting to know our players better as competitors and people, and am excited to continue to do so.

I asked Dave Stewart this question last year, and for all his intensity and aggressiveness, he surprised me with a muted answer. With specific regard to making an offer to a guy like [ex-Los Angeles Dodger] Greinke, is there any additional incentive beyond what he can do for the Diamondbacks—does taking a valuable player away from a direct rival color your decision-making at all? Or, asked another way, are the battles for wins fought exclusively between the lines, or can a front-office guy steal a couple of wins for the team and contribute the same value as a hitter with a knack for a game-winning RBI?

No, I don’t see it this way at all. It’s our job to help build a sustainable, deep, and well-rounded Diamondbacks team regardless of what other teams in our division are doing. If we do that, it doesn’t matter what other teams are doing because we’ll be able to provide Torey and our coaching staff with the necessary weapons to navigate a 162-game schedule, and hopefully more.

There is some nuance within the season with regards to matchups, maybe stocking your bullpen with a certain type of reliever for a series or two, picking the right time to spot start a guy, or adding a bat that might match up well for a certain stretch. But when it comes to the macro decisions, we have to constantly focus on making our team better and not worry about the others.

Fortunately, this is something I was able to see first-hand in Boston when I was younger due to the incredible depth and talent in the AL East at the time. I never saw Theo give in to any pressures that might have been there to match our division rivals, and I feel that as a result our internal player pool was always deep and sustainable, with great young players ready to make an impact at the major league level.

You were hired by the Red Sox in 2004 and, poof, there goes an 86-year Curse of the Bambino. The Cubs snapped you up in 2016 and, boom, the longest streak in the history of pro sports, 108 years without a title, is gone. Every time you join a new team, they win a World Series. Arizona’s drought of 15 seasons is slightly less dramatic than what you’ve conquered already. So, pressure’s on, are you going to make it three-for-three?

I wish it were that easy. I’ve been fortunate to work around great people and for teams with great players in Boston and Chicago. My hunch tells me that it’s been more about the players than me being a curse breaker! We’ll chalk it up to good timing.

With that said, we have a talented group here in Arizona and we are working daily to create the culture both in the office and in the clubhouse through Torey that we’ve seen lead to sustainable success in Boston and Chicago.

Follow Brett Ballantini on Twitter @PoetryinPros

D-Backs Assistant GM Jared Porter Traces His Path to Arizona

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A 69-win season spelled an abrupt end for the D-backs front office regime that was led by chief baseball officer Tony La Russa (who remains in the organization in another capacity), general manager Dave Stewart and senior vice president De Jon Watson. 

Enter new Arizona GM Mike Hazen, who tapped former standout Boston execs Amiel Sawdaye and Jared Porter, along with former Red Sox bench coach Torey Lovullo, to remake a franchise that may have lost its way.

We caught up to Porter, Arizona’s senior vice president and assistant GM, in order to get a peek into the changes the Diamondbacks are implementing this season.

But in part one of this interview, Porter traces his remarkable fortune in the game so far, including four championships (three in Boston, one with the Chicago Cubs). Is he a lucky charm? Well, Diamondbacks fans can be heartened that in his first seasons in Boston and Chicago, he helped the clubs snap World Series droughts of 86 and 108 years, respectively:

—

Much is made of the Boston roots of Mike Hazen, Amiel Sawdaye, you, and even new manager Torey Lovullo. Given the different roles you all played with the Red Sox, did you conceive of a time when you might all be together again, with commensurate promotions?

I’m very fortunate to have been able to learn from and work with so many talented executives in Boston. It’s one of those things where you don’t realize just how much your career can be shaped by who you work for and learn from early on—and it’s immeasurable.

Jared Porter, Mike Hazen, Sam Eaton | Photo courtesy of Arizona Diamondbacks

In my case, I happened to get an internship working with and for the best executive in baseball history, Theo Epstein. The culture that Theo created in Boston (and now in Chicago, with Jed Hoyer) is so unique. I feel like I’ve been part of an incredible and captivating baseball operations think tank ever since I started as an intern with Boston in 2004, with everybody working as hard as they can and trying to learn as much as they can, with the freedom and comfort to express opinions and explore both old and new ways of thought with regards to player evaluation, acquisition, development and analysis. I’m forever grateful to Ben Cherington, for hiring me and giving me my first opportunity.

That think tank culture is certainly something we are going to try as hard as we can to replicate in Arizona. Along with others such as Theo, Jed, Ben, Raquel Ferreira, Brian O’Halloran, Jason McLeod, and Allard Baird, Mike and Amiel were big parts of that culture, with their fingerprints all over Boston’s World Series championships and current roster.

Did you have an inkling that you were valued to such a degree by Mike that he would seek you out in Arizona as he did? When you left Boston after the 2015 season, leaving them behind for a year, was there any sort of exit interview/between the lines/wink-wink where you had a sense you might work together again down the line?

Things never seem to happen in a linear manner when it comes to a career path, so there was never any sort of “wink-wink,” but Mike, Amiel, and myself have always been very close and have always enjoyed working together. With that said, the preexisting relationships I had when I went to the Cubs along with some very strong ones I developed over the year-plus I spent in Chicago made it a very tough place to leave, on both a personal and professional level.

I think the Cubs will be just fine without me, though!

What was your adjustment moving from a Ben Cherington front office in Boston to Theo’s in Chicago? Given the enormous successes both teams have had, there must be a lot of similarities. But is there a single contrast that stands out?

We all worked together for so many years in Boston, making the front offices very similar in style and goals. It was a smooth transition from Boston to Chicago, given the similar styles and scouting/development infrastructures coming from what Theo instilled in all of us in Boston.

The biggest difference between the two front offices is that the Cubs have really pressed forward with regards to analytics and new forms of data analysis, because Theo was able to pick up from he left off in Boston while starting from scratch in Chicago. Data analysis is nonstop for them, with a perfectly designed platform to access all of this information. From minor league coaches, to scouts, to major league coaching staff, the analytics make everyone more efficient and knowledgeable. It’s an area that we have already started, and will continue to press forward with, on the Diamondbacks.

Does Theo give you crap for walking into a 103-win team and cherry picking a ring?

[Laughing] No, he doesn’t. But I give it to myself!

Admittedly, it was great timing for me. I’m really lucky that he and Jed gave me the chance to be a part of winning a World Series with the Cubs. The ring is a nice bonus, but the amount I was able to learn being around those guys again for another year-plus, and being ingrained into the great culture they (along with manager Joe Maddon) have created in Chicago is my biggest takeaway. Theo’s probably given me more crap for cherry picking from the culture, and I don’t blame him. They have a great thing going there.

As long as we’re talking Cubs, can you give me your personal Game 7 experience?

Oh man, what an incredible game and series. [Ex-Cubs pitcher and current team exec] Ryan Dempster said it best on the bus ride from Progressive Field to the airport after the game, something to the effect of, “There’s no way the Cubs were going to win their first World Series in 108 years without some sort of dramatic story within the game.”

And it’s true. The twists and turns throughout the Series and specifically in Game 7 were captivating and gut-wrenching. The Indians were and are a great team; it could have gone either way. I’ve been fortunate to be a part of a few world champions over the years, so the best part for me is seeing players, coaches, front office executives and scouts win one for the first time. To me, that provides an incredible amount of gratitude. It serves as a reminder of how tough it is to be part of a team that wins it, and also how lucky all of us who work in baseball are to be a part of it.

Speaking of breaking 108-year droughts, do you practice any particular superstitions in spite of being an analytics-driven kind of fella?

I don’t want to say too much here—and acknowledging that it’s the players who win games on the field—but we’ll do just about anything in the front office suite during a game to change our luck and try to will the team to get a few runs. Typically it involves a lot of hot dogs, chocolate cake, and even the occasional vegetable crudité and tapenade combo.

Part two of this Q&A, which focuses on Porter’s preferred statistics/metrics for player evaluation, his front-office responsibilities in Arizona and the Diamondbacks’ 2017 roster, will run tomorrow afternoon.

Follow Brett Ballantini on Twitter: @PoetryinPros.

Photo courtesy of Sarah Sachs / Arizona Diamondbacks communications department.

White Sox GM Rick Hahn Q&A: Part Two

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This is the second half of an interview with White Sox GM Rick Hahn, conducted by MLBTR contributor Brett Ballantini. Click here to read Part I. 

In the second part of the conversation, Hahn addresses the disappointing 2016 season that drove his team’s rebuild, the Hall of Fame chances for all-time favorite Mark Buehrle, and a truly unexpected text received last July:

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You were best in the bigs along with the crosstown Chicago Cubs on May 9, but plummeted from there, as the seventh-worst team in the majors after May 9. Was there a specific moment during the free-fall where the brain trust said, “we know what we have to do,” or did the season end with you still unsure whether it would be another all-in winter?

We knew what we wanted to accomplish [as of] last July. However, we did not feel the opportunities were quite robust enough at that time to pull the trigger on multiple fronts. The desire to make dramatic moves to more rapidly further this rebuild was strong. But we had to resist the urge to make deals that might have declared that we were embarking in a new direction, but really didn’t provide us with what we felt were adequate returns for some of the players we were discussing back then.

When the team got off hot, what were you feeling? Was it, “Jeez, this is great, smiles all around,” or are you more a worrywart concerned that Mat Latos’ BABIP is unsustainable?

I don’t want to make it sound like we did not enjoy the 23-10 start last year. We did. We were winning a lot of ballgames late and were getting some tremendous pitching performances up and down the staff. However, all of us are trained to kind of be prepared for what could go wrong.

Even in the midst of that run, we made the decision to let John Danks go. Even while six games up [in first place], we felt that the back end of our rotation needed some sort of further reinforcement beyond the addition of Miguel Gonzalez, and that the bullpen was getting severely taxed. We were concerned about some areas of depth where we lacked sufficient reinforcements in the minors. Unfortunately, each of those areas of concern turned out to be valid as spring turned to summer.

Noting that injuries did not help matters, was the 2016 White Sox catching production anything more than a black hole scenario from your perspective? Framing appeared to crush the starting staff, particularly lefties Chris Sale, Jose Quintana, and Carlos Rodon. Clearly releasing a plus-framer in Tyler Flowers on the hunch that Alex Avila and Dioner Navarro would be an overall-plus move did not work out. Has your analysis of catchers/catching changed or evolved coming out of 2016?

We obviously did not get what we were hoping for out of our catching last season, but that extended beyond a framing issue. I do have to say, for all the abuse that Tyler took from certain segments while he was with us, it is nice that he is at least now getting some credit for his framing ability, which he worked very hard at.

The decision last offseason was based upon a desire to inject some added run-scoring ability into an offense that badly needed it, without too many feasible avenues open to doing such. We knew that would come at the expense of some of the framing numbers, but we also view a catcher’s defensive contributions more broadly. Framing is certainly important, but so is the ability to throw out runners, block balls in the dirt, know our pitchers, and adjust game plans on the fly, among other things. In the end, we did not get as much out of the change as we anticipated because we did not get the performances that we expected—not because we were oblivious to the exchange we were attempting to make.

When we talked a year ago, you acknowledged that one regret about your former first-rounder Gordon Beckham is that he never tasted failure until the majors, which ultimately worked against him. Tim Anderson was expected to play all of 2016 in Charlotte, but got the call at midseason and impressed across the board. Assuming that players getting a taste of failure is a key element in your decision to give him the call up to the White Sox, it can’t be as simple as waiting until a guy has a 15-K week or gets bombed in two straight starts. Is there an element of a player’s makeup that most impacts your decision to “rush” him to the bigs?

The makeup element to this is huge. You are correct that we, like most clubs, view failure in the minors as part of a player’s development. More precisely, learning to respond to adversity outside of the glare and scrutiny of the majors will likely serve a player well once he inevitably encounters similar hardships in the big leagues.

With Tim, he did have some small slumps during his time in the minors, and he certainly had to make some adjustments along the way. But from an ability standpoint, it was clear he was ready for the final stages of his development, which occurs at the big league level. Prior to bringing him up, we had a number of conversations with Buddy Bell, Nick Capra (who was our farm director at the time), and others in player development about whether anyone had any doubts that Timmy could handle it. Everyone believed in Timmy’s makeup and ability to cope with the adjustments required as any player makes that transition. Obviously, his performance was strong, but how he handled himself was even more impressive.

Pitching coach Don Cooper has had remarkable success with diagnosing even the smallest quirks preventing a pitcher from maximizing his potential. Is Lucas Giolito just a Coop camp away from resetting himself back into a breakout MLB arm?

Sure. I like that. Look, we’re excited to see all these new guys work with our coaches. Not just in the coming weeks in ML camp, but throughout the season.  They each have some development left ahead of him, but we have the luxury of being patient with them, to allow our coaches to work with them, and to give the player time to be put in the best position to maximize their abilities.

Rick Renteria had a sneaky-great season managing the Cubs in 2014, and got a really tough break losing that job when Joe Maddon became available. Was Rick already on your radar by that time, as a guy who would project as a great pilot? What did he show you with the Cubs that made you want to get him in a White Sox cap—and how were your observations or hunches confirmed when he worked under Robin?

Ricky had a sterling reputation with coaches, players, and front office people alike going back to his San Diego Padres days, and was likely on a list somewhere in most front offices at that time. We had heard about his work ethic, ability to teach, passion for the game, openness to new ideas and debate, and communication skills over the years, but it is difficult to really appreciate that until you are working with him. Sox fans are really going to like and appreciate what he brings to dugout over the coming years.

You worked closely with Mark Buehrle for years, and in 2003 and 2007 you negotiated extensions with him in turbulent waters. With his almost-stealth efficiency, Buehrle comes in around 52 WAR across Baseball-Reference, FanGraphs, and Baseball Prospectus measures, with a no-hitter, perfect game, and win-save in the World Series. Is he a Hall-of-Famer?

I’m allowed to still be a fan sometimes, right? Good. Sure, Mark Buehrle is a Hall-of-Famer. I say that with complete bias and 100% based upon the fact that I loved watching him pitch. Objectively, I realize that the true answer may be a little different, but for these 30 seconds, I don’t care. Mark was a great White Sox, a tremendous teammate, and a joy for all of us to watch during his time with the club.

What is the weirdest moment you’ve had as GM?

One afternoon last summer, I was filling in as first-base coach for my son’s Little League team because one of his coaches had a conflict. It was playoff game, the team was making a nice late rally, and the whole thing was a great little escape for me.

Then my phone started blowing up. After a text from [manager] Robin Ventura that read, “No. Actually, he’s cut up all the jerseys,” I knew my little escape was over….

Follow Brett Ballantini on Twitter @PoetryinPros

White Sox GM Rick Hahn Discusses Offseason Rebuild

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In our Q&A one year ago, GM Rick Hahn admitted that he considered a full rebuild for his Chicago White Sox. But with the encouragement of executive vice president Ken Williams and owner Jerry Reinsdorf, he reloaded the team in 2016 for one more run at a title. That effort got off to a scorching start, with the White Sox surging to a 23-10 record in early May that found them second only to the Cubs in all of baseball.

 From that point, things went downhill. From bizarre controversies like superstar lefty Chris Sale refusing to pitch in a throwback uni to underperformance from key acquisitions like catchers Alex Avila and Dioner Navarro, by midseason Hahn knew it was time to chart a different course.

The 45-year-old exec was the belle of the ball at the 2016 Winter Meetings, swapping Sale and breakout outfielder Adam Eaton in bang-bang deals that netted Chicago four players who dot Top 100 prospect lists from MLB.com, Baseball Prospectus, Baseball America and ESPN: uberinfielder Yoan Moncada and fireballer Michael Kopech from the Red Sox for Sale, and ace-caliber arms Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez from the Nationals for Eaton.

After those lauded swaps, the full rebuild was stopped in its tracks, as 29 other GMs decided to let Hahn’s hand cool at the trading table. With admittedly four deals that still need to be made in 2017, Hahn took his ear from the Batphone long enough to chat a bit about where the White Sox are, and where he hopes they’re heading.

In the first part of our conversation, Hahn addresses the decision to rebuild, and how important it is for him to “win” trades:

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After the 2015 season, a rebuild was on the table. But you and Ken, with Jerry’s backing, felt close enough to a title to add to the core. While the 2016 record didn’t show improvement, at season’s end the core was unchanged, and arguably strengthened by Todd Frazier and Tim Anderson. But this offseason you’ve traded your two top WAR players in Sale and Eaton, and the direction is decidedly different. Why?

While obviously this offseason we decided to take the club in a different direction, the decision was the result of the same analysis we do virtually every offseason. Each offseason we attempt to look at where we are as a franchise as objectively as possible.

This involves asking ourselves are we close, realistically, to winning a championship? What are the areas we need to improve upon in order to get to where we want to be, and how available are those pieces—either internally or externally? Based upon a series of these discussions, we felt taking a longer-term view would be more beneficial to the franchise overall than attempting once again to piecemeal the thing together with a shorter-term view.

While we certainly felt the same frustrations as any Sox fan with our recent attempts falling short, the decision to pivot now was based more on an objective evaluation than emotion.

Ken was renown as an all-in GM, and you spent your first four offseasons as GM in some form of win-now mode. Knowing how hard it has been to accept the reality of a rebuild, that to whatever degree it represents organizational failure, was it hard—even depressing—to arrive at this offseason’s rebuild?

As I talked about earlier this offseason regarding the congratulations we were receiving from other clubs at the Winter Meetings after the Sale trade, it’s actually a quite humbling feeling. The fact is that we were not able to win with Chris, among other talented players, heading up the top of our roster. We all regret that fact, and none of us relished the idea of moving him.

However, despite that regret, seeing the talent that is starting to come in the door is exciting. The idea of building something from the ground up energizes not only those of us in the front office, but our scouts and player development people, as well as employees in other departments throughout the club as well. There is a certain level of excitement that comes with new direction, and it’s something we look forward to building upon over the coming weeks and months.

The Cleveland Indians are tough and appear to have used this offseason to get a lot tougher. For a variety of reasons, the rest of the AL Central is wide open. When you see how the offseason has wrangled out, does any part of you want to say, “Uh, Dave Dombrowski, Mike Rizzo — want to flip Sale and Eaton back to Chicago?”

No. We’re trying to build a team that can contend for championships on an annual basis. As much as we want to put ourselves in that position as quickly as possible, last year’s club won 78 games, and to believe that the same group was suddenly going to morph into a perennial powerhouse without augmentation would require a level of wishcasting that we’re trying to avoid.

You’ve been cool at the poker table this offseason. Perhaps too cool, because it seems that while you still have a stack of chips, all the other GMs got a little jittery and left. The Sale and Eaton deals came quick, and then, crickets. You’ve admitted that you intended to continue turning over the roster, but so far, no dice. Ken is famed for his “we were five minutes from going another direction,” and you yourself handled at least one such deal where A.J. Pierzynski had essentially bought his bus ticket to L.A. before you ushered him back to the White Sox for 2011 with some cocktail-napkin negotiations. Were there some deals this winter that were one dropped signal or one email to spam from happening?

We’ve been clear throughout that if we had our druthers, we would knock out four more transactions that would advance the organization towards our goal as quickly as possible. Unfortunately for us, it’s not only our desire that drives the timing of these deals. My eagerness, or Kenny’s or Jerry’s, cannot be a factor in determining when to pull the trigger on a deal. It has to be based upon feeling like we are maximizing the value in a deal—not just forcing something home.

But, yes, we did have two deals—with different clubs, involving different players—die at the ownership approval stage when the other clubs decided in the end that the deal did not work for them. That’s unfortunate, but it happens. It’s also part of the reason that I never handicap the likelihood of a deal taking place when asked—nothing is completed until that final call is made. Far more deals fall apart for one reason or another than ultimately get consummated.

When you look back on these two blockbusters in years to come, what will it take for you to judge either trade a win?

We really aren’t looking to “win” deals. Instead, hopefully, all of our deals work out well for both sides. Given that we are at a different spot in our competitive cycle than the Red Sox and Nationals currently enjoy, there is certainly the chance of them to reap significant benefits now, and for us to do the same later.

In terms of judging deals from our own perspective, we try to look at the process and the decision as opposed to the result. That is, based upon everything we knew at the time, was it a good decision? Now, obviously, it’s pretty much impossible to ignore the performance after the fact, but ideally we use that performance to illustrate what we did right—or unfortunately, at times, wrong—in making the decision to move player X for player Y.

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Part two of MLBTR’s Q&A with Rick Hahn will run tomorrow afternoon.

Follow Brett Ballantini on Twitter @PoetryinPros.

Dave Stewart Interview, Part II

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Over four decades in baseball, Diamondbacks GM Dave Stewart has done nearly everything in baseball. He was a solid pitcher for 16 years, with 168 wins and a 3.95 ERA. Over four superstar seasons with the Oakland A’s, he collected 17.8 bWAR and four straight top-four Cy Young Award finishes. Upon retirement, he was a pitching coach and an assistant GM for multiple teams, and was a finalist to manage the Milwaukee Brewers upon Davey Lopes’s firing in 2002.

After failing to ascend to general manager in Toronto (with the Blue Jays instead hiring J.P. Ricciardi), Stewart formed a player agency and represented several stars, including Eric Chavez, Matt Kemp, Chad Billingsley and Chris Carter.

Years after Stewart had admittedly given up hope of ever being a big-league GM, Tony La Russa was hired to run baseball operations in Arizona and selected his former ace as the Diamondbacks GM.

Last week, we spoke to Stewart about his Diamondbacks team. This week, Stewart reflects on his career and his path to the big chair in this exclusive conversation.

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You were drafted in the 16th round by the Dodgers in 1975, but you also had a ton of football scholarship offers, and played some pretty good basketball, too. Why did you choose baseball?

[Laughs] It was the sport that I was least likely to get hurt playing. There are obvious injuries that happen in baseball, but in football, even at 6’2”, 210 pounds, that’s not big enough to play the sport, for me. In basketball, there were some size restrictions as well. What’s great about baseball is that anybody can get on the diamond and show their skills. At the time, among the three sports, baseball was not my favorite, and probably not my best sport. But it’s just funny how things turn out.

Did you have any idea L.A. was going to convert you from catcher to pitcher?

No clue whatsoever [laughs]. Once I reported to [rookie ball in] Bellingham, Washington, the picture became clear what they were going to do with me.

You blossomed into stardom in front of your hometown Oakland fans, with four straight seasons for top-four Cy Young finishes. Meanwhile, your A’s teams made it to three straight World Series and not afraid to put somebody on their backsides to get there. But Oakland was under .500 in 1986, your first year in Oakland, and just .500 in Tony La Russa’s first full year as manager in 1987. When did the A’s develop their swagger?

We had a good group of players, [Mark] McGwire, [Jose] Canseco, Carney Lansford, Dave Henderson, Rickey Henderson. And you look at the pitching staff of myself, [Bob] Welch, Mike Moore, Curt Young; our rotation was good, we had Dennis Eckersley on the back end, and Rick Honeycutt and others in the pen.

But what really makes the team is the guy who leads the team, the manager. Tony was a great example of what we should be and how we should play the game. His message went through our clubhouse. We believed we could win, and when we stepped on the field, we were going to win. That all started with Tony and his coaching staff, and the things they brought to us day-to-day as players.

Since retiring, you’ve been a player agent, a pitching coach, in the front office, and even have gotten consideration as a manager. You seem to have your choice of baseball gigs. Why GM?

The general manager has the most impact on an organization and a franchise. I get the opportunity to pick the manager and put the players in place. It’s the biggest responsibility in an organization. I like that kind of pressure. I like being in that situation. I’ve won championships as a player, now I want to win a championship in the front office. In this capacity now, I want to be able to shape and form an organization, and build a tradition during my tenure.

You’ve been outspoken about the role of race in your goal to become a baseball GM. Was there ever a point when you thought it just wasn’t going to happen?

No, there wasn’t a single point, because by a certain time I definitely didn’t think it was going to happen. But the thing about baseball, especially at the upper levels of management, if you get the right person in the right position, it can affect your life immediately, as this did for me. Tony La Russa is a guy I’ve had a relationship with for over 30 years, and once he was put in a position where he could hire me, he did. If Tony would not have gotten his opportunity, I wouldn’t haven’t have gotten mine.

As you say, in many ways you learned how to play winning baseball under Tony, have been friends for decades, have discussed your futures in baseball together. Is it ideal to be working toward a championship in Arizona with him?

I know enough about Tony to say that our friendship had nothing to do with giving me the opportunity to do this job. But having a friendship makes it easier to do the job. Our communication is wide open. We feel free to talk with each other about anything. Most of the time our conversations are good conversations. Sometimes they’re not so good. We both have some fire. And that’s the great part about it, whether it’s a good conversation or a bad one, we walk out of the room united.

You were fresh-faced in 1981, winning your first title with Los Angeles. You were a pitching stud in 1989 when you won a second title, with Oakland. A few years later, you got a third in Toronto. Is there a favorite?

They were all good, because they were all at different points in my life. In 1981, I was just a rookie coming into the game, so I had an opportunity to win one right off the bat, which was great. I wasn’t of great impact to the Dodgers, but I was able to help them get there. In 1989, as you said, I was in the middle of it, and I made a difference in winning that World Series. In 1993 it was my last one, at the tail end of my career. I was on my way out of the game, contributing any way I could, but still having impact. I was ALCS MVP that year. But they were all significant and good because they were all different parts of my career and my life.

Rick Hahn Q&A

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After a disappointing 2014 season, White Sox GM Rick Hahn contemplated a complete team teardown. But once owner Jerry Reinsdorf opened his checkbook, Hahn “won” the offseason with a series of splashy moves — which ultimately added only three wins in the standings.

This past offseason, Hahn again underwent some of the same soul-searching over the direction of the White Sox, debating everything from a complete rebuild to chasing some of the winter’s nine-figure free agents. Determining that the status quo wouldn’t get the White Sox into October and a teardown would set the franchise back, Hahn got to work. This time, however, the GM did so with a sneaky trade chased by a series of under-market signings (as MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes examined in his recent review of their offseason).

But even with the AL Central fully up for grabs, it will take more than a few extra wins to get the White Sox to their first postseason since 2008 — and to that end, the convivial Hahn turns stern, ensuring that no Pale Hoser’s place in the lineup is guaranteed: “There are no scholarships.”

With Cactus League games underway, Hahn takes time out to talk exclusively with MLBTR about his second consecutive busy offseason.

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