1970's Red Sox Core 5.

[Dr.K]

In my Boston RedSox 1969 ongoing I have played up to 1982 so far and what has struck me is the amount of amazing talent that has come up through the system. In particular Reggie Smith, Fred Lynn, Jim Rice, Cecil Cooper and Dwight Evans, they have become my core 5.

The core 5 has recently broken up with the departure of Cecil Cooper, however we went on a run of 9 AL East division championships from 1972 to 1982, missing out in 1972 and 1976. From 1977 to 1982 we have won 6 consecutive divisional titles but only 1 World Series title and have had a habit of blowing ALCS in the 5th game.

I have OOTP Development Engine on and no recalc with 20-80 scouting and no stars. It has been the most enjoyable save game to date, however how on earth did the real Red Sox not do much better IRL.

Reggie Smith has 10 All star appearances and 4 MVPs and 1 gold glove and in 1977 batted .353BA 51HR 176RBI and now at age 36 has 402 home runs. Oh and he missed the entire 1973 season to injury. My favourite all time OOTP player of all time.

Fred Lynn has 8 All star appearances, 3 Batting titles, 4 MVPs and 1 rookie of the year and at 31 years old has 262 home runs.

Jim Rice has 5 All star appearances, 2 batting titles and at 30 has 190 home runs.
Recently traded to the Royals for young prospect Danny Jackson.

Cecil Cooper 3 time all star, 1 Rookie of the year, 1 Gold Glove, and 1 batting title (won with the Pirates in 1982 after I traded him to get rid of his huge contract) at age 33 has 259 Home Runs.

Dwight Evans - the most under appreciated of the core 5. 1 Rookie of the Year, 5 time All Star, 241 Home Runs.

These 5 have been awesome and I've let Rice and Cooper go as a new generations of Sox are emerging, like Rich Gedman and Wade Boggs along with young Free Agents such as Tim Raines, Pedro Guerrero and Robin Yount.

Other notables? Gary Carter played on WS team as a Free Agent then slumped, Fisk never highly regarded by me, Ray Fosse, George Scott played with me until '77, Joe Morgan '72 to '74 three productive seasons till I let him go, Butch Hobson and "MadDog" Bill Madlock, Rich Burleson, Yaz all contributed.

Pitching threw up some surprises, Ray Culp was a consistent pitcher and came 3rd in Cy Young voting in 1974 and won 20 game twice for me, Jim Lonborg had one good season for me, Fergie Jenkins was dominant for me for two seasons in 1976 and 1977 winning 20 games for the club both times before flaming out in 1978.

Tom Seaver was terrific between 1975 and 1980, but the real star was Steve Carlton dominant from 1978 to 1981, throw in homegrown John Tudor and Mike Paxton who now anchor the staff and the future for the Sox still looks good.

Yaz
Carl Yastrzemski was great no doubt but not for me. I had his basbeall card when I had a visit to the US in 1980 when I was 11 and maybe seeing this old fella on a card didn't appeal to me like other cards I had the time like Ron Guidry, Dave Parker and Steve Henderson. I think that's why Yaz was never my favorite in this sim, maybe one of those GM hates player no matter what things.

I never got excited by his appearance on my laptop, I was more taken with Reggie Smith's exploits. With the emergence of Cecil Cooper I traded him to Pittsburgh in 1974 where he sadly faded away- heartbroken he was never a force again. IRL he was productive for 6 more seasons.

Rico Petrocelli
Another of my favorites. What power for a shortstop in that era! Petrocelli stayed with me until 1976. He was a 6 time All Star in my sim. Petrocelli was still playing at the end of the last season 1982 on the bench in Cleveland.

This offseason he is looking for a club. I never knew much about him before this sim and tended to confuse him with Tony C. OOTP has taught me something new yet again. What a player! I was sad to him go. It looks like as of the offseason that he is done but if he has he has finished with 305 HR.

Tony C
Tony Conigliaro was still a star when I got to Boston in 1969 hung in there, by 1970 he slumped and in 1971 he was done or so I thought. He came back much to my surprise in 1973 with .253 17 62 in limited duty. I kept him on the club until 1974 when I traded him with Di Lauro, Burgmeir and immortal Jim Lonborg and £100,000 for Ferguson Jenkins.

Tony C played his last game for the Padres in 1979 was still playing in 1981 at Triple A Salt Lake hitting .277 15 48 in limited action before hanging up his cleats.

With the homegrown talent since 1969 how did the real Red Sox only get to one World Series? Yankees aside. That said my club got to 2 winning 1. The challenge is now to take the Sox to the World Series again and again use the homegrown, with Boggs on the club and a young pitcher about to come up this is highly possible. Oh the young pitcher?

Roger "The Rocket" Clemens.

[JohnHoward]

Reggie Smith was a really outstanding player, smart and athletic. He never gets his due, for whatever reason. But he was the best Reggie in baseball when he played, no matter what the other Reggie thinks. He dominates my replays, always winning multiple MVPs.

[Dr.K]

Originally Posted by JohnHoward

Reggie Smith was a really outstanding player, smart and athletic. He never gets his due, for whatever reason. But he was the best Reggie in baseball when he played, no matter what the other Reggie thinks. He dominates my replays, always winning multiple MVPs.

Reggie Jackson has 396 HR at age 36 and has only once hit 40 home runs and that was in 1973. Reggie Smith missed 1973 in my sim and still has more home runs. Reggie Jackson has still been a star though with 1 MVP title and 7 All Star appearances and has won 2 WS rings with the A's.

Nice to have the comparison, though my Reggie is much better and the real Reggie Smith it looks like was undervalued.

[Caporegime]

Originally Posted by Dr.K

With the homegrown talent since 1969 how did the real Red Sox only get to one World Series?

Obviously by making bad personnel decisions. Although, and it feels strange for me as a Yankee fan to defend the Sox under any circumstances, some of those decisions weren't as boneheaded as they may seem in retrospect. The Reggie Smith trade, for example, netted them Rick Wise & Bernie Carbo. Wise, while he'll never draw comparisons to Clemens or Pedro, was a productive starting pitcher pitcher nonetheless who had actually been traded for Steve Carlton just a couple of years before. He won 19 games for the '75 Sox, and Bernie Carbo was as solid a platoon player/pinch hitter as there was in baseball at the time. For the perennially pitching-challenged Red Sox, that trade made sense at the time. Also consider the fact that Reggie Smith was a center fielder for the Sox. If he's still in center in 1975, where do you put Freddie Lynn, or Jim Rice, who also debuted in '75 as their left fielder? With Smith in front of one of those two guys, maybe they end up get traded somewhere else.

The Cecil Cooper trade also makes sense if you look back on the circumstances of the Red Sox when the trade was made. Cooper was a solid hitter and defensive first bagger when the Sox traded him to the Brewers, but he was hardly the offensive monster he would become three years later with the Brew-Crew. George Scott, whom the Sox got for Cooper, had been with the Sox earlier in his career and was considered by many to be the quintessential Fenway Park hitter - big, strong, right-handed power hitter. Indeed, he popped 33 hr's and drove in 95 rbi his first year back with the Sox. After that, however, he faded fast.

The John Tudor trade made later can certainly be argued was a bad one. However, there's even a logic explanation for that one as well. It was widely believed at the time that lefty starting pitchers simply couldn't reach their full potential pitching half their games at Fenway because of the Green Monster. The second deck hadn't been added yet to Fenway above the grandstand and fly balls to left, even ones not struck particularly well, all seemed to carry better. Tudor's numbers with the Sox were mediocre, as was that of his teammate, another excellent lefty to come out of the Sox farm system at that time, Bobby Ojeda. In the case of Tudor, there was really nothing in his early career with the Sox that would've indicated that he develop into the ace that he briefly became with the Cards in the mid-80's.

At any rate, just a few rambling thoughts I figured I'd share with you.

[JMDurron]

So, I could go off on the wasted potential of the 1970s Red Sox for...a little while. The shortened version is that the ownership and management of the team consisted of complete morons, all the way up to Haywood Sullivan as the GM from 1978-1983. Even Dick O'Connell, from 1965-1977, lacked two key pieces.

1) The ability to make the Yawkey family not a bunch of racist morons from South Carolina. Reggie Smith, George Scott, and Cecil Cooper aren't quite as likely to have been traded away quickly in their primes if they had been white.
2) The lack of understanding of park factors, and what that meant to the pitching staff. Fenway Park in the 1970s was a hitter's paradise, but the team didn't understand that meant that effective pitchers might put up less impressive numbers, but still be better at doing their jobs than guys with equivalent stats in more pitcher-friendly environments.

George Scott was mentioned by Capo above, but the trade to bring him back (well, what was left of him at that point, trading a prime Cecil Cooper for 33-year-old Scott was stupid) has nothing on the trade that sent him away, with a bunch of other players, for essentially nothing in return.

October 10, 1971: Traded by the Boston Red Sox with Ken Brett, Billy Conigliaro, Joe Lahoud, Jim Lonborg and Don Pavletich to the Milwaukee Brewers for Patrick Skrable (minors), Tommy Harper, Lew Krausse and Marty Pattin.

Ken Brett ended up being a serviceable starter from 1973-1976, so the team's inability to evaluate pitching hurt it at a key time. Conigliaro was no big loss. LaHoud was a pinch-hitting specialist who still had a number of useful years ahead of him, although Carbo's arrival later filled that void. Jim Lonborg ended up being a useful starter from 1972-1977, a period where the Red Sox were always short on pitching. Pavletich never played again.

So, what the Red Sox get for a star corner IF, a good PHer/reserve OFer, and about a decade of decent starting pitching across two players? Skrable never escaped the minors. Tommy Harper was a starting OFer in 1972 and 1973, before giving way to the RF legend of Dwight Evans as Harper's offense collapsed. Harper held the Red Sox single-season SB record until Jacoby Ellsbury came along recently. Lew Krausse was a scrub pitcher who never did anything. Marty Pattin ended up being a serviceable SP for the Red Sox in 72 ad 73, and was a good reliever for the Royals later on in the decade.

That's just one example, from one trade. It gets worse as you work through the decade, and becomes a complete travesty once the combined incompetence of Don Zimmer and Haywood Sullivan came to bear at the end of the decade.

Cliff's Notes version - Stupid trades, dumb ownership, and an inability to evaluate pitchers.

[Papi]

One of the first real dynasties I ever played, started with the '67 Sox. I played up through 1993, into 1994. Reggie Smith was a monster for me as well, Tony C hit 500 homeruns and Ellis Burks hit 62 homeruns in 1992. Those are the three that have stuck with me for years.