what happened to the red sox player david price tonite
Michael Dwyer/Associated Printing
The most expensive pitcher in Major League Baseball history is injured, seemingly declining and at war with the media.
And information technology hasn't fifty-fifty been 2 years for David Toll and the Boston Red Sox.
Everyone had reasons for optimism when the sides agreed to a record seven-year, $217 meg bargain in 2015. He was the 2012 American League Cy Young Award winner, and coming off his second ERA championship. They were a team that desperately needed pitching. A perfect matrimony, indeed.
Only maybe that's why it should take been expected to plow bad.
The preamble was inauspicious yet innocent. Price disappointed on the mound in 2016, turning in a three.99 ERA in 35 regular-season starts plus 1 dud in the postseason. Just off the mound, he kept his cool.
Now in 2017, stuff has gotten real.
Cost, who'll turn 32 on Aug. 26, has pitched to a solid 3.82 ERA in 11 starts. But a barking left elbow sidelined him for all of Apr and almost of May, and now it has him dorsum on the disabled list.
With Cost out, there's no time similar the present to dissect what'south going on between him and the local media. Because, male child howdy, is it something.
Hither'southward the need-to-know timeline:
- June 7: Toll tells Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe that he's done doing "personal interviews."
- June 8: Steve Buckley of the Boston Herald reports on an incident at Yankee Stadium in which Cost profanely berated reporters, particularly Evan Drellich of CSN New England.
- June 30: Nick Cafardo of the Globe reports on an incident in which Price turned his ire on Hall of Fame pitcher and NESN analyst Dennis Eckersley during a team flight.
This would make for a fascinating case study in a class titled "Wait, What the Hell Happened to This Guy?"
Michael Ivins/Boston Cerise Sox/Getty Images
Price used to be one of the coolest dudes in baseball, oozing charisma on social media and in real life. He had some ugly moments, such equally going off on "NERDS" following a bad start in the 2013 playoffs. But in general, aught as well bad.
Boston itself seems to be turning the crank of Price's heel turn, every bit this paragraph in Shaughnessy's column reveals:
Boston's sports talk radio/Television cowboys (Rick Pitino's "Fellowship of the Miserable") dearest hooting on Toll. The SportsHub'due south Jim Murray does a Price imitation that's radio aureate. Social and mainstream media take gleefully jumped in. Everybody loves Chris Auction and Mookie Betts and Andrew Benintendi, but nobody loves David Price.
No surprise, right? Boston has a history of harsh treatment of star athletes, not to mention a less-than-stellar track record with race relations—Britni De La Cretaz covered that well at DigBoston.com.
If Price, who's African-American, is feeling the barbs of these tendencies, the best thing he could do is address them head-on and speak truths that need to be heard. It would be a noble and potentially valuable crusade.
But instead of a victim with a gripe, he's cast himself as a nifty who can't even option proficient fights.
In the June 8 incident, Price picked a fight over a tweet by Drellich that actually seemed to back up his no-personal-interviews policy.
In the June 30 incident, he picked a fight over a throwaway remark. According to Shaughnessy, Eckersley said "Yuck!" in response to Eduardo Rodriguez'south poor pitching line in a minor league rehab start. For Price, that was far enough over the line to warrant some other profane scolding.
"Standing upward for my teammates," Price said, per Rob Bradford of WEEI.com. "Whatsoever crap I take hold of for that, I'k fine with it."
Only that raises the question of what Cost considers fair coverage, and something he told reporters (Bradford included) most Eckersley several weeks subsequently catches the center: "Always since that's happened, he's been actually good. He's said a lot of positive stuff about everybody in this clubhouse."
It's neither Drellich'due south nor Eckersley'southward job to sing the praises of the Red Sox.
It's Drellich's task to report the news. Information technology's Eckersley'southward job to provide authentic commentary. That's inevitably going to involve telling it like it is near things that are less than crawly.
Like, for example, a rehab first that includes nine hits and half-dozen runs in three innings. Saying "Yuck!" to that isn't character bump-off.
In Price's caput, the two large battles in his media war sprang from unfair slights. In reality, they sprang from two guys doing their jobs.
In the Cost vs. Eckersley feud, Red Sox fans are backing Eck. That became clear when he received a standing ovation at Fenway Park on Tuesday, which Jason Mastrodonato of theBoston Herald got on video:
"I didn't know how to react," Eckersley said, per Buckley. "It was weird. Y'all're getting cheered for getting yelled at. Information technology was weird."
If Price's media feud is less nearly venting and more than well-nigh trying to make full a leadership void in the Boston clubhouse following David Ortiz's retirement, that's as well backfiring.
Dustin Pedroia, a 12-yr Ruddy Sox veteran, called the whole state of affairs a "distraction" in a recent chat with ESPN.com's Scott Lauber and other reporters. Meanwhile, Ortiz and fellow Red Sox fable Wade Boggs have suggested Price needs to chill out.
Of course, cypher can sweep extracurricular strife under the rug like a fine performance on the field. The Red Sox would be getting that if Price were pitching like his best self, and it would return his petty war with the media nothing more than than a silly sideshow.
But at the gamble of straying into the kind of commentary that'southward evidently out of bounds for Price, he but isn't his best self anymore.
Michael Dwyer/Associated Printing
Though Cost was more often than not skillful and very durable in 2016, it's impossible to twist reality into an argument that he lived up to expectations. With his decreased velocity and career worsts in dwelling house runs allowed (30) and OPS against (.721), at that place were likewise warning signs that it wouldn't exist a one-off.
Fast-forward to this year, and the elbow trouble that'south found Cost is as unsurprising every bit it is unwelcome. He's past xxx, and he pitched more innings than anyone from 2010 to 2016. It would be a bigger surprise if his elbow stopped barking than if it became a more than serious problem.
Even when he was pitching, Price was however struggling to stave off decline. The tale was told in his peripherals, such as a strikeout rate continuing to trend downwards and a hard-hit rate that remains elevated:
Thus, the bedrock layer of doom and gloom underneath all the other layers of doom and gloom: Price and the Ruby-red Sox may be stuck with each other.
Yeah, his contract allows him to opt out afterwards 2018. He told Peter Abraham of the Globe, however, that he has no intention to do and then. But the way things are going, that promise rings hollow.
Cost would be spurning four years and $127 meg if he did opt out. A reasonable man would do that just if he believed he could do ameliorate on the open market.
But Price wouldn't get four years and $127 million if he were to hit the open market right now. And given the circumstances, information technology's beyond doubtful that a better deal volition be out there next year. Even if he has to practice so begrudgingly, taking the money he already has in hand volition be the smart play.
So, good luck to Price on finding peace in Boston, likewise as getting healthy and dorsum on rail.
And good luck to the Reddish Sox, who have a lot of coin riding on all of the above.
Data courtesy of Baseball game Reference and FanGraphs.
Source: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2724956-david-prices-217m-red-sox-megadeal-showing-all-the-signs-of-impending-doom
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