Looking Back at the Dan Duquette Era

Bob Z's series looking at the drafting, trades, and acquisitions of Theo Epstein's tenure inspired me to take a walk down (mostly bad) memory lane to the Dan Duquette era. For those of you who never wanted to hear his name again and are now scrubbing your eyes out with holy water, I apologize. To get a comprehensive look at Duquette's performance, separate from the narrative that sprang up around him during his time and after he left, I examined the results of his front office in four areas: Drafting and player development, free agents and acquisitions, internal contract decisions, and major trades. The results may surprise you. 

References: All info from the amazing baseball-reference.com. Duquette's tenure ran from January 1994 to March 2002. He was fired immediately after the Henry/Werner/Lucchino ownership group took control. Mike Port was interim GM for the 2002 season (I might do a piece on him, as the FO under him drafted Lester among other things). Theo Epstein was hired as GM thereafter. We head to the Duke after the jump.

Part 1: Drafting/Internal Development

 Drafting under Duquette was, for lack of a better word, horrific. Out of the eight drafts overseen by Duquette the only players of note to meaningfully contribute to the Red Sox, either by play or by bringing other players via trade, were:

A star shortshop (Nomar), league-average 1B (Hillenbrand), league-average reliever (Delcarmen), and star 1B (Youkilis) were the only productive homegrown products over EIGHT long years to reach the MLB team. Four players! When people reference bad drafting eventually coming around to cripple a franchise, this is what they mean. Whether it was inattention, lack of resources, poor talent evaluation, or some combination of all that, the Red Sox struggled badly to develop homegrown players. This unfortunately played right into Duquette’s most aggravating hobby: snatching up aging veterans to fill whatever random holes the team had. Predictably, there was no shortage of those. Overall grade: D+

Part 2: Free Agents, Pickups

(April 1995) 1B/OF Reggie Jefferson for 5yr/9.75M. Hit .316/.363/.505 over the contract, including .347/.388/.593 over 122 games in 1996 that ranks among the more forgotten monster offensive seasons from a Red Sox player. Unfortunately he could not stay healthy and played only 145 games in the last 2 years. Still, for an average of less than 2M/yr, a decent overall signing. Grade:  B+

(April 1995) RHP Erik Hanson for 1yr/1.5M. Despite mediocre peripherals, managed 15 wins and 2.7 WAR as solid part of a playoff-team rotation, for cheap. Grade: B

(April 1995) LF Troy O’Leary off waivers from Brewers. Hit .276/.331/.459 over 7 years, including .280/.343/.495 with some very memorable HR’s for the 1999 playoff team. Totaled 5.5 WAR, paid 16M. Decent, cheaply acquired acquisition, provided affordable league-average production. Grade: B+

(April 1995) RHP Tim Wakefield. 183 wins and almost 3000 innings later, I’ll call this a good decision. Grade: A

(December 1995) C/1B Mike Stanley. Although Stanley was aging (33) and 1996 was his last year catching full-time, he made up for it with his bat, hitting .270/.383/.506 with 24 HR in 1996. Stanley was hitting .300/.394/.515 midway through 1997 when he began a bizarre saga of musical chairs through the AL East, getting traded to the Yankees for pitching prospect Tony Armas. As the Red Sox were nowhere near contention in 1997 and Armas later became an integral piece of the trade for you-know-who, this was actually a rather shrewd move by Duquette in the long run. Stanley then became a FA at the end of the year and signed with the Blue Jays, who then traded him back to the Red Sox midway through 1998. Regardless, Stanley hit .274/.381/.483 over his time with Boston, producing 6.3 total WAR while being paid only 11.4M total. Grade: A-

(December 1995) RHP Rich Garces. Over seven years with the Red Sox, El Guapo threw 307 innings with 270 K’s and a 3.78 ERA, totaling 3.8 WAR out of the bullpen while being paid only 5M total. A cheap, efficient pickup. Grade: A-

(December 1995) RHP Tom Gordon. "Flash" produced a surprising 8.5 WAR for 13M during his four years in Boston, thanks to a very effective 1997 that nobody seems to remember and his electric 1998 as closer. He never seemed to do well under pressure, but that turned out to be a blessing in 2004 eh? Grade: A-

(January 1997) – LHP Steve Avery for 2yr/8.75M. Avery was emblematic of Duquette’s worst habit: a penchant for signing ineffective aging pitchers on the cheap to fill out the starting rotation behind Pedro. Perhaps he hoped they would gain dominance via osmosis. Avery was shelled from the start and totaled only 220 IP in a Red Sox uniform with a hideous 113:108 BB/K ratio. Even more inexplicable was the fact he had been signed in the first place, as Avery had not really been effective since 1993. Total: -1.2 WAR and a bill for 8.75M. Likely Duquette’s worst pitching signing. Grade: F

(August 1998) Purchased LHP Pete Schourek from Astros. Yet another player in the "Pedro and 4 bums" game. Duquette was oddly enamored with Schourek, re-acquiring him two more times after this one. In total over parts of 3 years: 181 IP, 4.81 ERA, a stellar 5-18 record. Duquette expended 2.8M total on him for 1.3 WAR.Grade: D+

(November 1998) 2B/SS Jose Offerman for 4yr/24M. Offerman provided one solid year when he hit .294/.391/.435 in 1999 with 56 extra-base hits, despite poor defense. From then on, he was essentially replacement level. The Red Sox received 4.2 WAR total for their 24M. Grade: D

(December 1998) RHP Mark Portugal for 1yr/2.7M. Portugal was 36, a lifelong NL pitcher with his best days long behind him. He fared about as well as you’d expect, getting clubbed for a 5.51 ERA and 28 HR in only 150 IP, good for 0.2 WAR. Grade: F

(December 1998) 1B Brian Daubach. Daubach had an excellent season for the 1999 playoff team, hitting .294/.360/.562 and finishing fourth for Rookie of the Year. Unfortunately he quickly regressed to a league-average hitter, damping hopes of stardom. Nevertheless, Daubach hit .265/.341/.488 over his time with the Red Sox, good for an .829 OPS. He generated 5.6 WAR for a total cost of only 3.7M. A good, efficient signing, if not spectacular; unfortunately it was Duquette’s first in years. Grade: A-

(January 1999) RHP Pat Rapp for 1yr/1.65M. Hmm, Rapp actually wasn’t THAT bad although my memory begs otherwise. Rapp was worth 1.8 WAR for the year, managing a 4.12 ERA over 146 innings. Grade: C-

(March 1999) RHP Ramon Martinez for 2yr/7.8M. Pedro’s big bro had not been fully healthy for several years before this signing, threw only 20 innings in the 1999 regular season, and was annihilated for a 6.13 ERA over 27 starts in 2000. Duquette shrugged and went back to the scrap heap. Ramon provided a grand total of 0.2 WAR (monetary value of brotherly love with Pedro, not included) for 7.8M down the drain. Grade: F

(December 1999) LHP Jeff Fassero for 1yr/2M. Sigh. Aging veteran pitcher signed by Duquette, puts up mediocre performance, misses significant time with injuries. News at eleven. Still, 1.6 WAR for 2M isn’t a total disaster. Grade: C-

(December 2000) RHP Hideo Nomo for 1yr/4.5M. Nomo struck out 220 in 198 innings and produced 2.9 WAR, along with throwing a no-hitter and actually giving Pedro a respectable partner in the rotation. It’s tempting to give Duquette the broken-clock joke of being right twice a day, but I will give credit where credit is due. Grade: B

(December 2000) LF Manny Ramirez for 8yr, 160M with two 20M team options. Arguably the contract that set in motion the events leading to 2004. Nobody needs to be refreshed on the Manny saga. He was among the most gifted hitters to ever play the game, and nearly as adept at bumbling away runs with the glove that he created with his bat. On the one hand, Manny was (when he felt like it) an offensive force of the sort the franchise had not seen since Ted Williams, and was a critical piece of the 2004 and 2007 titles. On the other hand, the massive contract, endless distractions, and hilariously bad defense. One’s sentiments on Manny, and opinion of how important he was to ‘04 and ‘07, are likely the determining factor on judging this contract. My grade: C+

(January 2001) RHP David Cone for 1yr/1M. 38 years old, check. Limited by injuries to 135 innings, check. Mediocre 1.8 WAR, check. At least he came cheap. Grade: C-

(December 2001) RHP John Burkett for 2yr/11M. 37 years old, check. Burkett did stay healthy, but was league-average to poor, putting up a 4.85 ERA over 354 innings. Total production: only 2.3 WAR for 11M. Grade: D

(December 2001) Signed OF Johnny Damon for 4yr/31M. Damon produced 12.1 WAR over the duration of the contract while hitting .295/.362/.441 and, of course, playing an instrumental role in the 2004 championship. Overall, a strong signing and nothing to complain about. Grade: A-

Summary: Duquette’s surprising skill at finding value from junkyard position players and relievers was almost entirely offset by his inexplicable obsession with signing aged, low-upside, veteran starters for cheap. Had Pedro been capable of pitching every day, this might not have been a problem. Instead, Duquette’s starting-pitching acquisitions were a nonstop parade of money down the drain. Until Derek Lowe showed up, the Red Sox rotation usually consisted of Pedro, Wakefield, and a 3-man traveling circus. From a historical standpoint, the Manny signing basically set the gears in motion that would lead to the World Series championship, though few could have suspected or predicted that.

Part 3: Internal Contracts (Extensions, non signings, etc)

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(December 1996) Did not re-sign Roger Clemens. Ah yes, the infamous "twilight of his career" saga. We now know, of course, that Roger was putting a little more than milk in his Corn Flakes. The reality is that this situation was more complex than the common portrayal of being an embarrassment for Duquette. On one hand, Clemens did post a very strong season in 1996, piling up 242 IP and 257 K’s. On the other hand, he was 34, with recurring injury issues over the last several years, had barely produced 2 WAR in both 1993 and 1995, and was demanding a multi-year contract with a significant pay raise. If the situation were repeated today, would you have re-signed him? Given the circumstances at the time, I cannot blame Duquette for refusing to bite. Last but not least, the loss of Clemens and absence of a frontline starter directly led to the trade for Pedro Martinez, the man who would replace him as the most dominant starter in Red Sox history, and who had been targeted by the Yankees as well. How would history have been different if the Red Sox had held onto an aging Clemens, while the Yankees had acquired Pedro in his prime? I don’t even want to think about that shit. Grade: A

(December 1996) Re-signed 3B Tim Naehring for 2yr/5.5M. In itself this was not a bad decision as Naehring provided decent offense and a strong OBP. However, due to injury Naehring played only 70 games in 1997 and did not play at all in 1998. While the short length of contract helped mitigate the damage, most of this ended up as money down the drain. Grade: D+

(December 1997) Re-signed RHP Bret Saberhagen for 4yr/16.8M. After signing Saberhagen to a 500K deal the year before to test his recovery from surgery, Duquette evidently was confident enough in his health to give him four years through his age-37 season. "Sabes" managed to hold together for 1998 and two-thirds of 1999 before his shoulder imploded yet again. He did not pitch at all in 2000 and only threw 15 innings in 2001, totaling 5.8 WAR for the life of the contract. Why Duquette felt inclined to sign someone with Saberhagen’s long history of injury trouble through his late 30’s is beyond me. To his credit, Saberhagen was effective when healthy; however, two entire years of sunk cost almost entirely offset the positive value gained. Grade: C 

(December 1997) Extended RHP Pedro Martinez for 6yr/75M with 17M option, for 7yr/92M total. At the time, this represented the largest contract ever given to a pitcher. The deal thus covered Pedro’s age-26 to 32 seasons at an average annual value of just over 13M. In hindsight, the amount of risk Duquette took on with this was significant: not only the historic duration and cost of the contract, but the fact that Pedro had not yet thrown a single pitch in the AL (not to mention injury risk). In the end, he pulled the trigger anyways. Imagine if the extension had been shorter. Say, trying to re-sign Pedro after 2000? In the end, worth every god damn cent. Grade: A+

(January 1998) Signed IF John Valentin to a 4yr/24.4M extension. After repeatedly demanding an extension, Valentin was granted his wish with a 4 year contract covering his age 31-34 seasons, with a team option for the fifth year. He proceeded to post one more good year in 1998, then went into precipitous decline. A significant knee injury didn’t help matters. Valentin played only 30 games combined in the last 2 years of the contract. For Duquette’s 24 million he received 5.1 WAR total, and what amounted to one and a half seasons’ worth of playing time. While Duquette could not have predicted Valentin’s career ending injury troubles, he should have known better than to give a long extension to a middle infielder entering his mid 30’s. The result was three years of sunk cost. Grade: D+

(October 1998) Declined FA contract to 1B Mo Vaughn. While putting up a .337/.402/.591 season with 40 HR, Vaughn had publicly feuded with Duquette and Boston sports media for much of the year (ah, the late 90’s Red Sox. I remember those days), then infamously crashed his car while returning from the Foxy Lady strip club. Duquette made no effort to resign Vaughn, who promptly signed with the Angels for a 6yr/80M contract for his age 31-36 seasons. He almost immediately began to decline, suffered numerous injury problems, missed all of 2001, and by the end of 2003 was out of baseball. Considering his body type and age, letting Vaughn walk was a good decision. Whether or not Duquette actually did so out of baseball smarts or simple personal dislike for the man is a mystery, but the outcome was undoubtedly positive. Grade: A

(August 2000) Waived SS David Eckstein. Eckstein had been a 19th round pick in 1997. Eckstein promptly put up 17.4 WAR over the next six years with the Angels and Cardinals. Eckstein’s loss is somewhat more defensible given that Nomar was already occupying the SS spot at the MLB level, but this still counts as a faux pas in talent evaluation for throwing away a useful MLB player, while getting nothing in return. Grade: F

Summary: Letting Clemens walk, aggressively extending Pedro, and not re-signing Vaughn were three excellent moves, all of which could have derailed the franchise for years if mishandled. Again, your mileage may vary on whether the Clemens/Vaughn decisions were due to baseball smarts or just the soap-opera atmosphere of the mid 90’s Red Sox, but either way the team was better off for it. While Duquette whiffed on some other transactions, the importance of those top 3 moves pushes his overall record into the positive for me.

Part 4 – Major Trades

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(December 1994) OF Otis Nixon & Jose Ortiz to Rangers for OF Jose Canseco. Nixon/Ortiz were replacement level. Canseco OPS’d .933 and .989 in 1995-1996 but only appeared in 198 games total, along with an 0-13 (Adamantium sombrero?) in the 1995 playoffs.. Still, given how little he cost, a win. Grade: B

(July 1995) RHP Frankie Rodriguez to Twins for RHP Rick Aguilera. Rodriguez quickly flamed out. Aguilera was lights out as a stretch run bullpen pickup, tallying 20 saves. A prototypical low-cost trade. Grade: B

(January 1996) Shayne Bennett, Ryan McGuire, LHP Rheal Cormier to Expos for SS Wil Cordero. This trade looked like an absolute steal for Duquette at the start, as Cormier was an aging lefty reliever and the other two names amounted to nothing. Cordero was only 23 and full of potential, having hit .294/.363/.489 with 15 HR in his age-22 season with Montreal. With Boston, however, his offensive game regressed along with his health. Cordero logged only 822 plate appearances as a Red Sox and was unceremoniously dumped after abrasive behavior and reports of domestic abuse against  his wife. He produced only 1.2 WAR at a total cost of 4.85M. Grade: D

(January 1996) Traded Glenn Murray, Ken Ryan and Lee Tinsley to Phillies for RHP Heathcliff Slocumb. Most Red Sox fans capable of remembering Slocumb suppress involuntary shudders at the mention of his name. Surprisingly, however, Slocumb was actually quite valuable in 1996, logging 83 innings out of the bullpen. Baseball Reference credits him with 3.8 WAR for this; Fangraphs is far less generous at 2.3. Nevertheless, Slocumb was acquired for bits of flotsam and was paid only 3.7M during his two years in Boston. For that price he provided one effective (if nerve-wracking) season as the anchor of the bullpen, before being cashed in as a trade chip for the Duke’s second-most memorable trade. Grade: B

(July 1997) Traded RHP Heathcliff Slocumb to Mariners for RHP Derek Lowe and C Jason Varitek. One of the most lopsided trades of the 90’s, and for that matter Red Sox history. Slocumb was ineffective with Seattle and bounced around the majors for a few more years. Lowe and Varitek became integral parts of two World Series championship teams and were extremely productive players for several years. Overall, the kind of trade GM’s dream of. Fortunately for Red Sox history, Duquette had one more major trick up his sleeve. Grade: A+

(November 1997) Traded RHP Carl Pavano and Tony Armas to Expos for RHP Pedro Martinez. Though Duquette’s tenure was generally marked by terrible drafting and development, give him credit for being able to sway Montreal with Pavano, a 1994 draft pick. In one of the rivalry’s enduring ironies, Armas had been acquired from the Yankees only months before for Mike Stanley, thus giving Boston a superior trade package to entice Montreal over New York. Pavano never did much with the Expos, thrived with the Marlins, bombed hilariously with the Yankees, and is still hanging on at age 35. Armas actually had a few decent seasons for the Expos, but struggled with injuries and was cooked by the time he turned 28. I don’t need to say anything about Pedro. Grade: A+

(August 1999) – Traded RHP Mark Guthrie to Cubs for RHP Rod Beck. Guthrie quickly faded into obscurity, while Beck was acquired to shore up the bullpen for a playoff run. The Cubs, though, were likely happy to have Duquette take on Beck’s swollen contract. While Beck was quite effective out of the bullpen for the next few years, it came with an 8M price tag. Beck did total 2.6 WAR, but overall, the reward was insufficient to justify the cost, especially for a reliever. Long story short, impulsive stretch-run trades for relievers are generally an unwise idea. Grade: C+

(December 1999) Traded LHP Greg Miller and SS Adam Everett to Astros for OF Carl Everett. Miller never made the majors, while Adam Everett has been about a replacement-level shortstop for most of his career. Jurassic Carl, meanwhile, put up a monster .300/.373/.587 season with 34 HR in 2000 before running himself out of town with an injury-wracked and generally misanthropic 2001. His enduring legacy, of course, was coining the nickname “Curly-Haired Boyfriend” for Globe sportswriter Dan Shaughnessy. Mostly on the strength of 2000, Everett totaled 5 WAR with Boston, for a total cost of 12.3M. Grade: CHB

(July 2000) Traded Jeff Taglienti, Jeff Frye, Brian Rose, and John Wasdin to Rockies for RHP Rolando Arrojo, RHP Rich Croushore, and 2B Mike Lansing. None of the names going to Colorado were missed. Croushore only threw 5 innings in MLB. Arrojo produced 3 WAR total over 3 years at a cost of 3.5M. Lansing, an (wait for it) aging veteran, was hideous, totaling -1.3 WAR with Boston on the hook for his 6.25M salary. Bottom line: 1.7 WAR for nearly 10M spent. Duquette’s affinity (fascination? Obsession?) with washed-up players continued to rear its head. Grade: D-

(August 2000) Traded John Curtice and Chris Reitsma to Reds for OF Dante Bichette. Curtice and Reitsma did not amount to much. Bichette was long past his prime, struggled to stay healthy and was barely league-average in the outfield, managing only an .801 OPS in his tenure with Boston. Normally you would write that off as a lose-lose and move on, except that Duquette also took on Bichette’s 7M salary for 2001. 0.5 WAR says hi. Grade: D-

(June 2001) Traded RHP Justin Duchscherer to Rangers for C Doug Mirabelli. Ugh…just ugh. True, Duchscherer has been unable to stay healthy with Oakland, but in 440 career innings he has still put up a 2.82 ERA and 336:117 K/BB ratio, producing 10.3 WAR for the A’s at a total cost of only 5.1M. Mirabelli was a replacement-level backup catcher, if that. Simply a bad evaluation of talent. Grade: F

(July 2001) Traded RHP Tomo Ohka and Rich Rundles to Expos for RHP Ugueth Urbina. Ohka and his junkball repertoire did fairly well in the easier environs of the NL, while Rundles never panned out. Good old UUU did what he was brought in to do: provide lights-out relief. Urbina compiled 80 innings of shutdown pitching for Boston, striking out 103 against 23 walks with 49 saves from 2001-2002. Total outlay: 2.3 WAR out of the bullpen for the cost of Urbina’s 6.7M contract. Grade: B+

Summary: Duquette’s trades are a mixed bag. When he fell into his old habits of lusting for old veterans, the results were predictable. The Lowe/Varitek and Pedro trades, however, were such massive steals with such long-term impact on the organization that I can’t help but think they overshadow all the small-potatoes crap ones he pulled off.

Long story short: To Duquette’s credit, he pulled off some incredibly shrewd trades, found cheap value in position player FA signings, and made smart decisions with internal contracts. The Lowe/Varitek trade, letting Clemens/Vaughn walk, and everything involving Pedro laid the foundation for the 2004 championship. At the same time, he was also crippled by his habit of throwing money at declining veteran pitchers, drafted terribly, and as a result was never quite able to build a strong 1-through-25 roster. The Red Sox teams of Duquette’s era were instead characterized by a handful of larger-than-life stars and a whole lot of journeymen. This, more than anything else, was in my opinion the culprit for the playoff futility of those Red Sox teams. The utter lack of talent from the farm system meant that he was constantly looking for more cheap scrap heap solutions to fill whatever hole was leaking water that week. I shudder to think what he would have done with $150M of financial resources to play with. Lastly, Duquette’s interactions with the media, fanbase, and even his own players ranged from eccentric at best to belligerent at worst. When times were good, this was an amusing sideshow. When times were bad, it dragged down the team and everybody along with it.

With this perspective on our immediate past, I am grateful every day for the ownership group, GM, and front office that we have running this team today. Much of the fanbase has no idea how lucky they really are to actually have competence at the head of the organization. That said, Duquette also does not deserve the venom that his name automatically seems to connote nowadays. While he certainly had his weaknesses, he also pulled off some extremely bold and aggressive baseball decisions that changed the face of the Boston Red Sox for the better. His front office was not going to lead this team to a championship, but in the end he did leave his successors the foundation for a World Series-caliber team.