Investment Report Card

A lot has been said in the blogosphere, on talk radio and even the print media--to the extent people still read the print media in its native format--about Theo Epstein and Co's talent evaluation quotient. I have seen many baseball aficionados going on the record to say that beginning in 2003 when the new ownership group led by John Henry took over the Boston Red Sox and Theo Epstein became the youngest General Manager to helm a major league baseball team, the track record of the Baseball Operations department at No. 4 Yawkey Way in identifying, acquiring and retaining talent has been mixed at best. Let's take a closer look.

On the positive side of the equation there are 10 players that are readily identifiable as either good pickups, acquisitions or players developed through the Red Sox farm system. They are: David Ortiz, Curt Schilling, Keith Foulke (for 2004 only), Orlando Cabrera (for 2004), Dave Roberts (the "The Stolen Base" only), Jonathan Papelbon, Hideki Okijima, Dustin Pedroia, Dice-K, Mike Lowell and Josh Beckett. On the negative side of the equation, which includes those who got away through ill-conceived trades, free agency, as well as those who have not panned out as planned are: Orlando Cabrera, Edgar Rentaria, Alex Gonzalez (15 hr for the Reds so far this year) Josh Bard, Cla Meredith, Wily Mo Pena, Freddy Sanchez, Willie Harris (hitting .328 for the Braves) and Hanley Ramirez. Finally, there are those players for whom the jury is still out. They are: Julio Lugo, Coco Crisp, John Lester--yes John Lester is still an undecided in my book--and J.D. Drew. Therefore, Theo Epstein's linescore looks something like this: approximately 10 good moves, 9 bad moves and 4 yet to be determined moves. This represents a track record of about 50/50. Not too bad of a result for your average baseball operations department but not the type of results the Red Sox Nation expects when competing year in and year out with the US$185 million payroll of the Evil Empire New York Yankees.

This, however, is not the full picture and probably not the most appropriate benchmark to evaluate the success, or lack thereof, of the Red Sox baseball operations department. A more appropriate benchmark would be a metric that is commonly used on Wall Street or elsewhere in the financial investment community. Let's pretend, for example, that Theo and Co. were either private equity investors, venture capitalists or some other type of investment fund managers. Let's also pretend that John Henry, Principle Owner of the Boston Red Sox, entrusted Theo and Co. with about US$140 million per year to invest in a "Roster of Players." Would it be correct to assume that if after 3-4 years Theo and Co. were able to report back to their "investors" that they had been successful in 50% of their investments--and really successful (read: Google type investment returns) in 3 of their total investments (Ortiz, Papelbon and Okijima), that they should be favorably compared to someone like investment guru Warren Buffett (or perhaps even legendary hedge fund manager John Henry himself)?