The Chicken Or The Egg -- Performance, Chemistry And The Team v. The Individual

By Deb McIver
Posted Sunday, August 26, 2007

There’s been a lot of talk lately on the relative importance of a player’s clubhouse presence and team “chemistry” as opposed to actual player performance. We saw this in particular, lately, with one Julio “Gone to Atlanta” Franco, who was always pretty much viewed as a “great clubhouse guy.” It now turns out, interestingly enough, that he may actually have been more of a clubhouse distraction than attraction, and maybe it’s time we addressed these issues here at FU.

I think there’s little argument that as a manager, an owner and a fan, one would take performance over everything, hands down. You always want the best guys you can get at each position; a starting staff comprised of five aces; a bullpen comprised of six or seven guys that you can always count on. Or as close thereto as you can get, on whatever budget you have to work with. And once you get those guys, theoretically, you should have a pretty good and at least decently competitive team if you’ve done your statistical homework and gotten the best performer you can for reasonable amounts of money. Right? Well, not necessarily… read on!

Why do teams that are “great on paper” not succeed? Or why do teams who look weaker “on paper” (there’s that paper again!) overachieve? Where does the issue of “clubhouse,” or team chemistry, come into play? And how do we work it into a team’s performance, and accountability, and teamwork? And how do we strike a balance between all of this?

First, I’ve observed over the years that building a team of stars, or putting a “fantasy team,” so to speak, on the field, does not necessarily produce a winner. I offer for your consideration the Yankee teams of the past few years. The teams are packed with bona fide major league “stars,” the payroll has swollen to a size which would probably span the globe, a couple of times over, yet the success rate has dropped pretty dramatically compared to the teams the Yankees fielded in the late 1900s and even earlier this century. Why is that? Take a closer look – there is ego, on top of ego, on top of …. yep, you guessed it – more ego! You have guys who want to be “the” star, “the” marquee player, “the” focus, and in the opinion of this fan, the concept of the team and team play has suffered because of the Clash of the Egos. And the money, too, of course; there’s always money involved. Add that to the fact that of course every other team is gunning for the Yankees, and you have what you have been seeing on YES every evening for the past few years.

Even before that, we’ve seen this phenomenon in our own Mets’ backyard. Look no further than your own 1992 Mets, the subject of the Klapisch book “The Worst Team Money Could Buy.” I personally will never forgive Steve Phillips for Bobby Bonilla – TWICE….. !!!!!! But aside from just Bonilla, that team had the biggest stars, the biggest egos, the biggest bunch of, uh, disruptive and just plain disagreeable personalities that the good dollars of the owners could buy; little wonder, it flopped flat as a soggy pancake.

Then of course, you have a team like, say, the 1986 Mets, who despite raucous on and off the field behavior, ridiculous clubhouse antics, pretty much confirmed rampant drug use, drinking and various versions of late-night partying, won it all, big, that year. Of course, they collapsed pretty much after that, a shadow of their former selves, and you ended up with the 1992 team I described above.

So what do these things tell us?

Well, I submit they tell us several things.

The first is that money, contrary to popular belief, ain’t everything – hell, it ain’t even CLOSE to being everything! I guess if simply building a fantasy team and having all the money in the world to do it were that easy, everybody’d hop on that wagon! Sure, having all the money in the world to work with is nice, but as we saw, it doesn’t necessarily mean one is going to be successful, or even put a good and watchable product on the field. Why? Very simple. Money has no character, no conscience, no morality, no nuttin’. It just is. So it’s not strange at all that we see that many of these guys who just chase the money, and go to the highest bidder, exhibit those same characteristics. Money is simply a means to an end, and I think we’ve seen that end isn’t necessarily the one we hoped we were buying, unless, of course, we introduce other things into the equation. Like, well, see below.

The second is that chemistry and clubhouse presence, contrary to popular belief, ain’t nothing – hell, they ain’t even CLOSE to being nothing. And if you look more closely, you have the dreaded “c” (character) word lurking there in the background, peeking its ugly head through, emitting a heartfelt wail, just dying to be heard from! What a team needs to look for, I submit, is the best person for the position performance wise, budgetary wise, and in terms of the character and chemistry of that player and the team on which he’ll actually be playing! For example, Alex Rodriguez. Yeah, I know, but he’s the best example I can think of. There is no doubt he’s probably the most prolific and talented player of our generation. And his individual statistics and performances are off the charts. Yet there seem to be problems with Alex on each and every team on which he’s played, things which just never seem to get resolved, and linger on like a bad odor in your neighborhood delicatessen…. I’ve long said that in my opinion, it will be a cold day in you-know-where before a team having Alex as one of its members will ever win a championship, and nothing I’ve seen to date has changed my mind.

So, now for the big question -- as great a player as Alex without a doubt is, and assuming you had the money, would YOU have him on YOUR team? The talent and performance are there, in spades. Yet he comes with an entire set of problems all his own. There’s the ego thing (his and those of your other players), for one thing. Then there’s the jealousy factor (which I suppose is a part of the ego thing, maybe), there’s the “all A-Rod, all the time” factor, and in my opinion, the rest of my team would have to be structured in such a way that they would welcome, and not shun or detest, the addition of Alex. And not by just lip service, either. So, you gotta be smart here! You gotta know your players, and know how Alex does or doesn’t fit. The temptation to acquire this over-the-top superstar is so great, that I don’t think these “other factors” are considered to any significant degree, and maybe that’s why Alex hasn’t been on a championship team, because with his bat, he should be able to pretty much carry any offense on his shoulders!

So what’s the answer? Be smart. Be cautious. Be wary. Don’t be afraid to go for the big bat, or the big pitcher, or even the big ego, or the “troublemaker,” but do your homework. Consider the mid-level veteran, the guy who’s been consistent and reliable throughout his career. Don’t dismiss your young talent! Consider the character, or lack thereof, of any particular player. Don’t be overly tempted, and consider the concept of team.

And as many have said before me, “there ain’t no ‘I’ in team!”

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