John W. Henry is fighting – or, more accurately, typing – on two fronts right now.<\/p>\n
Henry and Red Sox General Manager Ben Cherington have travelled to Seattle<\/a> to meet up with their brow-beaten Boston club, setting off rumours – quickly denied by Henry by e-mail – that manager Bobby Valentine’s ill-fated tenure could be close to its end.<\/p>\n Whilst taking to his laptop or mobile device to answer reporter’s e-mails, Henry tapped out an open letter<\/a> responding to the concerns created by Liverpool FC’s lack of transfer activity at the deadline and their 2-0 defeat by Arsenal on Sunday that condemned the team to their worst start to a season in 50 years (after three league games, that is).<\/p>\n No one ever said owning a sports team was easy and being part-owner\u00c2\u00a0of two of the most iconic\u00c2\u00a0makes you a lightning rod for criticism when things are not going well.<\/p>\n And it’s fair to say things definitely are not going well for either team.<\/p>\n Boston did at least\u00c2\u00a0receive a stroke of luck recently courtesy of the new ownership group in Los Angeles. A week ago I was pondering<\/a> the Dodgers’ trade for Gonzalez, Crawford and Beckett, querying whether the Red Sox’s owners could be\u00c2\u00a0fortunate enough\u00c2\u00a0to find a willing partner to rid their English\u00c2\u00a0football team\u00c2\u00a0of a similarly burdensome contract or two.<\/p>\n QPR were the obvious free-spending match in terms of ownership bravado; however they didn’t\u00c2\u00a0play the Dodgers’ role and come to Liverpool’s rescue. Instead it was Big Sam Allardyce’s renowned love of a big\u00c2\u00a0man up front that won the day and saw Andy Carroll move to West Ham. Jordan Henderson and Stewart Downing remain on Merseyside with their transfer fees being a running joke for the rest of us.<\/p>\n Player contracts and transactions work quite differently in baseball and football. The Red Sox were able to completely wash their hands of players who, fairly on them\u00c2\u00a0or not, had outstayed their welcome.\u00c2\u00a0 Although Liverpool\u00c2\u00a0were able to move\u00c2\u00a0Carroll’s \u00c2\u00a380k per week off the wage bill by loaning him to West Ham, that\u00c2\u00a0has only\u00c2\u00a0provided them with a temporary respite from their \u00c2\u00a335m mistake\u00c2\u00a0and the wage money saved plus the\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a31m or so loan fee in return doesn’t amount to much money\u00c2\u00a0to ‘invest’ in new talent.<\/p>\n Henry\u00c2\u00a0had the courage to write of “our own mistakes in a difficult first two years of ownership”, describing it as “a harsh education”.\u00c2\u00a0 The money spent by the team\u00c2\u00a0on British players can certainly be filed under the ‘mistake’ heading.<\/p>\n There is some value in ‘buying British’ and primarily the premium appears to be paid on the basis of the reduced level of risk against a foreign recruit being able to settle in the country and to perform well in the English game. However, considering the size of that premium, this isn’t exactly a market inefficiency that Liverpool has exploited.\u00c2\u00a0 There\u00c2\u00a0were no obvious\u00c2\u00a0sabermetrics, or soccernomics, principles\u00c2\u00a0being applied to\u00c2\u00a0Liverpool’s dealings.<\/p>\n Instead, from the outside it looked like Henry and his fellow owners took their ‘football newcomer’ tags to their hearts. Specific players\u00c2\u00a0were targeted by Damien Comolli, the former\u00c2\u00a0director of football,\u00c2\u00a0and Kenny Dalglish and the ownership group put their faith in their employees by backing them irrespective of the cost (presumably within some sort of overall budget limit).<\/p>\n In this respect, Andy Carroll perhaps can be seen as the equivalent of Carl Crawford.<\/p>\n