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Evaluating Ben Cherington 2014-15
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Post by texs31 on Dec 11, 2014 18:12:43 GMT -5
I don't get that.
Look at the rotations for SF and KC last year. Outside of MadBum (who was very good but not a dominant ace until the playoffs) and Shields (who the Sox still might get btw), how many of the SPs for the World Series participants are that much better than the Sox? And that's without expecting any of the Sox staff to have a year better than they have ever had (still possible for some) which virtually all of KCs rotation did.
Not to mention our lineup projects to be better.
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wcp3
Veteran
Posts: 3,809
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Post by wcp3 on Dec 11, 2014 18:18:41 GMT -5
Where did this flood of over reactionary clowns come from? They're starting to make me look like a rational poster.
Know your place, losers.
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Post by texs31 on Dec 11, 2014 18:22:03 GMT -5
Now, now. You're still the #1 irrational poster in my book.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Dec 11, 2014 18:25:32 GMT -5
Now, now. You're still the #1 irrational poster in my book. Only if Steven Wright makes the team.
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Post by iakovos11 on Dec 11, 2014 18:48:03 GMT -5
In 24 hours, they added 3 starting pitchers capable of eating innings. I'm interested in good innings and winning playoff series. These acquisitions aren't likely to stir championship fever. Worst opening day staff since Wakefield was our opening day starter Wait, what? Opening day is next week? I missed the schedule change.
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Post by grandsalami on Dec 11, 2014 18:49:08 GMT -5
I'm interested in good innings and winning playoff series. These acquisitions aren't likely to stir championship fever. Worst opening day staff since Wakefield was our opening day starter Wait, what? Opening day is next week? I missed the schedule change. You didn't hear? They just announced it at the winter meetings.
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Post by kingofthetrill on Dec 11, 2014 18:50:36 GMT -5
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Post by jmei on Dec 11, 2014 18:53:44 GMT -5
Protip: folks on the internet have lots of different opinions. Some are dumb. Some are one-sentence conclusory opinions not backed by any analysis. Some aren't worth responding to.
I'll let you figure out what falls into which category.
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Post by kmann on Dec 11, 2014 19:06:46 GMT -5
If we work off the premise that an ace and bullpen arm(s) have yet to come, I generally like the moves thus far. Before the offseason began, I did not expect the Sox to re-sign Lester because I never thought they would go six years on him. I love the Porcello trade and the potential upside of the Masterson signing. We also turned our offense from a weakness to a major strength and we have not given up much in valuable trade chips and have some financial flexibility. So a solid B on progress with the understanding that this current roster in not the final product.
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Post by sdiaz1 on Dec 11, 2014 19:40:50 GMT -5
Protip: folks on the internet have lots of different opinions. Some are dumb. Some are one-sentence conclusory opinions not backed by any analysis. Some aren't worth responding to. I'll let you figure out what falls into which category. This might be a good time to remind everyone out there that there is an option to block the posts from specific members. I have been forced to use it a lot in the last 72 hours.
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wcp3
Veteran
Posts: 3,809
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Post by wcp3 on Dec 11, 2014 20:05:17 GMT -5
Now, now. You're still the #1 irrational poster in my book. Only if Steven Wright makes the team. #HeWhoShallNotBeNamed
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Post by mgoetze on Dec 11, 2014 20:15:27 GMT -5
This might be a good time to remind everyone out there that there is an option to block the posts from specific members. I have been forced to use it a lot in the last 72 hours. Hm, I only added one person but then my list was nonempty before...
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Post by larrycook on Dec 11, 2014 23:00:10 GMT -5
It seems to me that cherrington offered Lester just enough to look like the sox were all in, but not to the point that Lester would accept their offer.
With the remaining payroll, he spread it around among a couple of ground ball 200 inning under 30 year old pitchers who may have been undervalued due to playing on teams with leaky infield defenses as well as a former pitcher that theoretically could be a bounce back candidate.
Oh! And he did all this without giving up any prized prospects
Bottom line: no long term contract to a pitcher over thirty and three new pitchers, each with a chance have a good season next year,
Plus he still has the rest of the winter to try and pry a young ace from a team like the mets or Padress, which will be tough because cherrington overvalues our prospects,
Textbook new Red Sox philosophy. Love the direction he took us this offseason.
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Post by sdiaz1 on Dec 11, 2014 23:23:13 GMT -5
Hm, I only added one person but then my list was nonempty before... Yeah, I typically try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and had not used the function since the switch to pro-boards. But the ratio of completely useless drivel to interesting discussion these past few days pushed me over the edge.
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Post by Gwell55 on Dec 12, 2014 0:21:35 GMT -5
If this is a competition between Ben Cherrington and Theo Epstein, I'll take Theo. Both saddled the team with a couple of dog contracts. But, at least Theo's dogs could defend their positions, whereas Ben's dogs either have never played their new position or are close to eating their way out of their position. There's also the two rings to only one for Ben. That being said, Ben can quickly close the gap with another title and an increased willingness to call out Lucchino. Actually gorilla suit and all Theo didn't get those "over the top players" for Boston's second WS Lucchino has to be credited with those as theo walked out over money and control back then and Lucchino was chasing after the Beckett and Lowell swap. So it could be pretty even between Theo n Ben towards winning WS titles.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Dec 12, 2014 0:49:24 GMT -5
Theo's worst Red Sox team won 86 games. The Sox played their most consistent excellent long-term baseball under the Theo regime so I think he's their best GM.
I don't always understand the inconsistent valuation of players that the Sox use. I don't understand the hand wringing over giving Lester $25 million over 6 years, but yet the Sox place a similar annual $ value for Lester as Hanley, which doesn't make sense to me as I think Lester is more valuable, and I say that as somebody who can't wait to watch Hanley hit. Giving Sandoval 5 years at $19 million/year seems kind of crazy considering he's declined offensively for the past 4 years and has body type issues that make him very risky.
They don't blow away the field for Abreu, but they go all out for Castillo, who I don't think will impact the way Abreu does. Makes me wonder if they'll go all out for Moncada, who is somebody I think they should over extend themselves for.
It's inconsistent or as Steve Dillard says, reactionary valuation of players' worths.
I will say this, though. Given the tough situation, Ben made two good trades for useful pitchers without hitting his prospect stash while keeping the payroll low. I wasn't as crazy about the pillow contract for Masterson, but at least I understand it.
He's made a lot of safe little moves. He's made some unconventional moves like dealing Lester for Cespedes instead of minor leaguers and then turning Cespedes into Porcello, who might turn into a long-term asset or a draft pick. He picked the mid tier free agency bin as well as it could be done in 2013 and then watched it go from riches to rags in 2014, and then he built a ton of depth. I mean they had the worst OF production in the world, and then by December, they had a ton of usable OF depth. Now he's trying to do the same with the starting staff, which only had two pitchers a few days ago.
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Post by grandsalami on Dec 12, 2014 1:41:35 GMT -5
^What he said. Only thing I'd add is that nabbing Moncada would take a lot of the sting out of dealing Xander. Was I in a coma and missed us trading Xander?
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Post by stevedillard on Dec 12, 2014 10:04:26 GMT -5
Love the offseason because it suggests that they are keeping an eye on the 5 year horizon. This is the pitching equivalent of the the 2013 hitting strategy of mid/low level free agents Napoli, Victorino, Drew Ross, which was to provide offense while waiting for JBJ, Boegarts WMB. This buys time for Owens and Rodriguez to come up in 2016.
As to Lester, I'm glad they backed away and also that they are not (apparently) going out to get a #1 through trade. I would argue the risk of a long-term high cost starter is not the decline in performance of the pitcher, but the risk of injury and the fact that depth is compromised by the large expenditure. You can survive weaker performance (e.g., Verlander and 2013 Sabathia) but it is the injury (Tanaka, Sabathia 2014) that kills you.
For the regular season, there is no such thing as a #1 pitcher. All five rotate through, and winning the game of the #1 is wasted if your #4 and #5 are overmatched, or if your #1 is injured and you have to go with a weak #6. Follow the Baltimore/KC method and get competitive depth that gets you innings. That also explains why I see giving up RDLR as necessary. They needed consistent innings, and the fact that he has not shown more than 140 innings (even if those were promising) means that 60 innings (10 starts) are of a bad starter.
Pitching wins in the post season, but we have seen that the relationship between good pitching and an "ace" is tenous. Therefore, throwing lots of money at Kershaw, Verlander, Scherzer and Strasburg does not get you post season wins.
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Post by jimed14 on Dec 12, 2014 12:25:20 GMT -5
If this is a competition between Ben Cherrington and Theo Epstein, I'll take Theo. Both saddled the team with a couple of dog contracts. But, at least Theo's dogs could defend their positions, whereas Ben's dogs either have never played their new position or are close to eating their way out of their position. There's also the two rings to only one for Ben. That being said, Ben can quickly close the gap with another title and an increased willingness to call out Lucchino. Which dog contracts has Ben saddled the team with? There is a huge difference between a 3 year and a 7 year bad contracts because those 3 year deals are super easy to dump and hey, I doubt we win the WS with Victorino if that is who you're bitching about.
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Post by azblue on Dec 12, 2014 14:47:49 GMT -5
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Post by jclmontana on Dec 12, 2014 15:12:40 GMT -5
They don't blow away the field for Abreu, but they go all out for Castillo, who I don't think will impact the way Abreu does. Makes me wonder if they'll go all out for Moncada, who is somebody I think they should over extend themselves for. It's inconsistent or as Steve Dillard says, reactionary valuation of players' worths. I don't know if it is inconsistent or reactionary, or more a combination of 1.) taking each situation individually, and 2.) responding to the market. The difference between reactionary and responsive is important, but even reactions to events are okay. Often times reactionary is also more charitably know as "going to plan b". Having contingency plans is a good thing, and we are seeing that play out now (although it is tough to say whether or not they would have gotten Miley, Masterson, or Porcello even if they signed Lester). As for your Abreu/Castillo example, I think it is misguided. What I read (and yes, it could have just been spin), is that they thought their bid for Abreu was strong enough to win. It turns out that it wasn't, and that Abreu was pretty awesome. Then they responded by adjusting how they valued players from Cuba with little to no traditional scouting background, and adjusted their expectation of what they needed to bid for those players. You can substitute reacted for responded in the above paragraph, that's fine. But I call it learning from their mistakes. The result is that they did what they had to do to get Castillo, and that is looking like a pretty good decision, at least for now.
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Post by jmei on Dec 12, 2014 15:51:02 GMT -5
I don't always understand the inconsistent valuation of players that the Sox use. I don't understand the hand wringing over giving Lester $25 million over 6 years, but yet the Sox place a similar annual $ value for Lester as Hanley, which doesn't make sense to me as I think Lester is more valuable, and I say that as somebody who can't wait to watch Hanley hit. Giving Sandoval 5 years at $19 million/year seems kind of crazy considering he's declined offensively for the past 4 years and has body type issues that make him very risky. They don't blow away the field for Abreu, but they go all out for Castillo, who I don't think will impact the way Abreu does. Makes me wonder if they'll go all out for Moncada, who is somebody I think they should over extend themselves for. It's inconsistent or as Steve Dillard says, reactionary valuation of players' worths. I'm not sure I see the inconsistency here. They thought Lester was not a good enough player to give $140m+ to, and they thought Hanley was good enough to be worth a similar AAV on a much shorter deal. You might disagree, but that inconsistency is between you and the front office, not within the front office internally. Similarly, just because Abreu and Castillo are both Cuban does not mean that the front office should value them similarly. In fact, they're as different as position players can be-- Castillo adds a ton of value with his athleticism (range in the outfield, baserunning speed), while Abreu was basically a bat-only player. It's a lot easier to evaluate a player's defense/baserunning in the tryout context because those skills are immediately evident, whereas it's really hard to evaluate a player's hit tool when you have very limited reps versus MLB-caliber pitching to evaluate them on.
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Post by rjp313jr on Dec 12, 2014 16:06:47 GMT -5
Theo also inherited a core with an in his prime Manny and Pedro and Tek and Lowe. Theo left the team saddled with crappy contracts and no farm ready players. Cherington won a WS while cleaning up Theo's mess.
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Post by pedroelgrande on Dec 12, 2014 17:23:52 GMT -5
Masterson chimes in: @scottlauber: Masterson concludes conference call by saying, "Great job, Ben." #RedSox
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Post by raftsox on Dec 13, 2014 7:17:54 GMT -5
They don't blow away the field for Abreu, but they go all out for Castillo, who I don't think will impact the way Abreu does. Makes me wonder if they'll go all out for Moncada, who is somebody I think they should over extend themselves As for your Abreu/Castillo example, I think it is misguided... I think they're focused on risk mitigation. Abreau's value is entirely based on strong offense which was in question at the time of his signing. Castillo's floor was higher because of his strong outfield defense. Even if Castillo doesn't hit he'll have some value which you couldn't say about Abreau. Risk mitigation leaves you with a higher floor for wins, but a narrower bandwidth.
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