Mike Hazen hired as Senior VP/GM

Dombrowski pushing all the right buttons so far.

Jeff Passan ‏@jeffpassan
If Mike Hazen is the new GM in Boston, as @jonheymancbs is reporting, a lot of the Red Sox's best front-office types are expected to stay.

And the Red Sox make it official, announcing Hazen as Senior Vice President/General Manager.

Maybe this leaves a chance for DiPoto to stay as well. He'll probably interview for one of the few open GM spots, but he was a Cherington hire. Hazen probably played a role in his hiring as well, so...

Great decision!!! I was hoping they'd go that way. Hazen staying is great on many levels for the Red Sox. Him staying, keeps most if not all of the staff. Him being the choice allows Dombrowski to have a person in place who knows the complete organization and all of the players from the lowest level all the way to Boston. His experience and knowledge of the Red Sox will permit the Sox to become competitive faster.

GREAT CHOICE DD!!

So the real problem with the Sox was really Cherington, heh?

Fantastic decision and bodes very well for the direction the front office will take going forward.

As long as they didn't go in a dumb direction (Wren, etc.) it was going to be fine. From what it seems, DD is going to be heavily involved. I wonder how the power structure will work. Will Hazen lay the groundwork on deals and DD gives approval, or will DD be significantly involved in putting things together?

My guess is big picture gets set by DD and bigger deals on MLB level are done by him. Hazen probably involved more in the minutiae.

So for example, I doubt Dombrowski would be directly involved with folks like Crockett on things like all but the most important promotions or other minor league decisions.

BINGO!

Hope so

Approve of the hiring, even though he can't pitch.

I'm no insider, but when Lucchino resigned on August 1, they faced a vacuum in their front office.  To whom would Cherington report? Sam Kennedy?  No -- he is not the chief executive officer "going forward" (as all CEOs like to say).  To Mike Gordon?  Doubtful.  To Werner?  God, no.  To John Henry?  Then almost assuredly.  Dombrowski's firing by Ilitch presented Henry with the chance to hire a proven senior executive with whom he had worked in Miami.  Had Ilitch pulled the trigger sooner, perhaps Dombrowski would have inherited the CEO mantle from Lucchino. (He had it with the Tigers for a dozen years.)

There had to be a senior person above Cherington in the chain of command. They hired a "fellow GM" and Cherington exercised his right to decline to serve under him. He may have thought of staying on as a demotion. There's no stigma for Hazen, only two years younger and with almost as much time in the game as Cherington.