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Post by juanpena on Oct 29, 2018 8:28:35 GMT -5
I know there are people here who don't like Dave Dombrowski and his moves -- to the point of bastardizing his last name -- but I have to give him a shout-out.
If you're going to make a big push to trade assets to win, you need to finish the job, and boy did he ever do it. This is the best Red Sox team any of us will ever live to see and it was just a true joy to watch.
And he didn't "trade all the prospects." I'm sure a lot of teams tried to get Benintendi, but he didn't give him up. We know the White Sox started the Sale talks by asking for Devers, and Dombrowski told them, basically, "We can make a deal, but you're not getting Devers."
And the last 12 months have been mind-boggling good, starting with hiring Alex Cora, the perfect choice to manage this team. Then, to add the player who was a perfect fit for the team, he got into a staredown with Scott Boras, and Boras blinked. Sure, he got lucky with Ryan Brasier, he did sign him.
Then he had the guts -- with the backing/urging of Cora -- to release Hanley Ramirez when Hanley couldn't heat good heat anymore. Have a hole for a right-handed hitter who can play first? Trade Santiago Espinal for Steve Pearce. Need to add an arm who can start or relieve? Nathan Eovaldi for Jalen Beeks.
And he and he people seeming to be drafting very well. Now the task is moving forward, and hopefully that starts with a qualifying offer to Kimbrel that brings back a draft choice. But that's a talk to wait until after the Duck Boat parade. For now, the man who was brought in to deliver a World Champion did so spectacularly.
Well done, Dave!
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wcp3
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Post by wcp3 on Oct 29, 2018 8:38:40 GMT -5
Count me as someone who hasn’t been the biggest Dombrowski fan, but he’s been batting 1.000 the past year beginning with the Cora hire (like you said).
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Post by adiospaydro2005 on Oct 29, 2018 9:51:33 GMT -5
Sure I will give DD some credit for the Red Sox winning the World Series however, I give most of the credit to Cora, the coaching staff and the players. There are many times this team could have folded, including after losing Game 3 in 18 innings. Talent only gets you so far. Enjoy the celebrations.
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Post by tookme55 on Oct 29, 2018 10:38:07 GMT -5
Sure I will give DD some credit for the Red Sox winning the World Series however, I give most of the credit to Cora, the coaching staff and the players. There are many times this team could have folded, including after losing Game 3 in 18 innings. Talent only gets you so far. Enjoy the celebrations. DD fired the previous coach and hired Cora. Just saying.
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mobaz
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Post by mobaz on Oct 29, 2018 11:33:35 GMT -5
Sure I will give DD some credit for the Red Sox winning the World Series however, I give most of the credit to Cora, the coaching staff and the players. There are many times this team could have folded, including after losing Game 3 in 18 innings. Talent only gets you so far. Enjoy the celebrations. DD fired the previous coach and hired Cora. Just saying. Coming off two straight division titles and a WS title only 4 years prior too. As obsessive fans it made sense to fire Farrell, but it's still pretty gutsy.
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 29, 2018 11:35:38 GMT -5
DD fired the previous coach and hired Cora. Just saying. Coming off two straight division titles and a WS title only 4 years prior too. As obsessive fans it made sense to fire Farrell, but it's still pretty gutsy. After seeing the last few seasons, is there any doubt that it was the right move? We finally know what good managing looks like. Hell, we know what perfect managing looks like.
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Post by dirtdog on Oct 29, 2018 12:04:41 GMT -5
He sure did. Everything he touched this year turned to gold. Cora, Eaovaldi, Pearce, etc. He like the rest of this team will never pay for a beer in Boston again. Dying to see if his number one pick in the draft turns into gold too. Here's hoping.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Oct 29, 2018 12:09:00 GMT -5
Count me as someone who hasn’t been the biggest Dombrowski fan, but he’s been batting 1.000 the past year beginning with the Cora hire (like you said). If you go back to the start of the Dombrowski era, it isn’t hard to see why a lot of us were worried that the organization was headed for this huge regression. Frank Wren was in, Theo Epstein holdovers where racing for the exits. The Kimbrel trade looked horrifying at the time, not just because of the specific names involved but because it seemed to signal a rejection of the modern best practices baseball management. Not valuing years of cost control, overpaying for the Proven Closer, etc. It seemed like they were well on their way to becoming the Dave Stewart Diamondbacks. Were we wrong at the time? I don’t really know. But somehow, only a few years later, and this organization seems stronger and more unified than it has been probably ever. Theo was great but he never really had the full authority he wanted/needed. The Cherington era was a mess where no one ever seemed to be on the same page, punctuated and probably prolonged by one of the great fluke WS seasons of all time. In the Dombrowski era, despite some scary stuff at the start, has yielded what looks to me like the most functional Red Sox organization we’ve seen. I don’t know, maybe it just always looks this way from the outside when the team wins it all. I may have said a lot of the same things after the 2013 Championship. Entropy only moves one way and in Boston it probably moves faster than in most places. But at the same time, the current power structure seems objectively more sustainable than in years past. Dombrowski has assembled a strong group under him, and there’s no one who’s in a position to undermine him. He has all the power, all the credibility, a collection of good people working under him, and confidence in those people. You can’t really ask for more than that.
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Post by aladaz on Oct 29, 2018 12:15:04 GMT -5
Count me as someone who hasn’t been the biggest Dombrowski fan, but he’s been batting 1.000 the past year beginning with the Cora hire (like you said). If you go back to the start of the Dombrowski era, it isn’t hard to see why a lot of us were worried that the organization was headed for this huge regression. Frank Wren was in, Theo Epstein holdovers where racing for the exits. The Kimbrel trade looked horrifying at the time, not just because of the specific names involved but because it seemed to signal a rejection of the modern best practices baseball management. Not valuing years of cost control, overpaying for the Proven Closer, etc. It seemed like they were well on their way to becoming the Dave Stewart Diamondbacks. Were we wrong at the time? I don’t really know. But somehow, only a few years later, and this organization seems stronger and more unified than it has been probably ever. Theo was great but he never really had the full authority he wanted/needed. The Cherington era was a mess where no one ever seemed to be on the same page, punctuated and probably prolonged by one of the great fluke WS seasons of all time. In the Dombrowski era, despite some scary stuff at the start, has yielded what looks to me like the most functional Red Sox organization we’ve seen. I don’t know, maybe it just always looks this way from the outside when the team wins it all. I may have said a lot of the same things after the 2013 Championship. Entropy only moves one way and in Boston it probably moves faster than in most places. But at the same time, the current power structure seems objectively more sustainable than in years past. Dombrowski has assembled a strong group under him, and there’s no one who’s in a position to undermine him. He has all the power, all the credibility, a collection of good people working under him, and confidence in those people. You can’t really ask for more than that. Long time lurker - used to post here like 7-10 years ago but lost my username and starting over. Fwiw, I don't know if it's sustainable, in the sense that we assembled this team trading out prospect firepower at a rate faster than is reasonable to expect any organization to replenish, no matter how good their scouting. Many of the deals were good ones, most were defensible, and obviously, it paid off. But this should make this WS victory even more enjoyable - this isn't going to happen that often, the last 14 years notwithstanding! Last night was awesome. On a related note, I know ericmvan and someone else had calculated us as being under the 237mm threshold for moving our draft pick down 10 spots, but DD had indicated we were over - now that the season is over, do we have a final calculation, did we end up over?
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Oct 29, 2018 12:55:55 GMT -5
Long time lurker - used to post here like 7-10 years ago but lost my username and starting over. Fwiw, I don't know if it's sustainable, in the sense that we assembled this team trading out prospect firepower at a rate faster than is reasonable to expect any organization to replenish, no matter how good their scouting. Many of the deals were good ones, most were defensible, and obviously, it paid off. But this should make this WS victory even more enjoyable - this isn't going to happen that often, the last 14 years notwithstanding! Last night was awesome. On a related note, I know ericmvan and someone else had calculated us as being under the 237mm threshold for moving our draft pick down 10 spots, but DD had indicated we were over - now that the season is over, do we have a final calculation, did we end up over? Oh, I’m sure that this level of on field success isn’t sustainable. You can’t realistically expect that. I just think that in terms of the front office, coaching staff, and overall management, it seems like the Red Sox are the healthiest they’ve been maybe ever, which is pretty much the exact opposite of what I predicted at the start of the DD era.
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wcp3
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Posts: 3,814
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Post by wcp3 on Oct 29, 2018 13:12:36 GMT -5
Count me as someone who hasn’t been the biggest Dombrowski fan, but he’s been batting 1.000 the past year beginning with the Cora hire (like you said). If you go back to the start of the Dombrowski era, it isn’t hard to see why a lot of us were worried that the organization was headed for this huge regression. Frank Wren was in, Theo Epstein holdovers where racing for the exits. The Kimbrel trade looked horrifying at the time, not just because of the specific names involved but because it seemed to signal a rejection of the modern best practices baseball management. Not valuing years of cost control, overpaying for the Proven Closer, etc. It seemed like they were well on their way to becoming the Dave Stewart Diamondbacks. Were we wrong at the time? I don’t really know. But somehow, only a few years later, and this organization seems stronger and more unified than it has been probably ever. Theo was great but he never really had the full authority he wanted/needed. The Cherington era was a mess where no one ever seemed to be on the same page, punctuated and probably prolonged by one of the great fluke WS seasons of all time. In the Dombrowski era, despite some scary stuff at the start, has yielded what looks to me like the most functional Red Sox organization we’ve seen. I don’t know, maybe it just always looks this way from the outside when the team wins it all. I may have said a lot of the same things after the 2013 Championship. Entropy only moves one way and in Boston it probably moves faster than in most places. But at the same time, the current power structure seems objectively more sustainable than in years past. Dombrowski has assembled a strong group under him, and there’s no one who’s in a position to undermine him. He has all the power, all the credibility, a collection of good people working under him, and confidence in those people. You can’t really ask for more than that. Maybe I’m oversimplifying things, but I really think Cora helped connect so many dots. Like Francona, he seems to do a masterful job of listening to all the arguments around data and analytics, while still being able to connect with the players and get them to buy in. That type of balance can’t always be easy to find, but he made it look like it was.
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Post by dirtdog on Oct 29, 2018 13:18:47 GMT -5
Maybe I’m oversimplifying things, but I really think Cora helped connect so many dots. Anybody that doesnt think that hasnt been paying attention the last few years.
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Post by James Dunne on Oct 29, 2018 13:25:14 GMT -5
Dombrowski talks a lot about how important it is to listen to everyone on his staff and trust the people he hires to do their jobs. While I suppose every executive says that (and many try to do it, I'm sure), Dombrowski seems to be very good at organizing and managing that process. His reputation isn't as a numbers/analytics guy, but it certainly doesn't seem like he's undermined rigorous statistical analysis at all. He's brought aboard Bannister, he works well with Cora, his hit rate on acquisitions is outstanding. That's not just shooting from his hip and listening to his gut and whatever else. That's an entire baseball operations staff working together to build a plan and Dombrowski effectively executing it. I obviously haven't loved all of his moves in a vacuum, but it's hard to argue with what he's built or that he was the right person to build it.
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mobaz
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Post by mobaz on Oct 29, 2018 13:34:12 GMT -5
Not to cross sports, but the difference between a manager like Cora, who treats his players like men, like real people with real lives and complications and routines, contrasts so highly with someone like the just fired Cleveland Browns coach Hue Jackson, a "My Way or the Highway" type with NO success/credibility to earn such an approach. The way each player talked about Cora after the game is very heartening.
To James' point, this probably is supported at the top by DDo, who reached out to Ortiz and Pedroia and others to listen ahead of hiring Cora.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Oct 29, 2018 13:47:16 GMT -5
If you go back to the start of the Dombrowski era, it isn’t hard to see why a lot of us were worried that the organization was headed for this huge regression. Frank Wren was in, Theo Epstein holdovers where racing for the exits. The Kimbrel trade looked horrifying at the time, not just because of the specific names involved but because it seemed to signal a rejection of the modern best practices baseball management. Not valuing years of cost control, overpaying for the Proven Closer, etc. It seemed like they were well on their way to becoming the Dave Stewart Diamondbacks. Were we wrong at the time? I don’t really know. But somehow, only a few years later, and this organization seems stronger and more unified than it has been probably ever. Theo was great but he never really had the full authority he wanted/needed. The Cherington era was a mess where no one ever seemed to be on the same page, punctuated and probably prolonged by one of the great fluke WS seasons of all time. In the Dombrowski era, despite some scary stuff at the start, has yielded what looks to me like the most functional Red Sox organization we’ve seen. I don’t know, maybe it just always looks this way from the outside when the team wins it all. I may have said a lot of the same things after the 2013 Championship. Entropy only moves one way and in Boston it probably moves faster than in most places. But at the same time, the current power structure seems objectively more sustainable than in years past. Dombrowski has assembled a strong group under him, and there’s no one who’s in a position to undermine him. He has all the power, all the credibility, a collection of good people working under him, and confidence in those people. You can’t really ask for more than that. Maybe I’m oversimplifying things, but I really think Cora helped connect so many dots. Like Francona, he seems to do a masterful job of listening to all the arguments around data and analytics, while still being able to connect with the players and get them to buy in. That type of balance can’t always be easy to find, but he made it look like it was. Back when he was still with BP, Nate Silver said something to the effect of “the mark of a good organization is that they don’t spend a lot of time second guessing themselves”, and that’s always stuck with me. The explaination was that you’re obviously not going to make all the right decisions all the time, because baseball, but that you have a process and organizational buy-in to that process where you can make those 45/55 decisions and have conviction in them. I think his example at the time was the Red Sox not freaking out when Pedroia was struggling early after being anointed the starting second baseman in ‘07. It’s not about digging your heels in and refusing to adjust when things don’t work out they way you expected, just that if you’re ready to bail out on your second baseman of the future after a month, it means that you don’t trust your own process. And if you don’t trust your own process, you’re just adrift at sea. If you look back on it, I think the Hanley DFA was a huge deal with regards to that sort of organizational conviction. I don’t know exactly how that decision was arrived at but I’m guessing it wasn’t just one guy in the analytics department being like “oh, Mitch Moorland has better projections at this point anyway” and have a move like that happen. You need, I would asssume, a lot of different people to come together and agree with a high degree of confidence on a decision like that. That’s what I mean in terms of a highly functional organization. You can’t make every decision correctly, but making a decision like that at all is a big deal.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2018 13:53:15 GMT -5
He’s won some trades and lost some, but he’s won more than he’s lost.
I was thinking about his tenure with the Red Sox after the game last night. The Red Sox are the only team in baseball with three division titles and a championship over the last three years. The Dodgers have three division titles and two World Series appearances, and the Cubs and Astros have two division titles and a championship each. He’s done nothing but win since taking over. And next year should be another successful year even if it doesn’t end with a championship.
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 29, 2018 15:14:48 GMT -5
When you really think about it, the rebuild that began with the Punto trade is finally complete (with an extra WS championship thrown in there in 2013. They knew the young talent they were sitting on with that 2011 draft and desperately needed at new core for the team and that's what we now have. Also note the strong character our players have now compared to in 2012. John Henry is a smart man and the best owner in the history of the Red Sox.
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Post by juanpena on Oct 29, 2018 17:30:37 GMT -5
When you really think about it, the rebuild that began with the Punto trade is finally complete (with an extra WS championship thrown in there in 2013. Yes, and I wanted to clarify that my pro-Dombrowski thread was in no way meant and a shot at Cherington, who obviously had a big role in this.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Oct 29, 2018 17:47:30 GMT -5
The way Dombrowski set this up, he was either going to fail or succeed in terms of his approach with his trades. It was a all in approach with a window to win about 4 times reasonably.
He is aggressive in trades and free agency. If Dombrowski didn't win by the end of 2019, it might have cost him his job.
Now he might have a job for life here and that's probably not a bad thing. He needed to win though and show everyone something here after his trades. This past year was a slam dunk with every move.
Pearce, Eovaldi, Cora, Martinez, Brasier. I mean, it takes some GMs two years to find the value of what Dombrowski found in these players this year. Not to mention what Price, Sale, and Kimbrel did this year from deals in the past.
I mean, his worst deal this year was Ian Kinsler. He overpaid for a second baseman who provided defense, but was done with the bat and provided little value. If that's your worst deal in a calendar year, then you probably deserve a extension.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Oct 29, 2018 22:40:21 GMT -5
1) To credit the coaches and players and not the front office is to ignore the fact that Dombrowski brought in literally all of the coaches and the players who accounted for (by my quick, potentially off count) 196 of the 571 PA (34.3%), and 83 of the 134 IP (61.9%) in the playoffs, this since just August 2015. Considering how much of the lineup is homegrown, that percentage really is very high. He was brought in with a mandate to make this team a World Series winner and has done that.
2) Say what you want about emptying the system, but the fact is that of all of the players he's traded, Travis Shaw is probably the only one anyone would immediately want back for what he was traded for. Not one single other player has produced in the majors at this point, and even the good prospects have performance or health questions. He's put on a clinic in terms of selecting which prospects to trade and which to keep, save for the Thornburg deal, and given the volume of trades he's made, to have only one be bad is a damn good record. Even nitpicking things like arguing he may not have had to include Logan Allen in the Kimbrel deal isn't the same as the debate we once had in this forum about whether trading Hanley, who turned into a perennial MVP candidate, for Lowell and Beckett was worth it. Nobody's saying it wasn't worth trading Logan Allen for a pennant. Flags fly forever.
3) It was acknowledged shortly after the trade deadline that they were going to be over the $237M mark. No debate there at this point.
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Post by klostrophobic on Oct 30, 2018 3:49:08 GMT -5
I hated the Dombrowski signing, but definitely have to give him credit; basically all of his major trades have worked out, his deadline deal produced the WS MVP, and even the free agent signing of Price which looked horrible for the first two plus years, well, you can't say much negative about the way David Price pitched this year.
But I hope he doesn't fall in love with these players the way some organizations tend to do after a World Series win. Hopefully he doesn't break the bank on Eovaldi or re-sign Price to some crazy deal if he opts out, etc. Ditto Kelly, Kimbrel, Pearce. No need to go crazy over-the-top in bringing all these guys back because they were crucial in a postseason run.
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Post by rivenp on Oct 30, 2018 4:28:47 GMT -5
I hated the Dombrowski signing, but definitely have to give him credit; basically all of his major trades have worked out, his deadline deal produced the WS MVP, and even the free agent signing of Price which looked horrible for the first two plus years, well, you can't say much negative about the way David Price pitched this year. But I hope he doesn't fall in love with these players the way some organizations tend to do after a World Series win. Hopefully he doesn't break the bank on Eovaldi or re-sign Price to some crazy deal if he opts out, etc. Ditto Kelly, Kimbrel, Pearce. No need to go crazy over-the-top in bringing all these guys back because they were crucial in a postseason run. dd doesn't strike me as the sentimental type, so i wouldn't worry about overpaying just to bring guys back...if he "overpays" it's probably because he thinks the eovaldi of the past couple weeks is the eovaldi of the future...same with kelly etc.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Dec 11, 2018 14:36:48 GMT -5
This is probably as good a place as any to post this. The Ringer has an excellent piece, with good analysis and fantastic insights, titled Why Trading for Top Prospects Is Less of a Win Than MLB Teams Seem to Think. It's very pertinent to how Dombrowski is perceived, with mentions of Espinoza, and Kopech. Some of the highlights (lowlights?) include the Motero/Pineda swap, Matt LaPorta's swan dive, and the tenuous evaluation of Moncada. As I stated in another thread, that website seems to be getting serious about baseball. Here's a quote to whet your appetite: They're talking about prospect swaps, there. The constant back and forth with opponents gaining the advantage in evaluating the prospects of other teams, then losing it as new tech comes on board, is a hallmark of the age. Data, data, everywhere, and too many drops to drink (at one time).
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Post by soxpatsceltics on Dec 11, 2018 14:47:50 GMT -5
This is probably as good a place as any to post this. The Ringer has an excellent piece, with good analysis and fantastic insights, titled Why Trading for Top Prospects Is Less of a Win Than MLB Teams Seem to Think. It's very pertinent to how Dombrowski is perceived, with mentions of Espinoza, and Kopech. Some of the highlights (lowlights?) include the Motero/Pineda swap, Matt LaPorta's swan dive, and the tenuous evaluation of Moncada. As I stated in another thread, that website seems to be getting serious about baseball. Here's a quote to whet your appetite: They're talking about prospect swaps, there. The constant back and forth with opponents gaining the advantage in evaluating the prospects of other teams, then losing it as new tech comes on board, is a hallmark of the age. Data, data, everywhere, and too many drops to drink (at one time). Ringer/Grantland has always done a good job with baseball. I'd recommend an old article about Dombrowski (http://grantland.com/features/dave-dombrowski-detroit-tigers/) but I assume you've already read it. Losing Jonah Keri to the NYT was a big loss, but I think they've rebounded nicely.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Dec 11, 2018 15:04:40 GMT -5
What I really like is the emphasis on "big data". I want to know how teams are using the flood of information they now have access to. The two articles I linked to do just that. The one-upsmanship from wearables is something I'll bet a few of the posters are aware of, but I was not, though it's really obvious how that could give a serious edge. I just hadn't thought about it in those terms.
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