What Can Be Done to Fix the Sox?

jmei I'm not on of the people advocating a full rebuild, and I'm probably more optimistic about the future than most on here (which is weird for everyone involved, lol). Here's what I said a couple posts back:

"Things aren't as bleak as they feel at the moment, at least from a future perspective. Xander is by far the biggest positive to come out of the first half of this season, and I've seen enough to think Mookie and Swihart are legitimate starters at their respective positions (and they have the upside to be much more than that).

Having the SS, catcher and CF positions locked up for the next 3-5 years means the cupboard isn't close to bare. Then you have Rusney, E-Rod and Barnes, who have all showed some promise."

The problem, though, is that the team has been underperfming its talent more often than not lately. I'm obviously not gonna count the Bobby Valentine team - and no one in their right mind should - and I accept that last year they were snake bitten by injuries. But this year?

Believe me, I know how flukey and luck-driven baseball can be. The biggest issue I'm seeing isn't that the Sox aren't contenders or even that they're missing the playoffs; it's that they aren't close to a playoff team to begin with.

See I agree with this. You take in what is going on so far the two biggest factors they have this problem . The pitching staff they overestimated how good or undervalued a top pitcher. Because of this we can not get win streaks going and this hurt us greatly especially at the beginning of the season I don't have to point out what games.

My second issue this kills me more as a fan is what is the deal with these veterans? I noticed the things I complain about is coming from the veterans. Last year they went with a couple of kids that were not ready and it snowballed. I don't have to go back. They went with Pablo instead of inquiring about or pursuing Donaldson. They signed Hanley for power and gave up on Cepedes and thought he could convert to Left field. They were lead to believe this guy would give 100% . The veteran hitters were caught off guard about the strike zone? Napoli is a mess. Ortiz has this problem and the shift bugs him. For two months they got no production from the right field position.
Plus one more thing we forget that deep bench was fool's gold. Craig and Nava. I just don't see us righting this season. So in conclusion the FO keeps a positive false hope and try to make a move or two to help the team and maybe remove the problems. Can this happen?
Who is at fault? We assume it's Ben making the calls but I hear different things I believe he made the trades those were his call. I not sure about the free agent signings.

Posting this makes me feel more clearer about the season and it just feels better so sorry if this is boring.

I feel like a point that is being ignored here, for the most part, is the crucial one: process.

A lot of folks keep bringing up the "3 TIMES IN 4 YEARS" point. But the finger-pointing for that, imo, is going in the wrong direction. The players are completely different, unless you're saying Dustin Pedroia, Clay Buchholz, David Ortiz, Junichi Tazawa, Daniel Nava, and Craig Breslow - the six guys who've been here since 2012 - are the problem, collectively. The coaching staff hasn't been the same for the four years. Sure, Cherington is constant, and I'll get to him in a minute.

Here's why Ben Cherington likely isn't going anywhere, and potentially Farrell isn't either: PROCESS

The ownership believes in the process being used to run this team. Process includes many things - team-building philosophies, data analysis philosophies, scouting philosophies, and even self-evaluation philosophies (we've seen the club overhaul its international scouting, make smaller but significant changes to domestic amateur scouting, and implement the mental health staff in the past few years, to name a few changes), to make a non-exhaustive list. "Three-out-of-four" isn't the sample size here. The sample size is something like 2002-2015.

Look at the firings that have happened. Grady Little, Curt Young, Terry Francona, Bob McClure, Bobby Valentine, Juan Nieves. These people weren't fired because of their results, but rather because of ownership determining that their process didn't match the organization's philosophies.

If past history is any indication, the club will evaluate again this offseason to figure out what the hell went wrong and what isn't working organizationally. That's not necessarily going to be "is Ben Cherington a good GM/John Farrell a good manager" or "should Ben Cherington/John Farrell be punished for getting us into this mess." It's going to be "what does this organization need to change regarding its process in order to rectify the problems of the past two years and in order to be successful going forward," and THEN "Are Cherington/Farrell the right people to implement those changes going forward."

If the organization believes in their process and thinks that the current staff is the proper one to implement it, then they will and should retain that current staff. Fine for others to disagree, but to me, I'd rather them do that than fire everyone just to fire everyone because that's what you're supposed to do when things go wrong.

This may be difficult to fathom, but it IS entirely possible that 2012, 2014, and 2015 have all happened for entirely unrelated reasons, and that to consider them as showing a trend is incorrect. I won't go into that here because that'd require an analysis that, believe it or not, I don't have time for at work nor care to undertake, but consider that the cores of all three teams, save for Pedroia-Ortiz-Buchholz, have been much, much different.

We often equate process with the people implementing it, but I wouldn't assume that to be the case. Just something to think about is all.

I agree with Chris Hatfield about how decisions are made with the Red Sox.....and actually I'm glad. George Steinbrenner's philosophy was reactive and ridiculous. I'd be shocked if either John or Ben are fired. Shocked! Some of the folks in media, like Eric Wilbur, see it very different. Here is Wilbur's article today: www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/2015/06/15/the-red-sox-refusal-address-this-disaster-speaks-volumes/tpzYmFdY9N6gy7QqD3wN4K/story.html?p1=takeover
He is totally certain Farrell is a goner. I bet they have, at least, one more year.

I'm not positive about that. In 2012, the white flag deal was sending Gonzalez, Beckett, Crawford, and Punto to LA. I don't think losing Crawford and Beckett and Punto did much to harm the Sox. Those three players were liabilities that year. Obviously they would have been clearly better with Gonzo manning 1b rather than James Loney. They were 60-67 and headed south and I think Ortiz got hurt soon thereafter, which really finished off their offense.

They went 69-93. I have trouble believing they would have won more than 2 extra games over the last 35 games with Gonzo at 1b rather than a replacement level 1b such as Loney.

Last year's team was consistently bad at all times. I could be mistaken, but I don't remember the Sox plummeting after losing Lester, Lackey, Miller, Gomes and Drew. I thought they were playing .440ish/.450ish baseball at the time of the deal and they wound up 71-91 which isn't far off.

In other words these trades on July 31st, in my opinion, didn't sink the team on its own. The team was already taking on a lot of water at the time anyways.

And whether they finished dead last or near the bottom doesn't matter in as much that they were in a position where it was obvious they didn't have a prayer, and we're not talking a season like 2010, where the Sox were done August. That team dealt with injuries and still managed to play respectable ball. That's not the case with 2012, 2014, and 2015.

So it does raise questions about the Red Sox process. Is there process correct? Does it need to be adjusted? I don't think it's wrong to ask these questions when the team struggles three times in four years, whether the seasons' struggles are related or unrelated. This is a bottom line business/game.

Next year, I would think the Sox will have a new manager. And I'm on the fence as to whether they should or not. I'm not a big fan of Farrell, but unless the Sox have a better replacement in mind, I'm actually fine if he comes back. I'm not even calling for Ben's head.

It would be hypocritical for me to do so.

I mean, as badly as I wanted Lester (who I think will turn it around still, but isn't pitching like a $26 million/year pitcher obviously), and didn't want Masterson, I didn't complain when the Sox signed Hanley to play LF, a position you'd think a declining SS could play, I supported the Porcello and Miley deals, was in favor of Hanley's signing, was OK, but not thrilled, with Sandoval's signing, and was cool with giving Rusney $72 million, although I thought it might be an overpay due to not throwing enough money Abreu's way.

I was against the Lester/Cespedes deal and the Lackey/Allen & Kelly deals, though. I strongly felt Ben C should have gotten the best prospects he could have gotten and made it a full blown rebuilding project, which would have tempered expectations for 2015.

So while I disagreed with some of what Ben did, I agreed with a lot of it (and I obviously still love the E-Rod deal and am still very excited by the Moncada signing). So I thought this was an 85 win team. Many others thought it was a 90 - 95 win team. I don't think a lot of us had this team as a 75 win and under team.

So what does that say about our expectations, especially going forward, assuming that the core of this team will largely remain intact because of contracts? Do we keep going with the same high expectations and then get surprised when it's not like we thought it would be? Or do we temper them?

The only time we recently tempered them was in the spring of 2013, and man did those guys ever exceed expectations.

2016! That's how to fix the sox. They're done for this year, barring a miracle.

Hope their rookies hit. And hope the sox spend big bucks on the top FA pitchers. That's about all you can hope for.

The template is there on how to win. Abover-average production at every position. Don't think we can do it until we get Hanley out of LF and at DH. Plus, we'll need Mookie and Swihart/Vazquez to take their game to that level. Gonna be hard to do next year. Maybe, they'll be doing it by 2017. Pedey should still be good. Xander should be even better. Hanley ok at DH. Though overpaid. Even Sandoval is bearable on a good team. Need a 1b and a couple of corner of's. Not sure Castillo will be able to do it. Maybe, Benintendi and Margot will be ready by late 2017. A cheap line-up like that should allow a good GM to spend his money on starting pitching. E-Rod and Brian Johnson or Henry Owens are your lefties. Porcello is your 3. Need a 1 or 2 depending on how good E-Rod is. And, another good righty. Will have to get one in a trade and maybe sign one as a free agent. Definitely, doable.

I haven't even mentioned; Moncada, Devers and Guerra.

The range of "fixes" in this thread makes Red Sox fans look like the dumbest fan base in baseball.

Let me point out that there wasn't a single baseball person that predicted the Red Sox' disasters of 2014 or 2015. There is a pretty steep learning curve going on now about how baseball works at this point in time. We're not there yet, no one is. All that is certain is that you can't sign a bunch of free agents and solve anything more often than cause more problems. Most teams seem to know that at this point, so they're hoarding their good younger players so you can't trade for them.

So the answer appears to be that you need to develop your own core somewhat. Which we're doing. It's just not fast enough for some people.

I think it's easy to point fingers at the clubhouse, but I don't see any evidence of that being the root problem. Farrell isn't Bobby Valentine and Hanley's not AJ Pierzynski, whatever flaws they have. And to be fair to the FO, they haven't thrown money at the recognized problems- they decided that big bats were valuable assets, and went out and signed 2 of consensus best bats on the market. They didn't hand Lester or Scherzer a blank check, the bets they made just didn't plan out. I do think that maybe they shouldn't have ignored the questions of defense and the bullpen, given the way those 2 things drove the Royals all the way to the Series last year and the fact that the rotation was never going to dominate, but I didn't think they could be nearly this bad defensively, and the bullpen doesn't really seem to have posed much of a problem, although that's probably cause they never have a lead to protect.

That would be my answer to fixing the team: improve the outfield defense (JBJ instead of Hanley but keep Hanley's bat around somehow), shorten the games by stacking the pen with power arms. Still, in order to compete long-term they probably are going to need to take on a contract that's going to get ugly- how else do you get good pitchers without substantial luck or a commitment to losing a lot of games for a few years? You can't buy a good team, but you can still buy good players, and the value of the farm system that we have should be that we can afford a bad contract in the future because there should be a lot of cheapish homegrown talent around

Either needs to sit with Pedroia on next flight. Or better yet, get on his own plane to St Loius.

Lets hash this out.. 2014 is behind us, lets pick up Player personal moves beginning in the winter of 15.

MLB is now in the post steroid era which we should all agree upon. Many have said to include the experts on ESPN, MLB Network (not eei or sports hub) drug testing has limited the offensive numbers from past years. There was an article written in I believe BProspectus or SI that the MLB was going to widen the strike zone for the 15 season along with all the other changes to speed up the game. With that said, If Im Cherington my first order of business is to build a Starting rotation and bullpen backed by strong Defense going forward.

2016 Payroll minus Papi your looking at 112 million. Add Arb players roughly 118 mill. Your still in decent shape. Deadline deals Koji, Miley and Craig to clear another 24 million, with another 4 million in Dodger money coming off the books. Roughly 90 million in payroll (team wants Koji, u take Craig) heading into 2016.
You must clear Ortiz's money, the player is not getting younger and your not maximizing your Ramirez investment by playing him in the OF.

2016 HRam moves to DH. Open up LF for a legit OF who can hit/run/defend (Upton?). You have the opportunity to move on at least one or two top tier Aces in Free Agency. Plenty of coin to improve the Pen and find a Closer. First base options, possibly Weiters Free Agency or by trade. Sandoval must pull a Lackey. Get to Fort Meyers in shape and ready to play. 
With payroll flexibility and the prospects you have in 16, I would make a run at Hamels in 15 whose deal is a bargain going forward and beyond and is one of the premier LHP in the game.

Last, Manager. Call Gardenhire