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What Can Be Done to Fix the Sox?
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Post by jimed14 on Jul 21, 2015 14:06:22 GMT -5
I would absolutely prefer to keep Miley. He's a solid and durable pitcher who is the type of back-end arm a contender really needs to eat innings. He's the perfect rotational complement to Buchholz, who is excellent but rarely able to cross 120 innings effectively. Having a #4 starter who makes it unlikely the team will have to rely on its depth is huge when the frontline guy doesn't reliably stay on the mound. Having Miley also makes it easier to cycle in young, talented pitchers at the pace the team would like, instead of having them be necessary injury replacements. Since his upside isn't going to get falsely inflated or anything it's going to be hard to get a contender to deal great value for him - basically, I don't think you could trade Wade Miley for parts that are as valuable as he is. Look at this offseason: the Red Sox traded Rubby De La Rosa's upside and an ex-prospect to get him. Miley is better than the package they got him for, and he's not likely to net a return that's more favorable now. Arizona handcuffed themselves by insisting on major league ready players, kind of how we screwed up on Lackey and Lester. If we took prospects, I think it could be a better deal. But I'm not trading him unless we "win the deal".
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Post by thegoo13 on Jul 21, 2015 14:14:33 GMT -5
John Farrell Managerial record: 2011 Toronto 81- 81 2012 Toronto 73-89 2013 Boston 97-65 2014 Boston 71-91 2015 Boston 42-51
Career total 364-377 Toronto total 154-170
John Gibbons in Toronto since 2013 = 204 – 214. John Gibbons is no one’s Joe Madden, yet his time in Toronto has been far better than Farrell’s in Toronto. Minus 2013 Farrell has ONE .500 season. He is just not a winning manager, but add to that he is clearly not someone who manages young talent well at all. That is a key point IMO as the Sox have one of the strongest farm systems in the game and have clearly wanted to rely more on that system the last couple years and will continue to in the future.
Ben Cherington GM
Important trades made from 2012 forward:
Good Punto trade ERod trade Holt for Melancen (one that benefitted both teams) Miley trade Hannigan trade
Bad Lester for Porcello. This one could still turn around but looks really bad now Lackey trade. No spinning this one. Really bad for Sox
FA signings:
Good Koji – Has been excellent including 2013 WS Victorino – 2013 WS Napoli - 2013 WS Ellsbury – Not resigning was right move
Too early to tell Hanley – Have to figure out a place for him. He cannot continue to butcher LF in 2016. Panda
Bad Steven Drew – Panic move because no one knew how good Holt was going to be at the time. Hurt Xander’s development.
There have been other bad moves of course, IMO Breslow and Sizemore are two examples but they weren’t course altering type moves. Like a Vernon Wells contract or Josh Hamilton for the Angels.
Cherington has added Devers, Moncada, Benintendi, Espinoza, Kopech and Chavis from the draft and IFA.
I agree with those on the thread who think our major league player management has been bad the last two years, but other than that I think those who are calling for Cherington’s head are being short sighted. He has done FAR more good than bad and there are so many bad GM’s out there . I think he is actually very good. Our system is evidence of that. As someone once said on this site we have 7 players under 25 who look like they could have MVP type skills. We have several good young pitchers including possibly one of the really bright pitching stars in all of baseball.
Farrell on the other hand is not. I think the Sox need a new Manager for 2016 and two key talents this person would need to poses are to be good at developing young talent and embracing the cyber-metrics that the Sox have in place.
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Post by jclmontana on Jul 21, 2015 14:39:29 GMT -5
I agree with sarasox in that adding Cueto or Hamels is pointless right now. Who knows where we will be going into next year? Let's see where this year ends. Does Porcello show a pulse? Can Rodriguez and Johnson pitch well the rest of the way? Owens? Other young players like Bradley etc. what's the deal with Buchholz? If the young pitchers, aren't very good next year then adding a front of the rotation guy wont matter. And you don't want to spend all that money on a pitcher. Just because they are going to need a top of the rotation starter doesn't mean now is the best time to add one. Giving up on next year assumes that none of the historically good players currently sucking hard will not rebound, and that none of the current young players will continue developing. Other players will, of course, suffer performance dips or injury, but talking total teardown is premature. Here is what I think needs to happen: Say goodbye to David Ortiz. Hanley fills pretty much the same role, offense only big bat. Having two DH on the roster is not viable. I think they signed Hanley to be Ortiz's successor, and it is time to get on with it. Try Hanley at first base, I suppose, but his deficiencies in left field, injury history, and his history of poor infield defense, all point, with giant neon flashing letters, to DH ONLY! Sucks to talk so coldly about Papi, but the die is cast at this point. Hanley isn't going anywhere without a massive subsidy, and besides, having him succeed Papi isn't such a bad plan. The calculus is whether the offense of Papi + Hanley's offense - Hanley's hideous defense > Hanley's offense + JBJ's (or ?) offense + JBJ's defense. Maybe JBJ is not the answer, but that is the general idea. Use the assets already in hand. Bring up JBJ and give him a long leash. Keep developing the young guys in the minors until they are ready, don't bring them up without a solid development plan (as opposed to bringing them up to help the MLB team). Figure out what happened to Rusney. Is this a long acclimation period? Is there something else going on? Get below the tax line this year. Probably more important than trading for talent (since they don't have many viable chips anyway). Success next year will probably mean getting a high priced ace-like pitcher and going over the tax, so start preparing now. Quietly shop Pedroia, but only pull the trigger for a Hershel Walker deal. But I see this mostly as due diligence. Clear out the dead wood as it makes sense. Victorino my be a likely August trade candidate, if he can stay healthy ( HA!), but Napoli is probably just a goner. But unless prospects are obviously ready, it doesn't really matter if the dreck in the bullpen, Napoli, and Victorino stick around. Get rid of Farrell and revamp the process/staff involved with player evaluation. Maybe Cherington needs to go, but taking risks is part of constructing a team, and failure is part of risk. There are a few moves I have not liked (Masterson especially), but most of the moves made sense at the time, despite having gone way more awry than even the most pessimistic projections.
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Post by Guidas on Jul 21, 2015 14:39:31 GMT -5
"Evaluated"? If I failed in my job three of the last four years and set my org on the course for further failure I'd be walked to the door by security carrying my personal stuff in a box. And I work for myself. And no disrespect to jmei but until recently he's been one of the biggest defenders of this front office. If you were the GM and signed Mike Trout as a free agent for $300 million at age 26 and he turned out to be a replacement level player in year 2, do you think you should get all the blame for that? Yes.Ditto, if you traded Margot and Devers for Chris Sale and Margot and Devers turned out to be Hall of Fame players and Sale needed TJS twice like Hanrahan, do you think you should get all the blame for that? Yes.You can only critique the methodology, not second guess unlikely results. And if they aren't unlikely, who said during the preseason that everything was going to turn out like it has? Who said Porcello would be the worst starting pitcher in baseball? Who said Sandoval and Ramirez were going to be under replacement level? Who said Napoli was done? Nobody, because people can't see the future. They can only make predictions based on what happened the last few years. "Seeing the future," to a certain extent, is part of Ben Cherrington's job description and the dynamic of building and running a team and a major league organization, or any business for that matter. And business and baseball are both outcome and performance based, and in this world - and especially in Boston - intertwined. You can go into a fight with a great plan, but if you keep losing the battles, eventually you change the planners. It's the same for any other team. Like or hate his moves, there was logic behind each one Cherrington and his group made, or chose not to make. I'm not impugning any of that. But if you make enough decisions that don't work out, eventually you are held accountable, at least in business and sports. That's reality. Or put another way, how many times in any business can you spend $200+ million of other people's money, fail, and not be held accountable by those people? The buck stops with the chief executive, whether it's praise or blame. The results of the strategic vision and the decisions made by Ben Cherrington, and by extension the evaluators he has appointed to preside over key areas, for the most part, have produced failures or substandard results at many levels. Whether he could justify all they did at the time they did it or or in retrospect, becomes, at a certain point, immaterial. Sports and business are both results-oriented businesses. If your leadership yields success, you reap the praise and rewards. If it does not, you shoulder the blame and you get fired.
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on Jul 21, 2015 14:43:41 GMT -5
You can only critique the methodology, not second guess unlikely results. You can and should do both. People do this with their private lives, corporations do this with their bottom lines, it happens all the time. This notion, that you can't predict likely or unlikely results (which would lead to second guessing likely or unlikely results) is totally outside the human experience. Introspection..review...organization changes....however you want to term it, is brought upon by a combination of likely or unlikely results. I mean why the heck make any decision in the first place if you can't second guess unlikely results.
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Post by jimed14 on Jul 21, 2015 14:43:48 GMT -5
Business is way more predictable than baseball. Every CEO in America won't get fired if the economy collapses. Some things are out of your control.
And the funny thing is that I bet the Red Sox make pretty close to the money they forecasted prior to the season.
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Post by Guidas on Jul 21, 2015 14:46:31 GMT -5
Business is way more predictable than baseball. Every CEO in America won't get fired if the economy collapses. Some things are out of your control. Again, in the job description. Sorry, this happens in every sport with every GM, coach or manager who does not get results. Part of the deal when you agree to be in charge. And please explain to any small businessperson - or even small or mid-sized corporate CEO how business is more predicable than baseball. I think they could all use a laugh.
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Post by jimed14 on Jul 21, 2015 14:51:43 GMT -5
Business is way more predictable than baseball. Every CEO in America won't get fired if the economy collapses. Some things are out of your control. Again, in the job description. Sorry, this happens in every sport with every GM, coach or manager who does not get results. Part of the deal when you agree to be in charge. And please explain to any small businessperson - or even small or mid-sized corporate CEO how business is more predicable than baseball. I think they could all use a laugh. I'm not really going to derail the thread with the business discussion. But you're really only focused on results not methodology. You can't even define what is wrong with the methodology, so changing for the sake of change isn't going to fix anything unless you can define it - given that this thread is about actually fixing things. "Bringing in a GM who can win" isn't really telling us how to fix the Sox. My opinion which goes back to the end of 2012 is that we were going to have at least 3-4 bridge seasons to get away from the older core players and let the new ones take over. You cannot replace a core with guys like Hanley and Sandoval. You replace it by waiting for the young players. This team will fix itself by just waiting. It won't fix itself by making huge trades or signing any more huge free agents. I mean I don't give Cherington a ton of credit for trading for Holt. He wanted Hanrahan and targeted Holt as a throw in. But if you're only looking at results, he deserves a lot of credit.
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on Jul 21, 2015 14:59:56 GMT -5
Business is way more predictable than baseball. Every CEO in America won't get fired if the economy collapses. Some things are out of your control. And the funny thing is that I bet the Red Sox make pretty close to the money they forecasted prior to the season. That's silly. Managing a workforce..deliveries...legal...etc.etc....is more predictable than baseball. There has been an indoctrination to current baseball culture...by people who, quite frankly, hide behind the randomness of baseball with proprietary algorithms and the like, and then say, well we couldn't have forseen that when it blows up. That exists because their left brained folks who use their intellectual strengths to carve out their methodologies, at the cost of right brained thinking. It creates a hubris and lack of accountability. We need people second guessing these guys. We are the customer and we want better product.
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Post by ctfisher on Jul 21, 2015 15:07:38 GMT -5
If you were the GM and signed Mike Trout as a free agent for $300 million at age 26 and he turned out to be a replacement level player in year 2, do you think you should get all the blame for that? Yes.Ditto, if you traded Margot and Devers for Chris Sale and Margot and Devers turned out to be Hall of Fame players and Sale needed TJS twice like Hanrahan, do you think you should get all the blame for that? Yes."Seeing the future," to a certain extent, is part of Ben Cherrington's job description and the dynamic of building and running a team and a major league organization, or any business for that matter. And business and baseball are both outcome and performance based, and in this world - and especially in Boston - intertwined. You can go into a fight with a great plan, but if you keep losing the battles, eventually you change the planners. It's the same for any other team. Like or hate his moves, there was logic behind each one Cherrington and his group made, or chose not to make. I'm not impugning any of that. But if you make enough decisions that don't work out, eventually you are held accountable, at least in business and sports. That's reality. There's only one R in Cherington, just a heads up. I also think that your take on how much of the blame a GM should take for factors almost entirely outside his control is pretty absurd. If medical reports come back clean, how are you supposed to anticipate decline in a player entering his prime age or injuries? Also, Cherington's been with the team since 1999, and held pretty important positions (Director of Player Development, Assistant GM) since the early 2000s. Does he get no credit for being an important part of a front office that built 2 championship teams and the head of another that built a 3rd? Finally, if you're not impugning his logic, then what's the motivation for the owner's to get rid of him? If his logic is sound and you can acknowledge that bad luck has been a significant contributing factor in the last 2 years, and you factor in his tenure with the organization dating back to before his time as GM, then he's earned a pretty long leash, and fans calling for him to be fired aren't a great motivation: who's going to boycott the Sox cause they want Cherington fired?
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danr
Veteran
Posts: 1,871
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Post by danr on Jul 21, 2015 15:10:36 GMT -5
Cherington made the same kind of devastating mistake two years in a row, taking a big risk with an important part of the team with no backup if it didn't work. Last year he gambled on the outfield not having any established high level performer except Victorino who had an injury history. He had no solid backup plan if the team's outfielders didn't hit, which they didn't.
This season he gambled on the pitching not having any high level performer except Buchholz and his inconsistent history. He acquired a bunch of 3,4 and 5 level pitchers: Masterson trying to come back from an injury; Kelly not really established yet because of command problems; Porcello, who just had his best season, but was not heavily relied on by Detroit; and Miley, a solid pitcher but not a top of the rotation stopper. The bullpen had only two superior RPs. The rest are replacement level performers.
Add in the facts that the outfield problem still is not completely solved, and there is no obvious internal replacement for Napoli, who is in the last year of his contract.
Sometimes an enterprise has no choice to do things in certain ways that make it vulnerable if those things don't work. However, the Sox are not that kind of enterprise. They have enormous resources. They just chose not to use them to strengthen the team by limiting its vulnerabilities and make it a real contender. I don't think it is all Cherington's fault, maybe a lot of it isn't. I suspect it was an enterprise decision, coming from the top, and reinforced by others in senior levels.
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Post by arzjake on Jul 21, 2015 15:20:18 GMT -5
I don't think Farrell is the guy. Despite the record here in Boston and Toronto the Sandoval phone incident and the Miley incident tells me there is lack of clubhouse control. Players in the field not knowing how many outs, running thru stop signs, stealing a base while already in scoring position less than two outs and several defensive lapses in the field. The Managers job is to get players ready to play and perform at there highest level. A motivator, a leader.The overall mental state and preparedness of this Team stinks and that my friends is the managers job to avoid.
Look at what Madden did all those years in Tampa with zero payroll, Girardi and Sciosca in big markets, look at Bochy in SF..
If Im Cherington Im calling leyland and or gardenhire for 16.
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Post by Guidas on Jul 21, 2015 15:26:22 GMT -5
Again, in the job description. Sorry, this happens in every sport with every GM, coach or manager who does not get results. Part of the deal when you agree to be in charge. And please explain to any small businessperson - or even small or mid-sized corporate CEO how business is more predicable than baseball. I think they could all use a laugh. I'm not really going to derail the thread with the business discussion. But you're really only focused on results not methodology. You can't even define what is wrong with the methodology, so changing for the sake of change isn't going to fix anything unless you can define it - given that this thread is about actually fixing things. "Bringing in a GM who can win" isn't really telling us how to fix the Sox. My opinion which goes back to the end of 2012 is that we were going to have at least 3-4 bridge seasons to get away from the older core players and let the new ones take over. You cannot replace a core with guys like Hanley and Sandoval. You replace it by waiting for the young players. This team will fix itself by just waiting. And I disagree. Just because someone can justify a methodology doesn't mean they can execute it well. All I said above is that the logic behind each move could be justified by someone (or several people) - but just because you can justify something doesn't mean it's right. One can go into a problem with a great strategy for a solution and execute it as well as s/he could expect. But if they don't solve the problem, at some point, you need a new strategist. The bottom line (because sports and business are bottom line activities): The end point decisions by this front office, no matter what the arguments for them at the time were, have proven to be ineffective. At some juncture, the people who are investing their money in all of this will say, "We like this guy, we believed in what he was doing, but it hasn't worked out." This happens all the time. It's not changing for the sake of change. It's changing because your leader ultimately repeatedly made decisions that didn't workout. Hey, it could be that their theories are great but they have the wrong people doing the evaluations and making the decisions so their execution ended up being failed. I don't know. I am not saying go get some maniac with no plan or the Nick Carfardo playbook. But I am saying that I believe it's time to find someone who is better at the things Ben Cherrington and this organization aspire to be good at. The history of the world has been written on great strategies that were defeated by poor execution and adaptation. The name of the thread is "What Can Be Done to Fix the Sox." I think at this juncture, what needs to be done is to go find someone who is a better GM than Ben Cherrington and who will make better decisions. No one's perfect, but this team has gone from a perennial contender to a complete failure in all but one outlier year.
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Post by jimed14 on Jul 21, 2015 15:50:02 GMT -5
You cannot find a better GM than Ben Cherington if the only thing you can define that is wrong with him is that he doesn't win enough.
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Post by larrycook on Jul 21, 2015 15:56:07 GMT -5
I do not think Farrell is responsible for our hitters super passive approach to hitting in an era of the expanded strike zone.
I do not think Farrell is responsible for the new pitchers needing time to adjust to Fenway, the al east and the American League as a whole (in Miley's case).
Bottom line: this team needs two top of the rotation type arms and two reliable relievers; plus they need to solve the logjam at dh, and not by leaving rameriez in left field.
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Post by Guidas on Jul 21, 2015 16:00:45 GMT -5
"Seeing the future," to a certain extent, is part of Ben Cherrington's job description and the dynamic of building and running a team and a major league organization, or any business for that matter. And business and baseball are both outcome and performance based, and in this world - and especially in Boston - intertwined. You can go into a fight with a great plan, but if you keep losing the battles, eventually you change the planners. It's the same for any other team. Like or hate his moves, there was logic behind each one Cherrington and his group made, or chose not to make. I'm not impugning any of that. But if you make enough decisions that don't work out, eventually you are held accountable, at least in business and sports. That's reality. There's only one R in Cherington, just a heads up. I also think that your take on how much of the blame a GM should take for factors almost entirely outside his control is pretty absurd. I was asked if I was the GM. I believe that the management team you build helps you gather the information for a decision. But when you are the decider the blame/praise is ultimately yours. So if you bought on Trout at $300M and he blows up, you own that move. One really bad outcome can hurt/crush a CEO, whether it was his or her fault. You're paid to look at the variables, external factors, "what ifs." But if you're empowered to make the decision, and you fail enough, you get the blame and the consequences. If medical reports come back clean, how are you supposed to anticipate decline in a player entering his prime age or injuries? By looking at the available data on the player and then making a decision. That is what a leader does. No one will bat 1.000 at a GM jobs. But if one makes enough decisions that produce success, then s/he get all the accolades and rewards. If you make decisions that prove out to have more failures than successes, you get canned. Sports. Business. Way of the world.Also, Cherington's been with the team since 1999, and held pretty important positions (Director of Player Development, Assistant GM) since the early 2000s. Does he get no credit for being an important part of a front office that built 2 championship teams and the head of another that built a 3rd? Sure that's why he got hired to a job only 30 people in the world have. I would say that's plenty of credit. But the job comes with responsibility. Also, if I give him credit for all of that stuff you mention, and I do to some extent, then does he not get blame - perhaps even more blame given what you said - for poorly evaluating the level or readiness of talent he's brought up in the last few years? Or, say, not drafting or developing better than a #4 starter since Clay Buchholz? That was 7 years ago. Finally, if you're not impugning his logic I am and have at certain junctures (not saying I was right every time, either. But that doesn't mean I couldn't ably justify my logic for specific decisions - or non-decisions, too, and did at the time). But beyond nit picking certain moves, one can come to a logical conclusions about an overall strategy but all these decisions are not binary. Just because you can justify something doesn't make it right. You've made your argument and won. Great. But, say, if your argument was to draft and trade for better, younger pitching, but your evaluation process was flawed then the logic is good, the execution is poor. He is responsible for both of those components. And he's the decider.then what's the motivation for the owner's to get rid of him? If his logic is sound and you can acknowledge that bad luck has been a significant contributing factor in the last 2 years, and you factor in his tenure with the organization dating back to before his time as GM, then he's earned a pretty long leash Really? Would you be saying that if you're blowing $200Mish on salaries and development and seeing revenues decline? That is what's "earned" here. Maybe they give him another year. But there's only so far you go with history. And hey, maybe that respect gets him another position within the organization like some teams do. But I can't see this ownership group reinforcing failure for much longer. And since it's my opinion, I am saying it's time for him to go. I would fire Farrell too, btw and never was that keen on hiring him. In fact, I advocated getting Maddon this winter when he was available, even though I knew that was a less than 1% outcome probability given 2013., and fans calling for him to be fired aren't a great motivation: who's going to boycott the Sox cause they want Cherington fired? The same people who are not watching the games on NESN or not buying tickets. That's your false equivalency outcome. Sports fans don't boycott, per se for the most part. They just don't watch the team, go to games, buy gear, etc. Btw, did you notice Monster tickets suddenly went on sale for a few upcoming series? Those things were like gold until about 2011 or so, and then again in 2013 and the beginning of 2014. Not so much right now. Wonder why?
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Post by Guidas on Jul 21, 2015 16:35:12 GMT -5
You cannot find a better GM than Ben Cherington if the only thing you can define that is wrong with him is that he doesn't win enough. That isn't my definition of what's wrong. I've been pretty clear about every move I've disagreed with or agreed with like everyone else here. I was pretty sure the moderators didn't want me - or anyone else - to re-litigate those exact moves and strategies in this space again. And I will say again, you can have a great strategy, but if your execution is bad then it's for naught. You want a generalized summation? Talent evaluation throughout this organization appears to be significantly flawed, especially in starting pitching acquisition and development save for a few outliers. No real success in developing better than a #4 starter since Buchholz in 2008. Rodriguez is the outlier here, and there may be a gem or two in A ball somewhere, but really the cupboard has been bare since 08. Also, there have been repeated examples of bringing players up before they were ready in the last few years. The evaluation extends to trades which, in large part, have been losses - especially if one accepts that the Dodgers, and ultimately ownership drove the Punto deal, and you set that one aside. The evaluation of the players going out vs. the ones coming back have not matched up with results overall. But again, these are generalities. Personally, sure, I questioned some of the individual moves and some of the broader strategies, but bottom line is, whatever he's doing hasn't been working. If it's your money, do you want to keep paying for those results? How long do you support a strategy no matter how convincing the advocate, if the results are less than mediocre? All I know is that a team that was a perennial playoff team from 2003 until 2009, save for an outlier, is now a perennial loser, save for an outlier. It's a game of adjustments and that includes team building. No team can build a consistent home-grown winner in this current environment. Trades and free agency are as essential as internal player drafting and development. Maybe his strategy is perfect, but his execution - and the execution of his management team and evaluators - on some or all of these fronts has proven to be substandard. You want things to go along and, eventually the plan will prove out? And is that the plan with Panda and Hanley and Porcello and Miley? Or are you advocating ownership eat tens of millions more jettisoning these new big mistakes and give this group of strategists and evaluators another do-over on the execution of the plan again? The thread wanted to know how we'd fix the team. Leadership comes from the top on down. This leadership, for whatever reasons, is not working. That's where I'd start.
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danr
Veteran
Posts: 1,871
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Post by danr on Jul 21, 2015 16:55:14 GMT -5
Guidas, I agree with most of what you just posted. However, they are developing pitching in the system now. There are quite a few quite promising pitchers from the GCL to Pawtucket. However, there was a period of time when the system was pretty barren of good pitching.
I also disagree that no team can remain competitive. What about St. Louis? They manage to be competitive almost every year. They have changed ownership, managers, GMs, etc., and they keep producing winning teams with tremendous fan support. I think they have finished last only one time in their history. The Yankees also have been pretty competitive most of the time. However, overall your point is valid. It is no different in baseball than it is in most businesses. It is hard to stay on top for any period of time. However, barring a flock of simultaneous injuries, which does happen now and then, I don't think a team with the resources and fan support that the Red Sox have should be finishing last three out of four years. I don't have the sense of an overall organizational philosophy like St. Louis has that gives them a long-term strategy that keeps them winning.
It is not a strategy to decide not to sign pitchers past the age of 30, or to make other such pronouncements. What is a strategy is doing a thorough analysis of a team's needs and filling them as effectively as possible even if it sometimes means resigning a star who is 30.
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Post by soxfan1615 on Jul 21, 2015 16:58:39 GMT -5
Guidas, I agree with most of what you just posted. However, they are developing pitching in the system now. There are quite a few quite promising pitchers from the GCL to Pawtucket. However, there was a period of time when the system was pretty barren of good pitching. I also disagree that no team can remain competitive. What about St. Louis? They manage to be competitive almost every year. They have changed ownership, managers, GMs, etc., and they keep producing winning teams with tremendous fan support. I think they have finished last only one time in their history. The Yankees also have been pretty competitive most of the time. However, overall your point is valid. It is no different in baseball than it is in most businesses. It is hard to stay on top for any period of time. However, barring a flock of simultaneous injuries, which does happen now and then, I don't think a team with the resources and fan support that the Red Sox have should be finishing last three out of four years. I don't have the sense of an overall organizational philosophy like St. Louis has. He said no team can be consistently competitive by just being homegrown. St. Louis and the Yankees have effectively used trades and FA for years.
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danr
Veteran
Posts: 1,871
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Post by danr on Jul 21, 2015 16:59:48 GMT -5
Guidas, I agree with most of what you just posted. However, they are developing pitching in the system now. There are quite a few quite promising pitchers from the GCL to Pawtucket. However, there was a period of time when the system was pretty barren of good pitching. I also disagree that no team can remain competitive. What about St. Louis? They manage to be competitive almost every year. They have changed ownership, managers, GMs, etc., and they keep producing winning teams with tremendous fan support. I think they have finished last only one time in their history. The Yankees also have been pretty competitive most of the time. However, overall your point is valid. It is no different in baseball than it is in most businesses. It is hard to stay on top for any period of time. However, barring a flock of simultaneous injuries, which does happen now and then, I don't think a team with the resources and fan support that the Red Sox have should be finishing last three out of four years. I don't have the sense of an overall organizational philosophy like St. Louis has. He said no team can be consistently competitive by just being homegrown. St. Louis and the Yankees have effectively used trades and FA for years. Good point. I made an edit that I think covers that.
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Post by Guidas on Jul 21, 2015 17:06:42 GMT -5
Guidas, I agree with most of what you just posted. However, they are developing pitching in the system now. There are quite a few quite promising pitchers from the GCL to Pawtucket. However, there was a period of time when the system was pretty barren of good pitching. I also disagree that no team can remain competitive. What about St. Louis? They manage to be competitive almost every year. They have changed ownership, managers, GMs, etc., and they keep producing winning teams with tremendous fan support. I think they have finished last only one time in their history. The Yankees also have been pretty competitive most of the time. However, overall your point is valid. It is no different in baseball than it is in most businesses. It is hard to stay on top for any period of time. However, barring a flock of simultaneous injuries, which does happen now and then, I don't think a team with the resources and fan support that the Red Sox have should be finishing last three out of four years. I don't have the sense of an overall organizational philosophy like St. Louis has that gives them a long-term strategy that keeps them winning. It is not a strategy to decide not to sign pitchers past the age of 30, or to make other such pronouncements. What is a strategy is doing a thorough analysis of a team's needs and filling them as effectively as possible even if it sometimes means resigning a star who is 30. Thanks for this - and to be clear in case I wasn't, I believe no team can be competitive with just homegrown talent. Trades and free agent acquisitions are essential. Doesn't mean you have to buy the shiniest toys on display, but you have to do all three. Also, I still don't see any pitcher above A ball right now who looks to be more than a #3 starter, if that (I still think Owens won't reach even that ceiling). There may be some promise below AA but the rest is a landscape of mediocrity or much worse.
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Post by incandenza on Jul 21, 2015 21:50:13 GMT -5
So here's an unsatisfying take: maybe the last couple of years are just a function of small sample size noise. Look at it this way: Cherington has made, what, 20 or 30 major decisions the last couple of seasons? That's including trades, FA signings, and certain other personnel decisions (moving Betts to CF, whatever it is they're doing with Castillo, etc.). Some have worked out, others haven't. And the team's been bitten by some things that have been just totally unpredictable (Napoli falling off a cliff) while benefitting from a couple of surprises in the other direction (Brock Holt!). When you add it all up, things haven't worked out that great for the last two seasons, after working out really great the season before that. So overall, Cherington's not doing so great over those last 20-30 major decisions, while looking a lot better over his last 30-40 decisions.
Meanwhile, Mookie Betts just ended an 0-20 stretch. Does anyone think he should be benched for that performance?
Of course, you have to judge the GM's performance somehow. One thing you could look at is what the Sox were projected to do each of these last few seasons. And as it happens, they were expected to be pretty good by most folks! You might think they should've been projected to be even better, given their payroll. But as for their falling short of those projections, it really might just be a matter of luck. As ungratifying as that might be to say.
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Post by larrycook on Jul 21, 2015 22:07:12 GMT -5
Ownership and bc have us trapped in a purgatory that no one wants to be in. Are we a veteran team dependent on big name free agency that competes annually for a playoff spot or are we a young reloading team dependent on drafting and player development that projects to be killer team two or three years.
I think a lot of people want the sox to pick one because this half and half mentality is causing heartburn among the fan base, and among the players as the veterans can not help but be frustrated by the youngsters growing pains and the youngsters frustrated by unreal expectations right out the gate. ( how many of us thought bogey would be the rookie of the year for 2014?)
I want us to commit to the youngsters and take a few ups and all those downs as the youngsters work through their growing pain; while drafting smart and developing talent. I realize that means a down year or two or three but as long as we see things moving, however slow, in the right direction, then all is well.
To get there means unloading the deadweight veterans and playing the youngsters. My rule of thumb is 800 at bats for young hitters with talent to prove themselves and 35 starts for young pitchers to prove themselves.
Right now I see a half and half team with a huge payroll and underperformance everywhere.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Jul 21, 2015 23:12:24 GMT -5
You cannot find a better GM than Ben Cherington if the only thing you can define that is wrong with him is that he doesn't win enough. That isn't my definition of what's wrong. I've been pretty clear about every move I've disagreed with or agreed with like everyone else here. I was pretty sure the moderators didn't want me - or anyone else - to re-litigate those exact moves and strategies in this space again. And I will say again, you can have a great strategy, but if your execution is bad then it's for naught. You want a generalized summation? Talent evaluation throughout this organization appears to be significantly flawed, especially in starting pitching acquisition and development save for a few outliers. No real success in developing better than a #4 starter since Buchholz in 2008. Rodriguez is the outlier here, and there may be a gem or two in A ball somewhere, but really the cupboard has been bare since 08. Also, there have been repeated examples of bringing players up before they were ready in the last few years. The evaluation extends to trades which, in large part, have been losses - especially if one accepts that the Dodgers, and ultimately ownership drove the Punto deal, and you set that one aside. The evaluation of the players going out vs. the ones coming back have not matched up with results overall. But again, these are generalities. Personally, sure, I questioned some of the individual moves and some of the broader strategies, but bottom line is, whatever he's doing hasn't been working. If it's your money, do you want to keep paying for those results? How long do you support a strategy no matter how convincing the advocate, if the results are less than mediocre? All I know is that a team that was a perennial playoff team from 2003 until 2009, save for an outlier, is now a perennial loser, save for an outlier. It's a game of adjustments and that includes team building. No team can build a consistent home-grown winner in this current environment. Trades and free agency are as essential as internal player drafting and development. Maybe his strategy is perfect, but his execution - and the execution of his management team and evaluators - on some or all of these fronts has proven to be substandard. You want things to go along and, eventually the plan will prove out? And is that the plan with Panda and Hanley and Porcello and Miley? Or are you advocating ownership eat tens of millions more jettisoning these new big mistakes and give this group of strategists and evaluators another do-over on the execution of the plan again? The thread wanted to know how we'd fix the team. Leadership comes from the top on down. This leadership, for whatever reasons, is not working. That's where I'd start. Guidas, you've done a great job articulating what's been on my mind re: the Sox. I'm tired of hearing bad luck, great process, unlucky results. At some point, the bottom line is the bottom line, or as Belichick (I think) said, you are what your record says you are. This is a bottom line game based on real results, not a virtual game where A should be this and B should be that, but they're just unlucky so we dismiss what actually happened. We know there will always be variance between what theoretically should be and what is. That's why they play the games on the field. I agree with you re: Cherington's performance. It's been lackluster to say the least. They unloaded all of that money three years ago and now have re-clogged the payroll with more bad contracts. Look at the bang for the buck they're getting. In Porcello, they paid $20 million/year for a mid to bottom of the rotation guy who doesn't strike anybody out and allows hard contact, because he fit the contract length and age profile that they understandably desire even though he doesn't have the talent to be a guy that can front a rotation. In Sandoval, they paid him $19 million/year, thinking they were getting a guy who's only 28, fitting their age profile, and hoping that his performance would tick up at Fenway, even though Sandoval's best days are far behind him, and with his weight and lack of desire to stay in shape, that they are clearly buying into a declining market with a guy who body-wise is a lot older than your typical 28 year old. They spent $22 million on a DH in Ramirez, bringing their total up to $38 million/year spent on DHs when you factor in Ortiz's money. They assumed Hanley could go from being a lousy SS to being an adequate LF, which on the face of it doesn't seem crazy, but now their defense is taking a hit, which I assume is one of the reasons why the FIPs look merely mediocre and the ERAs look horrendous. Then there's the wasted money on Allen Craig and the addition of a pitcher in Joe Kelly that has great stuff but absolutely no command whatsoever. Add that to wasting $9 million on Masterson, who like Craig, looked absolutely cooked BEFORE the Sox went out and got them. Those are expensive flyers. They lose out on Abreu, so they go out and give Rusney Castillo all that money which has been wasted. Then they compound things by not giving JBJ another chance so here he is and they still have no idea what they have in him other than a world class defensive CF. So for $29 million they got Masterson and Porcello, when they would have been better off finding a way to re-sign Jon Lester, and they would have been smarter to do so before he became a free agent in the first place. Yeah, they would have tied up the money and years on Lester, but sometimes the talent and durability is worth the risk, especially when they know upfront what they have. At some point, whether these decisions are unlucky or flat out awful, the GM has to take responsibility for these moves. Ben Cherington owns 2015, just like he owns 2014. Where I differ from Guidas is that I can cut Cherington more slack - if he sticks to his long-term building plan, which I think he's done a good job of. I think that is his saving grace. It bothers me that Cherington, in trying to "balance" the short-term future needs, cashed in Lester and Lackey for veterans and not youngsters like ERod, who could have come up this year or next and helped fortify the influx of young talent coming in. That young talent will mostly hit around 2017 and 2018 and take a year or two to really mature. They could have gotten youngsters who would have stepped in this year or next with an eye on making the Sox even stronger for the end of the decade, but the desire to win in 2015 trumped the desire to fortify the long-term building that they need to do. While I disagree with the process there is one thing I keep coming back to and that is that the major league scouting has been horrendous. It's the same scouting that said Carl Crawford is our guy, that Castillo is a must have, and that sends the Sox guys like Porcello, Kelly, and Craig, and I would say that's the domain of Allard Baird, who I think the Sox should get rid of. Cherington should make that happen because he is responsible for him. I do think that yes, Cherington needs a better set of eyes to help him with the free agent signings and deals for major league talent, because they cannot rely exclusively on young talent from the farm, but I do think that the Sox will have to rely very, very heavily on that young talent because 1) they have it on the horizon, which is a credit to Cherington, and 2) they have locked themselves into some terrible deals and will need the young talent on the roster to offset it. And as I said, Cherington owns 2014 and 2015, but he also owns 2013, and whether I agreed with his band-aid moves or not, the results were as wonderful as you could hope they could be and that's a credit to him, and I feel should be a factor in him keeping his job for the time being if he gets better help in scouting and evaluating the major league talent for free agent signings and trades.
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Post by dcsoxfan on Jul 21, 2015 23:24:55 GMT -5
I don't think Cherington needs to be fired as much as supplemented.
He clearly does some things very well. The farm system clearly appears to be trending up under Cherington. I can't remember a Red Sox system with so much young talent. On the other hand his record on signing free agents and trades is much less inspiring.
Just as Theo was a less effective GM after Jed Hoyer left for San Diego -- and Theo wasted no time in bringing him to Chicago -- I think Ben Cherington may need a similarly complementary partner.
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