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What Can Be Done to Fix the Sox?
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Post by Guidas on Jul 28, 2015 13:34:13 GMT -5
Yup. Not the greatest video, but you can see it's to the left of the second baseman. Guidas is half correct. Lugo muffed an easy groundball in an earlier inning leading to an error which let Shannon Stewart come to bat a 4th time with 2 outs in the 8th. So, in a way, Lugo effed up Schilling's perfect game bid. I'm inclined to believe that he would have had it. I just remember taking Lugo's name in vain and blaming him for every extra out thereafter. Really thought Schill had a no-no at that game. And I was at the game with my cousin totally sweating it at the end because I wasn't even sure they could pull out the win. OK, let us never speak of Lugo again unless we are discussing misguided free agent acquisitions and faulty advanced stats extrapolation (the spin was Theo was sure he'd be a "doubles machine" at Fenway. It turned out he was right, but mostly for other teams). All of Lugo's suck was compounded when I was accused of looking like his twin when I went to the Dominican that winter.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Jul 28, 2015 13:55:47 GMT -5
Guidas is half correct. Lugo muffed an easy groundball in an earlier inning leading to an error which let Shannon Stewart come to bat a 4th time with 2 outs in the 8th. So, in a way, Lugo effed up Schilling's perfect game bid. I'm inclined to believe that he would have had it. I just remember taking Lugo's name in vain and blaming him for every extra out thereafter. Really thought Schill had a no-no at that game. And I was at the game with my cousin totally sweating it at the end because I wasn't even sure they could pull out the win. OK, let us never speak of Lugo again unless we are discussing misguided free agent acquisitions and faulty advanced stats extrapolation (the spin was Theo was sure he'd be a "doubles machine" at Fenway. It turned out he was right, but mostly for other teams). All of Lugo's suck was compounded when I was accused of looking like his twin when I went to the Dominican that winter. Good call, Guidas. I just remember Schilling smiling, shaking his head, and saying that he'd have the "Big If" all of his life because he shook off Varitek when he was facing Shannon Stewart one out away. Reminds me of Bull Durham when Nuke is tossing a shutout in the 9th inning, shakes off Crash Davis who is incredulous, and Crash tells the hitter what's coming and he promptly belts it 9 miles.
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Post by chud on Jul 28, 2015 20:42:36 GMT -5
Man, as optimistic as I try and be about the Sox FO/Cherington (as i'm a big fan of stability in jobs), I can't help thinking of two things: 1) The farm system is so robust, yet we've let good assets go stale (on the MLB roster too) and get past their primes in certain cases it terms of value (salary, versatility, trade value) w/out turning much of those assets into anything usable...leading to 2) The MLB roster planning is such a mess almost as if the thought was nothing can go wrong if we stockpile players at all positions and store them away in AAA...But in reality this isn't fantasy baseball and their needs to be a plan for constant turnover, which hopefully involves keeping your best prospects and players and turning lesser prospects/players into something useful to replenish the roster when more turnover is needed...I almost feel like Ben can't pull the trigger on trading any of the lesser prospects as he may over value them to the point where it's hurting the organization or is just fearful he may miscalculate a lesser prospect and doesn't want to trade the next Bagwell...Really what you need to do is be the braves, identify and hold on to your best prospects while being ok w/ trading away that second layer of prospects to clear a way for turnover/transition...which goes to another point, 3) Is Cherington too deliberate (albeit, this coming from a guy, me, who preaches patience) in the sense that he's not a good or decisive decision maker...I think you can be patient and bold at the same time, but it requires guts and decision making ability at the highest level to not fear being wrong...and again, what the hell do i know, but from the looks of it Cherington has no problem being bold or wrong at the MLB level, but seems to fear being wrong trading away any prospect...sorry for the ramble, but can't shake this feeling The argument to horde prospects is not to hope that every one of them pans out. It's that you don't trade away prospects that turn into All-Stars, like Iglesias and Reddick. Imagine if they traded Betts as a throw-in on the Peavy trade because Pedroia was blocking him. You don't need to get full value out of every prospect. When you try to, you'll end up missing out on the rest of the value when he develops further because you thought you were selling high when you traded him for a relief pitcher who was good for one year and then the prospect turned into a Hall of Fame player. It's worth it to let 10 prospects bust if you keep that one guy. And since prospect for prospect trades pretty much never happen, I'm leery of any 4 for 1 trades when the 1 is 28-30 years old. They just seem to never work out well. Trust me, i totally get it! Just that you need that balance of being able to identify who to trade and who to keep, while factoring in the premise that you can't storehouse prospects too long as at some point their value can start going the wrong way thus losing the potential to turn a prospect (a valuable prospect who's peaking) into something of value to assist with the replenishment of the farm or for a piece at the MLB level...then starting the cycle all over again...
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Post by chud on Jul 28, 2015 20:48:08 GMT -5
Man, as optimistic as I try and be about the Sox FO/Cherington (as i'm a big fan of stability in jobs), I can't help thinking of two things: 1) The farm system is so robust, yet we've let good assets go stale (on the MLB roster too) and get past their primes in certain cases it terms of value (salary, versatility, trade value) w/out turning much of those assets into anything usable...leading to 2) The MLB roster planning is such a mess almost as if the thought was nothing can go wrong if we stockpile players at all positions and store them away in AAA...But in reality this isn't fantasy baseball and their needs to be a plan for constant turnover, which hopefully involves keeping your best prospects and players and turning lesser prospects/players into something useful to replenish the roster when more turnover is needed... I almost feel like Ben can't pull the trigger on trading any of the lesser prospects as he may over value them to the point where it's hurting the organization or is just fearful he may miscalculate a lesser prospect and doesn't want to trade the next Bagwell...Really what you need to do is be the braves, identify and hold on to your best prospects while being ok w/ trading away that second layer of prospects to clear a way for turnover/transition...which goes to another point, 3) Is Cherington too deliberate (albeit, this coming from a guy, me, who preaches patience) in the sense that he's not a good or decisive decision maker...I think you can be patient and bold at the same time, but it requires guts and decision making ability at the highest level to not fear being wrong...and again, what the hell do i know, but from the looks of it Cherington has no problem being bold or wrong at the MLB level, but seems to fear being wrong trading away any prospect...sorry for the ramble, but can't shake this feeling You mean like how he traded Lowrie and Reddick and Pimentel and Iglesias and Montas and De La Rosa and Webster and Ranaudo? What exactly are you talking about? And what exactly do you expect to get back for "lesser prospects" anyway? Good point! And just for a little clarity i was more angling toward prospects not at the MLB level (i.e. the unproven ones)...I look at Lowrie, Pimentel, Inglesias, De La Rosa and Webster as guys they evaluated at the MLB level at least in part and probably thought they could do better...I think where i see some need for improvement is the understanding that there needs to be regular turnover at the prospect level to keep the entire cycle going...while ensuring you don't trade your best ones yet not being afraid to trade the second tier for something of value prior to the second tier prospect losing value...if any of that makes sense. I always look to the Braves for having that down to a science...
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Post by blizzards39 on Jul 29, 2015 0:25:51 GMT -5
SONNY GRAY
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Post by mgoetze on Jul 29, 2015 1:20:53 GMT -5
I look at Lowrie, Pimentel, Inglesias, De La Rosa and Webster as guys they evaluated at the MLB level at least in part and probably thought they could do better... Unfortunately, the front office is not very good at these, uh, partial evaluations.
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ericmvan
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Supposed to be working on something more important
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 29, 2015 1:28:21 GMT -5
Older folks here may remember a best-selling book called The Peter Principle. It argued that folks who do their job well are, as a rule, promoted to more challenging jobs, and this process continues until they end up in a job they do not do all that well.
As a GM, Ben Cherington is a terrific Director of Player Development (amateur scouting, minor league organization). He's done an amazing job assessing amateur talent, a great job developing minor league talent, a solid job assessing minor league talent, a very mediocre, and a mixed job assessing major league talent; and he (via his managers and coaches) has largely done a subpar job of getting the most from his MLB talent.
You can't really demote Cherington back to his old job, but you certainly do not want to fire him and lose his brilliance directing the amateur acquisition and player development side of things. In the long run, that's the tougher and more important job.
So what I would do is hire a guy to do the MLB roster part of the job, while giving him some newly invented title like Vice President, Major-League Assessment. This guy would be promised the eventual title of GM.
The spin would be that when Theo built the 2004-2008 near-dynasty team, he had Josh Byrnes and Jed Hoyer working under him, and the Sox ownership recognizes that Ben needs a smart assistant. In reality, though, the new guy would be co-GM with Cherington for MLB roster decisions, and as he would be the guy with the greater expertise, that process would largely consist of him deciding what to do and Cherington agreeing.
Eventually, you would promote Cherington to a position that would, on paper, have oversight over everything, and promote the new guy to GM. Their actual jobs would change little. Cherington would run everything but the MLB roster hands-on, and the GM would handle just that. Cherington's new position could be President, or something newly invented that would be intermediate between President and GM.
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Post by tomhouse on Jul 29, 2015 4:31:25 GMT -5
Older folks here may remember a best-selling book called The Peter Principle. It argued that folks who do their job well are, as a rule, promoted to more challenging jobs, and this process continues until they end up in a job they do not do all that well. As a GM, Ben Cherington is a terrific Director of Player Development (amateur scouting, minor league organization). He's done an amazing job assessing amateur talent, a great job developing minor league talent, a solid job assessing minor league talent, a very mediocre, and a mixed job assessing major league talent; and he (via his managers and coaches) has largely done a subpar job of getting the most from his MLB talent. Would you say that the bolded part represents the job responsibilities ownership is most likely to meddle in?
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on Jul 29, 2015 4:55:13 GMT -5
Older folks here may remember a best-selling book called The Peter Principle. It argued that folks who do their job well are, as a rule, promoted to more challenging jobs, and this process continues until they end up in a job they do not do all that well. As a GM, Ben Cherington is a terrific Director of Player Development (amateur scouting, minor league organization). He's done an amazing job assessing amateur talent, a great job developing minor league talent, a solid job assessing minor league talent, a very mediocre, and a mixed job assessing major league talent; and he (via his managers and coaches) has largely done a subpar job of getting the most from his MLB talent. You can't really demote Cherington back to his old job, but you certainly do not want to fire him and lose his brilliance directing the amateur acquisition and player development side of things. In the long run, that's the tougher and more important job. So what I would do is hire a guy to do the MLB roster part of the job, while giving him some newly invented title like Vice President, Major-League Assessment. This guy would be promised the eventual title of GM. The spin would be that when Theo built the 2004-2008 near-dynasty team, he had Josh Byrnes and Jed Hoyer working under him, and the Sox ownership recognizes that Ben needs a smart assistant. In reality, though, the new guy would be co-GM with Cherington for MLB roster decisions, and as he would be the guy with the greater expertise, that process would largely consist of him deciding what to do and Cherington agreeing. Eventually, you would promote Cherington to a position that would, on paper, have oversight over everything, and promote the new guy to GM. Their actual jobs would change little. Cherington would run everything but the MLB roster hands-on, and the GM would handle just that. Cherington's new position could be President, or something newly invented that would be intermediate between President and GM. When is a demotion not really a demotion? When the demotee is not smart enough to realize he is being demoted. If the Red Sox ownership were to think as your proposing here, they should be able and willing to walk into his office and explain their decisions and do whatever they want. If BC would then walk out, then so be it. I don't see this ownership doing business that way. I also don't feel that BC deserves that kind of homage based on his development record, I mean we are not talking Branch Rickey just yet. People more knowledgeable than I am think he is doing a fine job, but I think a few more years is needed to fully review his work. Sadly, he might not deserve to be around to see the end results Also, isn't the MLB roster part already filled, at least in some capacity by Allard Baird.
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Post by chud on Jul 29, 2015 5:40:44 GMT -5
Older folks here may remember a best-selling book called The Peter Principle. It argued that folks who do their job well are, as a rule, promoted to more challenging jobs, and this process continues until they end up in a job they do not do all that well. As a GM, Ben Cherington is a terrific Director of Player Development (amateur scouting, minor league organization). He's done an amazing job assessing amateur talent, a great job developing minor league talent, a solid job assessing minor league talent, a very mediocre, and a mixed job assessing major league talent; and he (via his managers and coaches) has largely done a subpar job of getting the most from his MLB talent. You can't really demote Cherington back to his old job, but you certainly do not want to fire him and lose his brilliance directing the amateur acquisition and player development side of things. In the long run, that's the tougher and more important job. So what I would do is hire a guy to do the MLB roster part of the job, while giving him some newly invented title like Vice President, Major-League Assessment. This guy would be promised the eventual title of GM. The spin would be that when Theo built the 2004-2008 near-dynasty team, he had Josh Byrnes and Jed Hoyer working under him, and the Sox ownership recognizes that Ben needs a smart assistant. In reality, though, the new guy would be co-GM with Cherington for MLB roster decisions, and as he would be the guy with the greater expertise, that process would largely consist of him deciding what to do and Cherington agreeing. Eventually, you would promote Cherington to a position that would, on paper, have oversight over everything, and promote the new guy to GM. Their actual jobs would change little. Cherington would run everything but the MLB roster hands-on, and the GM would handle just that. Cherington's new position could be President, or something newly invented that would be intermediate between President and GM. Its funny you mention that as I was thinking along the same lines but in reverse...Was thinking if you keep BC, maybe you hire a "President of Baseball Ops" who falls somewhere either slightly below or parallel to Lucchino but specifically is in charge of baseball decisions (like Theo in Chicago)...and was wondering if Dombrowski could be that guy due to his experience and past relationship with Henry...Just a thought... but agree that if BC stays I'm not sure he can be trusted as the top "baseball" official in charge of making all baseball decisions (or at minimum, making recommendations on baseball decisions to ownership) despite some of the excellent work he's done with the farm...
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Post by dcsoxfan on Jul 29, 2015 5:54:23 GMT -5
Much of the Red Sox problems come from trying to field a team year after year that can justify charging the prices to enable them to maintain a payroll commensurate with larger market teams in an industry that penalizes successful teams be reducing their access to the talent needed to field such a team. And it has become decidedly harder over the years.
Getting over the notion that you can compete every year under current conditions may be the first step to fixing things.
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nomar
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Post by nomar on Jul 29, 2015 8:27:35 GMT -5
We've been bad 3 of the last 4 years because we stopped our commitment to developing premium talent through the farm. Now we're waiting for the new wave not only to come up, but kick into gear as well. It takes time.
Signing Sandoval and Hanley may not have been financially smart moves. But we still have a ton of in-house talent, so I'm not worried about our team for years to come. At the same rate, if they're going to sell some of that young talent, they should be acquiring pretty young star talent in return.
This team is tough to watch, but it would be a lot easier to handle if we were watching JBJ, Owens, Johnson, and Castillo versus guys with no future in the lineup or rotation like De Aza, Wright, and Kelly.
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Post by Guidas on Jul 29, 2015 8:44:45 GMT -5
We've been bad 3 of the last 4 years because we stopped our commitment to developing premium talent through the farm. Now we're waiting for the new wave not only to come up, but kick into gear as well. It takes time. Signing Sandoval and Hanley may not have been financially smart moves. But we still have a ton of in-house talent, so I'm not worried about our team for years to come. At the same rate, if they're going to sell some of that young talent, they should be acquiring pretty young star talent in return. This team is tough to watch, but it would be a lot easier to handle if we were watching JBJ, Owens, Johnson, and Castillo versus guys with no future in the lineup or rotation like De Aza, Wright, and Kelly. Or we traded it away in the Gonzalez deal, and then traded Gonzalez away less than two years later. Kelly was at peak value then and Rizzo was widely acknowledged as a major chip. You give up those kinds of pieces you do so - hopefully - for a transformative player. The idea was Gonzalez was that player. And then they flipped him to cut losses on Crawford and Beckett.
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nomar
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Post by nomar on Jul 29, 2015 9:08:48 GMT -5
We've been bad 3 of the last 4 years because we stopped our commitment to developing premium talent through the farm. Now we're waiting for the new wave not only to come up, but kick into gear as well. It takes time. Signing Sandoval and Hanley may not have been financially smart moves. But we still have a ton of in-house talent, so I'm not worried about our team for years to come. At the same rate, if they're going to sell some of that young talent, they should be acquiring pretty young star talent in return. This team is tough to watch, but it would be a lot easier to handle if we were watching JBJ, Owens, Johnson, and Castillo versus guys with no future in the lineup or rotation like De Aza, Wright, and Kelly. Or we traded it away in the Gonzalez deal, and then traded Gonzalez away less than two years later. Kelly was at peak value then and Rizzo was widely acknowledged as a major chip. You give up those kinds of pieces you do so - hopefully - for a transformative player. The idea was Gonzalez was that player. And then they flipped him to cut losses on Crawford and Beckett. I more meant the gap in time between Ellsbury and Rizzo.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Jul 29, 2015 12:54:02 GMT -5
I'll echo what was said earlier. Isn't it Allard Baird's role to be the go-to-guy for major league scouting evaluations? If so, his track record is horrendous and he shouldn't have a job anymore.
I remember watching Duquette and thinking that early on in his tenure Mike Gimble had his ear and he was probably taking a lot of advice from him, but later on after Gimble basically called himself the power behind the throne, I think Duquette leaned heavily on Eddie Haas's advice, and his acquisitions felt a lot different.
I think Ben C. is relying on Allard Baird a lot, and I think that it's not working well at all.
Maybe this is just my impression and I could be completely wrong. The only thing I know for sure is that their major league talent evaluation is totally awful, and they've done a good job getting young talent into the minor leagues. Whoever is doing that is doing a great job as is Ed Romero Jr, as I think internationally the Sox have been doing very well.
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Post by jimed14 on Jul 29, 2015 13:07:14 GMT -5
You can talk about this all day, but there isn't anyone alive who could have predicted that Hanley and Pablo would have the lowest WAR of anyone in the majors this year or that Porcello would have been one of the worst starting pitchers in the league. I really don't know how you avoid disasters like that. I mean part of me thinks if the Red Sox signed Nelson Cruz instead of Hanley, it would be Cruz that would be the worst player in the majors and Hanley would have 3 WAR on another team. How is this happening? I don't think prediction is the problem. I think it's something else.
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Post by ctfisher on Jul 29, 2015 13:43:33 GMT -5
You can talk about this all day, but there isn't anyone alive who could have predicted that Hanley and Pablo would have the lowest WAR of anyone in the majors this year or that Porcello would have been one of the worst starting pitchers in the league. I really don't know how you avoid disasters like that. I mean part of me thinks if the Red Sox signed Nelson Cruz instead of Hanley, it would be Cruz that would be the worst player in the majors and Hanley would have 3 WAR on another team. How is this happening? I don't think prediction is the problem. I think it's something else. Honestyl, Hanley (on paper) seemed like the better player. Younger, better athlete, better overall track record as a hitter, no steroid use suspension. Lots of red flags for Cruz, only a couple of effort/personality related ones with Hanley
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Post by jmei on Jul 29, 2015 13:46:27 GMT -5
I really don't know how you avoid disasters like that. It is true that there is a good deal of randomness involved in whether any individual transaction will turn out good or bad, and good GMs can and do make moves that turn out poorly. But good GMs have more good moves than bad moves in the aggregate. Based on the last four years, it's hard to argue that this front office has made more good moves than bad ones. That said, two notes: (a) You can't just dismiss 2013 as an outlier. It just happens to be the case that this front office's good moves clustered in one year and bad moves clustered in another, and you can't ignore one or the other. They should both be factored in when evaluating the front office. (b) Small sample size concerns are still present. Four years is not actually that long of a time period, and the book is not yet closed on many of the players that he's been criticized for acquiring.
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Post by jimed14 on Jul 29, 2015 13:55:46 GMT -5
I mean we're not just talking about Hanley, Pablo and Porcello as being bad acquisitions. We're talking about them being literally the worst regular players in the league to date (haven't looked recently but they're close if not). I liked the Porcello trade and the Hanley signing but I never imagined that Pablo would be the worst in the league. I bet no one in the media or any GM in baseball would have predicted any one of those three things to happen, let alone all three. ZIPS and Steamer didn't get it anywhere close to right.
And add Napoli to that list of disasters. Who would have ever predicted him to go from a wRC+ of 129 in 2013 to a 124 in 2014 to a 85 this year?
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steveofbradenton
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Post by steveofbradenton on Jul 29, 2015 13:58:31 GMT -5
Most of us were "stoked" about the moves for Panda, Hanley, and Ricky (Porcello). It is very possible that all 3 will be much better next season. Baseball is a crazy game that doesn't always turn out the way you'd think. Their track record is such that a year of getting comfortable may make a world of difference.
The biggest worry I have of those 3.....is the "defense" of Sandoval and Ramirez. BOTH, IMO, are too heavy!! No reason to go over the Panda story once again, but he needs to really look in the mirror this winter.
As for Hanley, his athletic ability has suffered greatly with all of that extra mass he has put on. Huge muscles do not necessarily mean huge power numbers. I would like to see him drop some of that heavy muscle and get back to being able to move faster in the field and on the base paths.
Hopefully all 3 will come back next February with that "glint" in their eyes.
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Post by ctfisher on Jul 29, 2015 14:12:35 GMT -5
As for Hanley, his athletic ability has suffered greatly with all of that extra mass he has put on. Huge muscles do not necessarily mean huge power numbers. I would like to see him drop some of that heavy muscle and get back to being able to move faster in the field and on the base paths. I think that might be easier said than done, given his age, shedding muscle weight might be difficult to do without losing strength/power. Not the same sport obviously, so it might not translate, but think of Roy Jones Jr. dropping weight from heavyweight back down to light heavyweight- he was never the same. I also think he's athletic enough to play LF, he just loafs sometimes, takes bad routes and misreads the ball of the wall and in the air way too often.
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Post by James Dunne on Jul 29, 2015 14:15:00 GMT -5
I mean we're not just talking about Hanley, Pablo and Porcello as being bad acquisitions. We're talking about them being literally the worst regular players in the league to date (haven't looked recently but they're close if not). I liked the Porcello trade and the Hanley signing but I never imagined that Pablo would be the worst in the league. I bet no one in the media or any GM in baseball would have predicted any one of those three things to happen, let alone all three. ZIPS and Steamer didn't get it anywhere close to right. And add Napoli to that list of disasters. Who would have ever predicted him to go from a wRC+ of 129 in 2013 to a 124 in 2014 to a 85 this year? There has been a strange inertia to all three Farrell teams. The first season started well, and everything sort of built on that, with so many players having much better seasons than they could've anticipated. The second and third seasons have been the opposite. The 2014 roster wasn't much different from the 2013 one, so I wouldn't think that leadership or talent would be an issue. The shakeup between the 2014 trade deadline and the start of '15 would seem to rule out complacency. So... why? And maybe it doesn't "mean" anything, maybe it's just a bunch of stuff that happened. But when the entire roster is underperforming expectations - not just the FO expectations, but those of both scouts and projection systems - then you really do have to ask these questions. I do think Farrell is going to be fired. Fair or not, managers are basically treated on how their teams and players do relative to expectations, and the Red Sox are the most disappointing team in the league for a second straight year. At one point you need to shift the question from "is he the problem" to "is he the solution." It's pretty clear at this point that Farrell isn't a great manager. Maybe he's one who a better match for one mix of players than another, and he's not the tactician to make up for whatever else is going on.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 29, 2015 14:15:24 GMT -5
Older folks here may remember a best-selling book called The Peter Principle. It argued that folks who do their job well are, as a rule, promoted to more challenging jobs, and this process continues until they end up in a job they do not do all that well. As a GM, Ben Cherington is a terrific Director of Player Development (amateur scouting, minor league organization). He's done an amazing job assessing amateur talent, a great job developing minor league talent, a solid job assessing minor league talent, a very mediocre, and a mixed job assessing major league talent; and he (via his managers and coaches) has largely done a subpar job of getting the most from his MLB talent. You can't really demote Cherington back to his old job, but you certainly do not want to fire him and lose his brilliance directing the amateur acquisition and player development side of things. In the long run, that's the tougher and more important job. So what I would do is hire a guy to do the MLB roster part of the job, while giving him some newly invented title like Vice President, Major-League Assessment. This guy would be promised the eventual title of GM. The spin would be that when Theo built the 2004-2008 near-dynasty team, he had Josh Byrnes and Jed Hoyer working under him, and the Sox ownership recognizes that Ben needs a smart assistant. In reality, though, the new guy would be co-GM with Cherington for MLB roster decisions, and as he would be the guy with the greater expertise, that process would largely consist of him deciding what to do and Cherington agreeing. Eventually, you would promote Cherington to a position that would, on paper, have oversight over everything, and promote the new guy to GM. Their actual jobs would change little. Cherington would run everything but the MLB roster hands-on, and the GM would handle just that. Cherington's new position could be President, or something newly invented that would be intermediate between President and GM. When is a demotion not really a demotion? When the demotee is not smart enough to realize he is being demoted. If the Red Sox ownership were to think as your proposing here, they should be able and willing to walk into his office and explain their decisions and do whatever they want. If BC would then walk out, then so be it. I don't see this ownership doing business that way. I also don't feel that BC deserves that kind of homage based on his development record, I mean we are not talking Branch Rickey just yet. People more knowledgeable than I am think he is doing a fine job, but I think a few more years is needed to fully review his work. Sadly, he might not deserve to be around to see the end results Also, isn't the MLB roster part already filled, at least in some capacity by Allard Baird. 1) One of the first things Theo did when he became GM in 2003 was promote Cherington to Director of Player Development (from Assistant Director). That they've maintained a best-in-the-business amateur track record* while changing Scouting Director from David Chadd to Jason McLeod to Amiel Sawdaye, that they very unusually made Cherington go-GM with heir apparent Jed Hoyer when Theo walked temporarily, and that they didn't hesitate to name Cherington GM when Theo left for good -- all of that argues very strongly that it's Cherington who is the wizard. *Last time I looked, there were just 5 players age 25-and-under who were above a certain AS-caliber WAR level who were not first or second-round picks or who got the equivalent bonus as an international FA. Kiermaier, Pederson, Rizzo, Boagaerts, and Betts. That's the Sox finding such players at 18 times the rate of the average team. 2) Baird, as I understand it, is just a guy who gives input. He makes no decisions, has no authority. 3) Given #1, you do everything you need to do to retain him. GM is a life-eating job. Letting him work fewer hours, with less responsibility, for the same pay, while not significantly reducing his authority (they still have to agree on every MLB move) -- that is something he should be OK with. I doubt his ego will be shattered by the front office telling him that he's not brilliant assessing MLB talent (as he is with amateurs) and they want to bring in a complementary guy to do the bulk of that work.
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Post by jimed14 on Jul 29, 2015 14:18:40 GMT -5
I mean we're not just talking about Hanley, Pablo and Porcello as being bad acquisitions. We're talking about them being literally the worst regular players in the league to date (haven't looked recently but they're close if not). I liked the Porcello trade and the Hanley signing but I never imagined that Pablo would be the worst in the league. I bet no one in the media or any GM in baseball would have predicted any one of those three things to happen, let alone all three. ZIPS and Steamer didn't get it anywhere close to right. And add Napoli to that list of disasters. Who would have ever predicted him to go from a wRC+ of 129 in 2013 to a 124 in 2014 to a 85 this year? There has been a strange inertia to all three Farrell teams. The first season started well, and everything sort of built on that, with so many players having much better seasons than they could've anticipated. The second and third seasons have been the opposite. The 2014 roster wasn't much different from the 2013 one, so I wouldn't think that leadership or talent would be an issue. The shakeup between the 2014 trade deadline and the start of '15 would seem to rule out complacency. So... why? And maybe it doesn't "mean" anything, maybe it's just a bunch of stuff that happened. But when the entire roster is underperforming expectations - not just the FO expectations, but those of both scouts and projection systems - then you really do have to ask these questions. I do think Farrell is going to be fired. Fair or not, managers are basically treated on how their teams and players do relative to expectations, and the Red Sox are the most disappointing team in the league for a second straight year. At one point you need to shift the question from "is he the problem" to "is he the solution." It's pretty clear at this point that Farrell isn't a great manager. Maybe he's one who a better match for one mix of players than another, and he's not the tactician to make up for whatever else is going on. I've jokingly said that it looks like they made a deal with the devil in 2013 and are now paying for it. They have not played anywhere close to expectations for 3 seasons now. I hope it doesn't last another 84 years.
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ericmvan
Veteran
Supposed to be working on something more important
Posts: 8,952
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Post by ericmvan on Jul 29, 2015 14:33:44 GMT -5
I'll echo what was said earlier. Isn't it Allard Baird's role to be the go-to-guy for major league scouting evaluations? If so, his track record is horrendous and he shouldn't have a job anymore. I remember watching Duquette and thinking that early on in his tenure Mike Gimble had his ear and he was probably taking a lot of advice from him, but later on after Gimble basically called himself the power behind the throne, I think Duquette leaned heavily on Eddie Haas's advice, and his acquisitions felt a lot different. I think Ben C. is relying on Allard Baird a lot, and I think that it's not working well at all. Maybe this is just my impression and I could be completely wrong. The only thing I know for sure is that their major league talent evaluation is totally awful, and they've done a good job getting young talent into the minor leagues. Whoever is doing that is doing a great job as is Ed Romero Jr, as I think internationally the Sox have been doing very well. Their MLB talent evaluation, as jmei points out, has been mediocre, maybe a little subpar, but far from awful. Cherington signed 7 guys for 2013 and hit on 6. What is more disturbing to me is they've made moves that were not analytically defensible, which folks like me criticized at the time, and which turned out badly. (When Peter Keating did his ESPN article on me, Voros McCrakcen, and Mike Gimbel, he chose that screed of mine for his closing argument, while agreeing with it strongly). I regard that as evidence that they are actually middle-of-the-pack in analytic effort. They have Bill James, who is the industry's most brilliant outside-the-box thinker, but he is not an analyst, not someone who (I believe) would have ideas about how to extract cool insights from pitch/fx and hit/fx data. Bill's genius is his knowledge of the game of baseball; he's not a data guy at all, let alone a big-data guy. I know that they laid off all their consultants except Tom Tippett (whose job is managing their information systems, with analysis secondary) after 2008, and that they have won a playoff game in only one of the seven subsequent seasons. Have we heard that they've hired an analytic hotshot to head that department up? They couldn't keep their hiring of Voros, Tom, or me under the radar, so I sincerely doubt that they've snagged someone with a top track record. I don't see any evidence of a desire to rule the world analytically. Analysis is not just for player evaluation; it can be used, for instance, to gain insights into pitch-sequencing and optimum location. We all get that when an entire team underperforms expectation, it may well be the manager's fault for not dealing well with team psychology, but the bigger concern with me is that they're being outsmarted. I see a team that looks like it's not keeping up with analytic insights on how to work specific hitters, and are suffering on both sides of the ball as a result; a team that is pitching too predictably, and can be pitched to all too predictably.
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