Rating Ben Cherington

[a700hitter]

They already have the right building blocks. Five good starting pitchers all under contract for next year. A stud reliever along with a couple of other guys (Taz, Breslow) that are very solid. Good position players all over the place. Tons of young kids ready to roll. Lots of money.

 

What I want is the Cuban 1b Abreu. And I want Dempster traded in the offseason for a prospect. Either sign McCann or re-sign Salty (either works for me). And then there's enough money to either do Ellsbury or get another big OF bat if you want.

Don't they have to sign Lester or exercise an option? Buch is a great pitcher, but he hasn't been able to hold up over the course of a season and give us 200 innings.

[Orange Juiced]

Don't they have to sign Lester or exercise an option? Buch is a great pitcher, but he hasn't been able to hold up over the course of a season and give us 200 innings.

 

Yeah I think they'd have to exercise an option on Lester for like $13 million, which would be totally worth it.

[Behindenemylines]

Looking back at BC's last off season he ended up making a lot of good decisions. I don't think anyone would have thought this many of them would have turned out this good. The only area where he misjudged was with his plan for the setup and closer roles. He had Bailey setting up for Hanrahan. Even though it wasn't the Sox plan it has worked out pretty good with the Tazawa-Uehara back end of the bullpen. Long term the Iglesias trade may be questioned, but for 2013 it had to be done. If Bogaerts wins the rookie of the year in 2014 then this too will fade.

[mvp 78]

I didn't like the Drew deal at the time, but it was a good move in retrospect.

 

I hated the Dempster deal and that one is still questionable.

 

I didn't want to trade Sands for Hanrahan, but that seems like a wash or just a waste of Vlad Dracul's money.

 

The other moves seemed prudent and have worked out great. I'm surprised at how awesome Victorino has been.

[Behindenemylines]

I didn't like the Drew deal at the time, but it was a good move in retrospect.

 

I hated the Dempster deal and that one is still questionable.

 

I didn't want to trade Sands for Hanrahan, but that seems like a wash or just a waste of Vlad Dracul's money.

 

The other moves seemed prudent and have worked out great. I'm surprised at how awesome Victorino has been.

 

The thing with Victorino is you got a gold glove outfielder. Think of how many runs he has saved with his D in RF. You put him next to Ellsbury and the D is off the charts. How many runs have they saved? Though he is a very professional hitter, I didn't think that he was going to be as good as he has been with the bat. Even though he has had leg problems this year his speed has also been a factor.

[User Name]

I wonder what Lord Snow thinks of the Victorino deal now....

[RedSoxfanforlife305]

Can't bump the thread, but go check out "Shane Victorino? If So, Cherington must go". Pure comedy.

[SoxSport]

Cherington is lookin' good right now. All the FAs are shining except Dempster. Uehara was signed as a setup guy and converted, after Bailey and Hanrahan went down, to baseball's best closer right now. Makes you wonder what kind of a closer another setup guy named Bard would have been.

 

A good part of their success has to be the coaching. It's just a reminder of how bad things were last year--right up the line.

[Orange Juiced]

Victorino: 5.7 fWAR, 5.6 bWAR

 

Each win above replacement is "worth" about $5 million. We can all do the math on this to see just how valuable Victorino has been this season.

[User Name]

Victorino: 5.7 fWAR, 5.6 bWAR

 

Each win above replacement is "worth" about $5 million. We can all do the math on this to see just how valuable Victorino has been this season.

 

Fangraphs flat out tells you. They have him valued at 28.3 million so far.

[BornToRun]

Fangraphs flat out tells you. They have him valued at 28.3 million so far.

 

Holy shitballs

[Bellhorn04]

Holy shitballs

 

Well said.

[Behindenemylines]

If Ellsbury is out for awhile Victorino will become even more important for the Sox. He is one of many good signs by BC last winter.

[Palodios]

Fangraphs flat out tells you. They have him valued at 28.3 million so far.

 

How crazy would it be if Victorino hit 39 million in value this year?

 

Not only is he the best defensive player in baseball (by a considerable margin), he has been the most valuable player on the Red Sox by WAR.

[User Name]

I rate Cherington a B for the boner i get every time the Red Sox "HULK SMASH!" the Yankees into oblivion.

[sk7326]

Looking back at BC's last off season he ended up making a lot of good decisions. I don't think anyone would have thought this many of them would have turned out this good. The only area where he misjudged was with his plan for the setup and closer roles. He had Bailey setting up for Hanrahan. Even though it wasn't the Sox plan it has worked out pretty good with the Tazawa-Uehara back end of the bullpen. Long term the Iglesias trade may be questioned, but for 2013 it had to be done. If Bogaerts wins the rookie of the year in 2014 then this too will fade.

 

 

Victorino was a bad signing at the time - age, declining performance in Philly, lot of reasons to be skeptical ... but he has been terrific here and Farrell has used him well. He still should decline in the next 2 years but he probably will do enough in 2 years to justify the contract. Victorino by war has probably given the Sox $35M worth of value (Boston's $$/WAR is higher than most) ... although you have to offset it with what the Red Sox would ACTUALLY replace him with, not the normal "replacement player" benchmark.

[User Name]

Victorino was a bad signing at the time - age, declining performance in Philly, lot of reasons to be skeptical ... but he has been terrific here and Farrell has used him well. He still should decline in the next 2 years but he probably will do enough in 2 years to justify the contract. Victorino by war has probably given the Sox $35M worth of value (Boston's $$/WAR is higher than most) ... although you have to offset it with what the Red Sox would ACTUALLY replace him with, not the normal "replacement player" benchmark.

 

He was a "bad signing"? How does that make sense?

[mvp 78]

I think he meant "it seemed like a bad signing at the time"

[Youk Of The Nation]

On a scale from one to f***yeah, at this point in the season I rate Cherington at "f***yeah", mainly because he has spent most of the last week figuratively squatting over Brian Cashman, lovingly dragging his balls over Cashman's face, and most likely is doing the same thing non-figuratively to Cashman's girlfriend.

[sk7326]

He was a "bad signing"? How does that make sense?

 

"It seemed like" ... and also given the information one had on Victorino (age, recent performance, platoon splits), committing 3/39 to him was a shaky idea. He has been terrific in a way that vindicates the signing - but one that was pretty unlikely to take place given the dossier.

[User Name]

I think they were counting on his defense and baserunning providing enough value to justify the signing. Last year, in what was his worst full season as a regular (bothered by nagging injuries mind you) he provided a 13.2 miliion value per fangraphs.

[sk7326]

I think they were counting on his defense and baserunning providing enough value to justify the signing. Last year, in what was his worst full season as a regular (bothered by nagging injuries mind you) he provided a 13.2 miliion value per fangraphs.

 

I wouldn't be surprised at the calculation - but it was also a 32 year old who is on the "decline" phase of his career (on average) and had shown an inability to hit righties that was pronounced enough to raise questions about whether he could be an everyday player by year 3 of the deal. I guarantee nobody expected him to be a 5 win player who'll probably get a couple of downballot MVP votes.

 

One of the funny things which has helped him though how it happened was unfortunate - is that he stopped switchhitting. His hamstring won't let him hit lefty, but when you look at his recent splits, he probably should not have been hitting lefty anyway.

[a700hitter]

I wouldn't be surprised at the calculation - but it was also a 32 year old who is on the "decline" phase of his career (on average) and had shown an inability to hit righties that was pronounced enough to raise questions about whether he could be an everyday player by year 3 of the deal. I guarantee nobody expected him to be a 5 win player who'll probably get a couple of downballot MVP votes.

 

One of the funny things which has helped him though how it happened was unfortunate - is that he stopped switchhitting. His hamstring won't let him hit lefty, but when you look at his recent splits, he probably should not have been hitting lefty anyway.

He has always been a much better hitter right handed than left handed. Edited September 9, 2013 by a700hitter

[User Name]

I think he'd have been close to a 4-win player even if you factor in eroding offensive skills. I don't mean this as a way to overly praise the FO, but that's why they're the FO and we're fans. Almost everything they did this offseason worked out great. This from a guy who hated pretty much every signing/trade except Napoli, Drew and Koji.

[User Name]

On a scale from one to f***yeah, at this point in the season I rate Cherington at "f***yeah", mainly because he has spent most of the last week figuratively squatting over Brian Cashman, lovingly dragging his balls over Cashman's face, and most likely is doing the same thing non-figuratively to Cashman's girlfriend.

 

You're already sigged. Don't make this difficult for me.

[Palodios]

I am nicknaming Victorino, Drew, Uehara, Gomes, Napoli, Ross and Dempster "The Cherrington Seven".

[mvp 78]

What do you have against Carp???

[sk7326]

Cherington grade: A, this season ... and it can't be separated from the ownership for the first time in 2 or 3 years, focusing on letting the baseball ops work on their own time horizons.

[Bellhorn04]

What do you have against Carp???

 

I was wondering that too. My guess was that Palodios was only counting free agents. Carp was a trade, though not for much.

[SoxFanForsyth]

Executive of the Year.

 

And it's not close.