Dombrowski in Cherington Out

[Kimmi]

The problem with porcello wasn't trading for him for this year. It was giving him a a 4 yr, $80+ million dollar extension before he even threw a pitch for the red sox. For a guy who has been mediocre for the large majority of his career except for one year in which he was solid, thats a big risk. Since the sox obviously thought that he turned a corner in 2014 and was going to become a solid, above average pitcher as he moved into his prime years, they decided to try to lock him up very early. The sox were projecting that his mediocrity stopped during the 2014 and that he would not regress. You can't even compare a Kershaw situation with Porcello because Kershaw's track record is far more impressive than Porcello's .

 

I know that Porcello isn't Kershaw, but that doesn't change the point. You have reasonable expectations on how a pitcher should pitch, and if the pitcher falls well short of those expectations, it really isn't the fault of the GM.

 

Porcello was close to a 3 WAR pitcher in his previous 3 seasons (2.8, 2.9, 2.8). If he maintained that level, he would be pitching near his contract level. For reasons already stated, there was very good reason to believe that he would improve.

[Kimmi]

Kimmi, is Ben your brother or something?

 

Lets just look at some interesting tidbits from last offseason.

 

Jacko, because you are a Yankees fan and simply don't know any better, I am going to excuse this entire post.

 

And I say that with the utmost affection. Despite your annoyance, I like you.

[Spudboy]

Lol.

[Behindenemylines]

I know that Porcello isn't Kershaw, but that doesn't change the point. You have reasonable expectations on how a pitcher should pitch, and if the pitcher falls well short of those expectations, it really isn't the fault of the GM.

 

Porcello was close to a 3 WAR pitcher in his previous 3 seasons (2.8, 2.9, 2.8). If he maintained that level, he would be pitching near his contract level. For reasons already stated, there was very good reason to believe that he would improve.

 

I think he finally realized he needs to use the sinker more to be successful. He can not blow people away. He doesn't have to be the top of the rotation guy.

[BigPapi]

I know that Porcello isn't Kershaw, but that doesn't change the point. You have reasonable expectations on how a pitcher should pitch, and if the pitcher falls well short of those expectations, it really isn't the fault of the GM.

 

Porcello was close to a 3 WAR pitcher in his previous 3 seasons (2.8, 2.9, 2.8). If he maintained that level, he would be pitching near his contract level. For reasons already stated, there was very good reason to believe that he would improve.

 

War can be a misleading stat for a pitcher like porcello. First of all, it relies on fip. According to fangraphs, the formula they use to calculate it is ((13xhr) + 3x(bb + hbp) - 2k)/IP + the fip constant. The thing overrates walks, underrates strikeouts, and doesn't even consider the amount of hard contact the pitcher gives up. Because he doesn't give up a lot of walks, he is saved. A lot of the times, his fip and era are quite different from each other and for his career , they are off by nearly half a run. If you look at all of the truly great pitchers and look at their career fips vs eras, they come out pretty close to each other. Rick Porcello is a mediocre pitcher who is saved by fip. Even Verlander and Scherzer, who pitched infront of the same defense as Porcello, have career era and fips that are .18 and .8 away from each other.

Edited August 29, 2015 by BigPapi

[Behindenemylines]

Porcello has to do what Miley did a good part of the season. Eat innings and keep the Sox in the game.

[BigPapi]

Porcello has to do what Miley did a good part of the season. Eat innings and keep the Sox in the game.

 

Indeed he does. For his contract, he should be doing more. They are paying Miley 6 and a half a year aav, which isn't bad at all for someone mediocre like Miley. But the minimum that would be acceptable for porcello is to do what Miley has done.

[a700hitter]

This is why I've said before that I don't put the blame for this season on Ben. On paper, most "experts" had the Sox winning the division. This team was supposed to be good. What happened on the field is really beyond Ben's control

 

If you want to give him a pass for unexpected under performance, that starts to ring hollow in light of such a thorough record of failure. The fact that everything he touches turns to garbage starts to reflect on him after a while. Also, I firmly believe that under performance was not his biggest problem. The team was very poorly constructed. If the staff had performed up to career standards, they still would have been a bad, noncompetitive staff.

 

Where I really disagree with you is the pass you give Ben as he sat back in 2012, 2014 and 2015 as his moves and experiments were obviously crashing and burning. He had a complete inability to pivot when his moves were going bad. He always seemed to behind the curve. He stubbornly held onto his belief that Bard could be a starter when the guy's career was disintegrating before our eyes. He let the 2014 team flounder as the lineup was in desperate need of help. He kept too many rookies in the lineup for too long as they were imploding. What happened to Bradley in 2014 went beyond letting him get by some rookie bumps in the road. It got to the point where he was useless to the team and his confidence was getting shattered. Even Remy commented that Bradley should have been sent to AAA long before he was. Ben had a pattern of holding onto things for too long and reacting only after it was too late. Bradley's career was significantly derailed by Ben's stubbornness in 2014. The Hanley experiment was just the latest in Ben stubbornly clinging to failure. Even as his replacement was being courted, Ben was still stubbornly stating that Hanley would not be moved fro the OF. While the GM can't control the performance of the players, his job doesn't end after building the opening day roster. He is the General Manager. Ben couldn't manage as things went wrong until the flaws became team fatalities. That was his biggest shortcoming. His inaction went well beyond wise patience to foolish stubbornness.

[Kimmi]

War can be a misleading stat for a pitcher like porcello. First of all, it relies on fip. According to fangraphs, the formula they use to calculate it is ((13xhr) + 3x(bb + hbp) - 2k)/IP + the fip constant. The thing overrates walks, underrates strikeouts, and doesn't even consider the amount of hard contact the pitcher gives up. Because he doesn't give up a lot of walks, he is saved. A lot of the times, his fip and era are quite different from each other and for his career , they are off by nearly half a run. If you look at all of the truly great pitchers and look at their career fips vs eras, they come out pretty close to each other. Rick Porcello is a mediocre pitcher who is saved by fip. Even Verlander and Scherzer, who pitched infront of the same defense as Porcello, have career era and fips that are .18 and .8 away from each other.

 

WAR is not a perfect stat, but it still does a very good job of assessing a player's value. IMO, FIP is a better way to assess a pitcher's performance than ERA is, especially when a pitcher has a terrible defense behind him like Porcello did in Detroit. That difference between his FIP and ERA is an indication of just how bad Detroit's defense was. FIP and xFIP are better predictors of future ERA than ERA itself is.

 

If you don't like fWAR, we can go with bWAR, which uses runs allowed rather than FIP, then adjusts for defense. Porcello's WAR values the past 3 seasons are 1.5, 2.4, and 4.0. The 1.5 is not great, but his value was certainly trending in the right direction.

 

FTR, Fangraphs also has a WAR stat, called RA9-WAR, based on runs allowed, but I don't believe this stat is adjusted for defense. Porcello's values for the last 3 seasons are 1.0, 2.1, and 3.0. These values are not as good (I believe Porcello is being penalized for Detroit's poor defense), but again his value was trending in the right direction.

 

One other note about WAR is that is give value for innings pitched, and rightly so.

 

Any way you look at it, there was no reason to believe that Porcello wouldn't at minimum continue to close to a 3 WAR player.

[Kimmi]

I think he finally realized he needs to use the sinker more to be successful. He can not blow people away. He doesn't have to be the top of the rotation guy.

 

Correct. He has been successful as a sinker ball pitcher, not a power pitcher. He does not have to be a high strike out guy in order to be a very good pitcher.

[Kimmi]

The team was very poorly constructed. If the staff had performed up to career standards, they still would have been a bad, noncompetitive staff.

 

This is just wrong. If the staff, along with the position players, had performed up to expectation, we would likely be in first place, where most people felt we would be. I am leaving out the word "career" because career stats are not the best way to judge how a player is going to perform.

[Kimmi]

Where I really disagree with you is the pass you give Ben as he sat back in 2012, 2014 and 2015 as his moves and experiments were obviously crashing and burning. He had a complete inability to pivot when his moves were going bad. He always seemed to behind the curve. He stubbornly held onto his belief that Bard could be a starter when the guy's career was disintegrating before our eyes. He let the 2014 team flounder as the lineup was in desperate need of help. He kept too many rookies in the lineup for too long as they were imploding. What happened to Bradley in 2014 went beyond letting him get by some rookie bumps in the road. It got to the point where he was useless to the team and his confidence was getting shattered. Even Remy commented that Bradley should have been sent to AAA long before he was. Ben had a pattern of holding onto things for too long and reacting only after it was too late. Bradley's career was significantly derailed by Ben's stubbornness in 2014. The Hanley experiment was just the latest in Ben stubbornly clinging to failure. Even as his replacement was being courted, Ben was still stubbornly stating that Hanley would not be moved fro the OF. While the GM can't control the performance of the players, his job doesn't end after building the opening day roster. He is the General Manager. Ben couldn't manage as things went wrong until the flaws became team fatalities. That was his biggest shortcoming. His inaction went well beyond wise patience to foolish stubbornness.

 

I can somewhat agree with you on this.

 

However, there is a fine line between pulling the plug on a player and letting him flounder away to work through his struggles. Most fans are far too impatient and want players DFA'd at the first sign of a struggle. However, there are countless examples of players who appeared to be finished or young players who appeared to not have what it takes only to turn it around in big ways when shown the patience.

 

In some cases, it's a matter of not having a viable Plan B, which I believe was the case last year. I do fault Ben for relying on 3 young players in key positions last season and not having good back up plans for them.

[Bellhorn04]

This is just wrong. If the staff, along with the position players, had performed up to expectation, we would likely be in first place, where most people felt we would be. I am leaving out the word "career" because career stats are not the best way to judge how a player is going to perform.

 

This is an argument with no resolution because it is based on subjective criteria.

 

If the construction of the 2015 team is judged based on expected results, it was a success. If it is judged based on actual results, it was a failure.

[Dojji]

The thing to do then is to analyze why the expected results were not acheived and maybe discuss better ways to project accurately in future.

[Bellhorn04]

The thing to do then is to analyze why the expected results were not acheived and maybe discuss better ways to project accurately in future.

 

Before you go there, you also have to deal with the fact that the general accuracy of pre-season projections for major league baseball is not very high.

[Kimmi]

This is an argument with no resolution because it is based on subjective criteria.

 

If the construction of the 2015 team is judged based on expected results, it was a success. If it is judged based on actual results, it was a failure.

 

Oh, I'm not aguing whether the construction turned out to be a failure or not. It was an absolute failure. There's no arguing that. The only way to judge whether the season was a success or not is by the actual results. I just don't put the blame on Ben because I believe that his plan was solid, even though I didn't necessarily agree with it. Good plans don't always work out.

 

I agree with what Dojii said. The thing now is to figure out where the disconnect is between what should have happened on paper and what actually did happen on the field.

[Bellhorn04]

Personally I am always very skeptical about pre-season projections. There are so many examples of them being dead wrong that it would be prohibitively time-consuming to compile.

 

Pre-season projections for the Red Sox for the last 5 years have all been quite wrong.

 

2011 - projected 95-100 wins actual 90

2012 - projected 85 (?) actual 69

2013 - projected 85 actual 97

2014 - projected 85-90 (?) actual 71

2015 - projected 85

 

In 2013 the Jays were a preseason favorite. This year Washington and Seattle were among the favorites.

 

To me these projections mean very little.

[BigPapi]

WAR is not a perfect stat, but it still does a very good job of assessing a player's value. IMO, FIP is a better way to assess a pitcher's performance than ERA is, especially when a pitcher has a terrible defense behind him like Porcello did in Detroit. That difference between his FIP and ERA is an indication of just how bad Detroit's defense was. FIP and xFIP are better predictors of future ERA than ERA itself is.

 

If you don't like fWAR, we can go with bWAR, which uses runs allowed rather than FIP, then adjusts for defense. Porcello's WAR values the past 3 seasons are 1.5, 2.4, and 4.0. The 1.5 is not great, but his value was certainly trending in the right direction.

 

FTR, Fangraphs also has a WAR stat, called RA9-WAR, based on runs allowed, but I don't believe this stat is adjusted for defense. Porcello's values for the last 3 seasons are 1.0, 2.1, and 3.0. These values are not as good (I believe Porcello is being penalized for Detroit's poor defense), but again his value was trending in the right direction.

 

One other note about WAR is that is give value for innings pitched, and rightly so.

 

Any way you look at it, there was no reason to believe that Porcello wouldn't at minimum continue to close to a 3 WAR player.

 

I do agree with you that there was no reason to expect he wouldn't at minimum be his mediocre self, but they certainly didn't pay him to be that. I have read that it is fair to pay about 7 million dollars per win of war, but you can get pitchers to pitch mediocre for much cheaper. They got Miley for only an aav of 6.5 mill, which isn't bad at all for what he has done and is a great deal if you compare it to procello. In addition, a number of our young pitchers could be mediocre mid four pitchers as well. Again, I didn't have a problem with them trading for procello before the season, but I had a big problem giving him that size of contract before he did anything for the sox.

[Kimmi]

Personally I am always very skeptical about pre-season projections. There are so many examples of them being dead wrong that it would be prohibitively time-consuming to compile.

 

Pre-season projections for the Red Sox for the last 5 years have all been quite wrong.

 

2011 - projected 95-100 wins actual 90

2012 - projected 85 (?) actual 69

2013 - projected 85 actual 97

2014 - projected 85-90 (?) actual 71

2015 - projected 85

 

In 2013 the Jays were a preseason favorite. This year Washington and Seattle were among the favorites.

 

To me these projections mean very little.

 

You always take projections with a grain of salt. The point of looking at them, though, is to guage how the team looks on paper. That's the job of the GM - to build a team that looks good on paper. Ben did that. I've said many times that he cannot control what happens on the field.

[Kimmi]

I do agree with you that there was no reason to expect he wouldn't at minimum be his mediocre self, but they certainly didn't pay him to be that. I have read that it is fair to pay about 7 million dollars per win of war, but you can get pitchers to pitch mediocre for much cheaper. They got Miley for only an aav of 6.5 mill, which isn't bad at all for what he has done and is a great deal if you compare it to procello. In addition, a number of our young pitchers could be mediocre mid four pitchers as well. Again, I didn't have a problem with them trading for procello before the season, but I had a big problem giving him that size of contract before he did anything for the sox.

 

I had no problem with the extension. IMO, Porcello pitched like a #2 guy last season, with every reason to believe that he would continue to improve with a better defense behind him and because he is entering his prime. People were projecting that he would have gotten a minimum 5 year deal, and very likely 6 years, had he reached free agency.

 

The Sox took a calculated risk of locking him up early. It hasn't worked out to date, but I think it was a good risk to take.

[Bellhorn04]

That's the job of the GM - to build a team that looks good on paper. Ben did that. I've said many times that he cannot control what happens on the field.

 

That statement is kind of the crux of the whole debate. Saying something 'looks good on paper' has come to have the connotation that the appearance is deceiving.

[Kimmi]

That statement is kind of the crux of the whole debate. Saying something 'looks good on paper' has come to have the connotation that the appearance is deceiving.

 

Since no one can predict the future with any degree of certainty, it's the best we can do. You gather all the information you can, both analytically and from scouting reports, and make educated decisions based on what looks good on paper. Sometimes you find a player or two that looks like you're going against the grain but ends up being a diamond in the rough. However, I don't think any GM is going to go with a strategy of building a team that doesn't look good on paper.

[a700hitter]

This is just wrong. If the staff, along with the position players, had performed up to expectation, we would likely be in first place, where most people felt we would be. I am leaving out the word "career" because career stats are not the best way to judge how a player is going to perform.

The career standards of this group were much more favorable than their 2014 performance. IMO the 2014 standard is the better indicator of what they would do in 2015 -- a collective 4.53 ERA.

[Bellhorn04]

Was Hanley a good signing on paper?

 

If you look at his career OPS, yes.

 

If you look at his durability history, not so much.

 

If you look at his consistency history, not so much.

 

(The last time he played more than 128 games AND posted an OPS higher than .759 was 2010.)

 

If you look at his attitude history, which admittedly is based a lot on perception, not so much.

 

If you look at the change of position, who knew?

[Dojji]

You always take projections with a grain of salt. The point of looking at them, though, is to guage how the team looks on paper. That's the job of the GM - to build a team that looks good on paper. Ben did that. I've said many times that he cannot control what happens on the field.

 

Personally I don't think the team looked all that good on paper. It was deeply flawed in a number of ways right from the outset. Some of them won't show up in a position by position analysis but will show up when you identify how things synergize, or in the case of the 2014-15 Red Sox teams, how they don't.

 

Just as an example: We had a fundamental lack of range and fielding ability on the entire left side of our defensive diamond. IIRC only Bogaerts was consistently over replacement level, and you need more than "replacement level" from the shortstop's position anyway. The impacts are obvious; when right handed hitters can pull happily with better than the usual results what did you expect our contact-friendly pitching staff to accomplish?

 

He did a good job of furnishing quality players in each position on paper but a synergistic analysis reveals several flaws like that in the way the team was put together -- to the point were it looks like the analysis of defensive synergy was all but completely ignored. Those synergies turned out to matter -- a lot.

[reYoukilis]

Oh, I'm not aguing whether the construction turned out to be a failure or not. It was an absolute failure. There's no arguing that. The only way to judge whether the season was a success or not is by the actual results. I just don't put the blame on Ben because I believe that his plan was solid, even though I didn't necessarily agree with it. Good plans don't always work out.

 

I agree with what Dojii said. The thing now is to figure out where the disconnect is between what should have happened on paper and what actually did happen on the field.

So you didn't believe it was a good plan either? Well you were right and the so called experts were wrong and frankly I agreed with you. How could anybody not? We were in last place last year and we "improved" by getting rid of our very best pitcher (Lester) and kept a guy who, at the time was getting hurt and was underperforming (Buchholz). Yes we acquired some other pitchers but were they supposed to bring us from worst to first again? And Robbie Ross was the only new bullpen acquisition and living in Texas, I wasn't that impressed with him then, unlike Uehara, another Ranger, who I was very impressed with before he pitched an inning for Boston. So that leads us to Hanley and Sandoval being the saviors. They weren't nearly good enough to overcome a pitching staff that was a downgrade, on paper, than a last place team the year before.

[Behindenemylines]

DD better fix this bullpen. The 2015 version has been painful to watch. How many games has the bullpen blown?

[jacksonianmarch]

Kimmi, you're giving me a pass? Why thank you so much dearie, lol. What I wrote was correct. His moves fell incredibly flat. You cannot have high profile move after high profile move flop. And the "experts" had the sox winning the division mostly because the division was supposed to be a gigantic chasm of suck. Nobody expected NY to be as good as they have been all season and nobody expected Toronto to go all in and make the right moves at the right time. Up until a week ago, you had 4 of the 5 teams in the division over .500. The "experts" were wrong again. a700 was right. The team was built to be an offensive machine, which is something they really have become over the last 2 months, but they also were built to require career seasons from their rotation. Which they didn't get. This was Ben's issue. You cannot dismantle a phenomenal pitching staff and then have the staff be your downfall

[iortiz]

DD better fix this bullpen. The 2015 version has been painful to watch. How many games has the bullpen blown?

 

While some of them simply suck, some of them have been overused. This rotation has taxed their incompetence to the team in many different ways. Hopefully DD builds a solid one this time, I'm done with the "good enough" strategy.

[sk7326]

Personally I don't think the team looked all that good on paper. It was deeply flawed in a number of ways right from the outset. Some of them won't show up in a position by position analysis but will show up when you identify how things synergize, or in the case of the 2014-15 Red Sox teams, how they don't.

 

Just as an example: We had a fundamental lack of range and fielding ability on the entire left side of our defensive diamond. IIRC only Bogaerts was consistently over replacement level, and you need more than "replacement level" from the shortstop's position anyway. The impacts are obvious; when right handed hitters can pull happily with better than the usual results what did you expect our contact-friendly pitching staff to accomplish?

 

He did a good job of furnishing quality players in each position on paper but a synergistic analysis reveals several flaws like that in the way the team was put together -- to the point were it looks like the analysis of defensive synergy was all but completely ignored. Those synergies turned out to matter -- a lot.

 

They were flawed, but flawed enough to not be above .500 when the trade shopping popped up? There was underachievement abound across all three phases.