Sox losing a lot of personnel

[Emp9]

I wasn't too concerned about the GM position. Being President of baseball operations, DD is pretty much the GM. However, seeing this mass exodus of VP of Int'l & amateur scouting Sawdaye (Arizona), Assistant director of amateur scouting Sanders (Toronto) sorta' worries me a little. Senior analyst Tom Tippett is another familiar name who's left. Deeble (who I'm not familiar with) has left as well. I'm not suggesting anything of why, besides promotional positions from other teams they couldn't get here mainly. Plus, I think they've done a great job and ( besides SP which isn't entirely their fault) set us up nicely... all things considered. Does anyone here have an inside track as to who the Sox would or should be looking towards for replacements?

[Kimmi]

I am concerned with the number of FO personnel that are leaving. I was concerned with Hazen leaving. I have become more concerned as others have left.

[Spudboy]

I am concerned with the number of FO personnel that are leaving. I was concerned with Hazen leaving. I have become more concerned as others have left.

 

I'm guessing your concern centers around which choices DD makes for replacements?

 

So far he has promoted guys from within, I think. Let's hope they carry over at least some of the knowledge and mindset of the Theo and even Ben years.

 

I think while DD is a big name exec, the ownership will require certain aspects of the former regime remain.

 

Who knows?

 

My Immediate concern is continuity of effort. I hope that things continue to get done.

[moonslav59]

I'm worried more about losing Papi, Ziegler, Koji and Taz.

[cp176]

I agree with you and I sense a mini-conspiracy theory brewing. I don't want them to become top heavy with unnecessary personnel. We are all replaceable! My concern is much more directed toward the players playing as opposed to the executives exectiveing.

[Emp9]

I'm worried more about losing Papi, Ziegler, Koji and Taz.

 

I mean long-term, losing (if I had to pick the main dude) Sawdaye is kind of a big deal to me. We wouldn't feel the loss of him right away. Who knows? Maybe they bring in guys that are better at recognizing great pichers than position players... that could be good.

[Emp9]

I agree with you and I sense a mini-conspiracy theory brewing. I don't want them to become top heavy with unnecessary personnel. We are all replaceable! My concern is much more directed toward the players playing as opposed to the executives exectiveing.

 

Like I mentioned, there will be no conspiracy theory from me. People move on. Sawdaye is a big loss though.

[cp176]

Like I mentioned, there will be no conspiracy theory from me. People move on. Sawdaye is a big loss though.

 

You are probably right. You know more about whoever he/she is than I do. I will say again though that whatever the role unless they actually play the game they are replaceable and probably easily. Sometimes we tend to make people out to be much more special than they are. It will be a temporary loss and certainly doesn't reflect on the direction the organization is going with respect to the product on the field.

I'm sure that some might try to make this a DD story of sorts. That will be too bad!

[mvp 78]

I am concerned with the number of FO personnel that are leaving. I was concerned with Hazen leaving. I have become more concerned as others have left.

 

People have always left. People left while Theo was here. If you have good staff, they aren't going to stick around forever because there will always be a logjam at the top (not everyone can be GM).

 

As long as their younger replacements are sufficient, we shouldn't worry too much.

[Kimmi]

I'm guessing your concern centers around which choices DD makes for replacements?

 

People have always left. People left while Theo was here. If you have good staff, they aren't going to stick around forever because there will always be a logjam at the top (not everyone can be GM).

 

As long as their younger replacements are sufficient, we shouldn't worry too much.

 

My concern is not with the guys leaving, per se. It's with the direction that the team building philosophy might turn towards.

 

I am not accusing anyone of anything, nor brewing a conspiracy theory, nor saying that the franchise is doomed. I am simply concerned.

 

My concern might end up being completely unwarranted. OTOH, it might not.

[SoxnCycles]

My concern is not with the guys leaving, per se. It's with the direction that the team building philosophy might turn towards.

 

I am not accusing anyone of anything, nor brewing a conspiracy theory, nor saying that the franchise is doomed. I am simply concerned.

 

My concern might end up being completely unwarranted. OTOH, it might not.

 

Losing as many people as the Sox FO has is a valid concern.

Particularly when they're some of the top people in scouting and development.

 

The replacement for Sawdaye may do just fine, but losing one of the guys that scouted Jackie Bradley Jr., Mookie Betts, Travis Shaw, Blake Swihart, Michael Kopech and Sam Travis is not good for the Sox.

[Jack Flap]

No one has mentioned the promotion of Eddie Romero to assistant GM, which I liked. IMO Dombrowski has shown a preference for promoting talent from within the organization, though it's not possible to keep everyone for reasons that MVP mentioned.

 

All in all, I'm not terribly concerned as long as they continue to replace quality with quality.

[Kimmi]

Losing as many people as the Sox FO has is a valid concern.

Particularly when they're some of the top people in scouting and development.

 

The replacement for Sawdaye may do just fine, but losing one of the guys that scouted Jackie Bradley Jr., Mookie Betts, Travis Shaw, Blake Swihart, Michael Kopech and Sam Travis is not good for the Sox.

 

Of course it's a valid concern. We've lost some good people. It may end up not making a difference. Then again, it might.

[Dojji]

Losing as many people as the Sox FO has is a valid concern.

Particularly when they're some of the top people in scouting and development.

 

The replacement for Sawdaye may do just fine, but losing one of the guys that scouted Jackie Bradley Jr., Mookie Betts, Travis Shaw, Blake Swihart, Michael Kopech and Sam Travis is not good for the Sox.

 

Can I just say it? Our development department has spent the last several years not smelling like roses. It's one thing to "hit" on high picks like Betts and Bradley and high profile FA's like Bogaerts. It's another to have absolutely no homegrown home-drafted started pitching make the roster since Clay Buchholz did it nearly 10 years ago

 

We've got a few reasonably decent hits on position players, but the scouting and development for pitching has stank on ice. Maybe it's time to turn some of these guys over and bring in some fresh ideas.

[Kimmi]

Can I just say it? Our development department has spent the last several years not smelling like roses. It's one thing to "hit" on high picks like Betts and Bradley and high profile FA's like Bogaerts. It's another to have absolutely no homegrown home-drafted started pitching make the roster since Clay Buchholz did it nearly 10 years ago

 

We've got a few reasonably decent hits on position players, but the scouting and development for pitching has stank on ice. Maybe it's time to turn some of these guys over and bring in some fresh ideas.

 

When your farm system has been ranked so highly by several different people who rank these things, your draft and development department is doing something very right. Yes, they've lagged on the pitching side of things, but I think there are two significant contributing factors to that. One is that they haven't typically had high draft picks. Two is that their philosophy was typically to draft the best player available rather than draft a position of need.

 

I'm not saying that we don't need improvement in the area of developing our own pitching, but I think you're selling them a little short.

[Spudboy]

When your farm system has been ranked so highly by several different people who rank these things, your draft and development department is doing something very right. Yes, they've lagged on the pitching side of things, but I think there are two significant contributing factors to that. One is that they haven't typically had high draft picks. Two is that their philosophy was typically to draft the best player available rather than draft a position of need.

 

I'm not saying that we don't need improvement in the area of developing our own pitching, but I think you're selling them a little short.

 

More like he is just ignoring the other salient aspects of the topic to suit his own taste and opinion.

 

Talksox members do that.

[moonslav59]

It is hard to find great pitching in the draft after the top 5 or 10 picks.

[mvp 78]

It is hard to find great pitching in the draft after the top 5 or 10 picks.

 

The Trey Ball pick at #7 looks pretty bad right now. When you haven't picked that high in 20 years, you need to nail that pick.

[Dojji]

It is hard to find great pitching in the draft after the top 5 or 10 picks.

 

It is the job of management to do hard things. Even though it's hard, a FEW successes isn't, you'd think, be too much to ask.

 

Again, no SP from our own draft has stuck on the team since Buchholz and no ace since Lester (a 2nd rounder I might point out) who was drafted well over a decade ago. That's pretty damning.

[a700hitter]

The Trey Ball pick at #7 looks pretty bad right now. When you haven't picked that high in 20 years, you need to nail that pick.

Yep. This organization has been horrible at scouting, drafting and developing starting pitching. There are no excuses. The "we haven't had enough high draft picks" argument doesn't hold water.

[Hugh2]

The Trey Ball pick at #7 looks pretty bad right now. When you haven't picked that high in 20 years, you need to nail that pick.

 

I'm sorry but with all due respect I always found that argument unreasonable. Do you think teams try more or less to draft the BPA? Every team is always trying to draft the guy who they think has the best chance to be the next Trout or Kershaw with every pick.

 

The reality is, it's a crap shoot. Even top 10 picks who have an astronomically higher chance of being MLB players than the rest of the draft bust 50% of the time. If you go back and look at the 1st round and top 10 picks in every draft one thing you'll notice is for every team that really hit on a player, usually completely busted on a top 10 player a year or two within that pick.

 

If we are looking back 10 years from now and it looks like we struck gold with Benintendi and Groome and Ball isn't even a reliever how much different will we look than other teams who drafted great in the top 10? The Orioles struck gold with Machado and Gausman and Bundy look like they are contributors now as well now that they are healthy.

 

You hear a lot of people talk about those guys, but no one ever talks about Matt Hobgood who was a complete BUST. Sandwhiched inbetween their Nick Markakais pick were 3 top 10 pitching busts in Wade Townsend, Chris Smith, and Adam Loewen. Pretty much ever team that has had mutliple top 10 picks within consecutive years has drafted a bust for every star they drafted.

 

I do think there is something to the argument that the Sox need to figure out what is going on with their pitcher development but to some degree I do think it is draft position. Think of it this way over the past 10 years the 5th best pitcher drafted between the 20th and 30th pick has been Daniel Bard 4.3 WAR so far.

 

Also things change, I remember a few years ago the fan cry in 2013 was how Boston just couldn't produce outfielders we HAD to draft an outfielder. Yet here we are with a Benintendi, JBJ, Betts two of which were already in the system. Also, Swihart could make a splash in the outfield and there's even some talk that Moncada may eventually end up there.

 

Again, I think we have to accept the reality of how much of a crap shoot a draft really is. I'm sure they don't draft a bust like Ball due to lack of trying, and if Bentendi becomes the player he appears to be then they did pretty darn good for having 2 top 10 picks.

[Jack Flap]

Nah man, I don't know if we've flogged the Ball pick to death just yet. There might still be someone out there (perhaps in the Brazilian rain forest, or a monastery in the Himalayas) who hasn't yet heard that he isn't good and we should have taken Meadows instead. I think we need a few more pages about it, just to be sure.

[moonslav59]

Yep. This organization has been horrible at scouting, drafting and developing starting pitching. There are no excuses. The "we haven't had enough high draft picks" argument doesn't hold water.

 

We haven't always picked a pitcher with out highest picks.

 

I'm not defending our selections of pitchers. We've had a long stretch of misses. Clearly we have an issue identifying how young pitcher picks project.

 

Here's our top pitcher picks since Buchholz in 2005:

 

7 TBall (2013)

12 Groome (2016)

19 Barnes (11)

28 D Bard (06)

30 C Kelly (08)

31 Johnson (12)

33 Kopech (14)

36 Owens (11)

37 Light (12)

39 Ranaudo (10)

39 K Johnson (06)

43 C Clay (06)

45 Stankiewicz (13)

45 B Price (08)

55 Hagadone (07)

57 Workman (11)

71 Masterson (06)

77 Wilson (09)

85 S Fife (08)

87 Callahan (12)

88 Shaun Anderson (16)

 

As you can see, we've only chosen 3 pitchers in the top 27 picks in the past 11 drafts- Ball, Groome and Barnes, and Ball is the only top 10 pick we've chosen a pitcher.

 

Our picks from 28 to 85 haven't been that bad.

 

Kelly helped us get AGon. Hagadone helped us get VMart. Stephen Fife had a couple good years, and I think he helped us get Mirabelli back. Alex Wilson has been pretty good, and he helped us get Porcello. Bard gave us 3-4 good years. Others in this group are still in the mix, but other than Kopech, I'm not expecting much.

 

 

.

[Spudboy]

Nah man, I don't know if we've flogged the Ball pick to death just yet. There might still be someone out there (perhaps in the Brazilian rain forest, or a monastery in the Himalayas) who hasn't yet heard that he isn't good and we should have taken Meadows instead. I think we need a few more pages about it, just to be sure.

 

POTY candidate.

[OH FOY]

Good article to read how hard it is to come from High School to the Pros.

 

http://www.perfectgame.org/Articles/View.aspx?article=12960

 

This kid was the best High School Prospect there was in 14. Nation #1 ranked hitter in High School.

[Hugh2]

The problem here is that we don't know about the guys who are coming in due to guys leaving. Sometimes a CFO is really great because he has a great controller, so for all we know many of the guys getting promotions could be the real brains of the operations and the Sox could benefit from hiring from within.

 

This isn't a guess or an assumption, just a plausibility. Is plausibility a word? I know plausible is....I'm making it one if it isn't.

[a700hitter]

I would only worry about keeping the highest quality scouts. As to the rest of FO personnel, Jos A. Bank is always running BOGO sales on suits (2 for the price of 1). There is no shortage of mediocre business types, and they are all pretty much mediocre.

[moonslav59]

I would only worry about keeping the highest quality scouts. As to the rest of FO personnel, Jos A. Bank is always running BOGO sales on suits (2 for the price of 1). There is no shortage of mediocre business types, and they are all pretty much mediocre.

 

Didn't Trump just name Jos A. Bank Secretary of the Treasury?

 

[Hugh2]

Didn't Trump just name Jos A. Bank Secretary of the Treasury?

 

 

If you name he who must not be named by name the death eaters might come for you.

[cp176]

Romanski out for a little while. 50 game suspension. Probably not the best thing for a 26 year old prospect. He actually looked pretty good this summer. Hope this isn't the reason why.