Article: Breaking Down the Recent Red Sox Front Office Moves

[Davy Andrews]

A new hire, a temporary promotion, and a newly created role can give us some insight about the team's intentions this offseason.

The Red Sox have made three personnel moves in recent weeks, and those moves can tell us a least a little bit about the team’s intentions in 2025. First, the team hired Taylor Smith from the Rays to be an assistant general manager. Smith worked for the Rays for seven years, spending the last three as the team’s director of predictive modeling. Second, the team named Kyle Boddy, founder of Driveline Baseball, the interim director of baseball sciences. Boddy is the founder of Driveline Baseball, spent two years as Cincinnati’s minor league pitching coordinator, and has been a senior advisor to Craig Breslow since January. Lastly, the team moved Chris Stasio, the assistant director of player development, to a brand new role: director of major league development.

Bringing on Smith, who focused on player valuation, makes a lot of sense at this moment. The Red Sox are looking to acquire players both in free agency and through trades. The Rays are one of the savviest organizations in baseball, and nothing is more crucial right now than accurately assessing the future value of free agents, trade targets, and the players the team might need to surrender in a trade.

The other two moves are focused on improving the players already in the organization. The Red Sox remade their entire approach to pitching in 2024, throwing gasoline on the fire of the long-term trend of throwing fewer fastballs. According to Sports Info Solutions, which has been recording pitch types since 2002, the Red Sox had a 37.1% fastball rate in 2024, by a wide margin, the lowest rate ever recorded. Driveline is interested in a lot more than simply helping pitchers throw harder. If you follow Boddy on social media, you’ll see that lately, he’s focused on computer vision and using learning language models in order to help break down large datasets of biomechanical information. In describing his new role, he said that he’ll be “helping with the reorganization, retooling of technology, and some systems/ML/AI stuff.” Boddy will be filling this director of baseball sciences role until the Red Sox hire someone full-time, at which point he’ll step back into his advisor role, but the move makes it clear that the Red Sox aren’t just content to tinker with their pitch mix. They’re going to keep putting a focus on biomechanics and big data, and they’ve enrolled the preeminent mover in that space to help them do it.

Stasio’s promotion, and the decision to create a director of major league development role in the first place, couldn’t be better timed either. The Red Sox are bursting with young talent both at the big-league level and in the minors. Roman Anthony, Kristian Campbell, and Kyle Teel all played in Triple A this season, and Marcelo Mayer absolutely torched Double A. These players will be in Boston soon, and whether or not they’re finished products, the team will be expecting them to contribute. Think about the strides that Jarren Duran made in 2024, and the strides that Ceddanne Rafaela needs to make in 2025. Building out the infrastructure to help these young players continue to get better once they hit the majors should be a priority going forward.

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[moonslav59]

Good article.

The Rays have a long list of non-headline signings that go on to have a career year(s.)

I hope this is not a sign that they are looking to do what they hired Bloom to do- build a winner without spending much at all. While these signings are important and useful, we cannot rely on only minor deals to get us back to glory.

[Bellhorn04]

We're gonna out-science everybody!

[mvp 78]

39 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Good article.

The Rays have a long list of non-headline signings that go on to have a career year(s.)

I hope this is not a sign that they are looking to do what they hired Bloom to do- build a winner without spending much at all. While these signings are important and useful, we cannot rely on only minor deals to get us back to glory.

Bloom didn't bring any Rays guys over, so it's hard to compare these moves to what Bloom did or didn't do. I think the Rays have had success acquiring and evaluating talent, so I don't think it's necessarily "let's find people who like pinching pennies." 

[mvp 78]

5 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

We're gonna out-science everybody!

If we can't beat 'em on the field, beat 'em with slide rules off the field. 

[Bellhorn04]

Andrew Bailey and the pitch mix revamping did have a sensational April.  After that things got a little sketchy.

And we hired former Yankee hitting coach Dillon (Hit Strikes Hard AKA Swing Hard In Case You Hit It) Lawson, and our offense went on to record a franchise record in strikeouts! 

[Duran Is The Man]

27 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

If we can't beat 'em on the field, beat 'em with slide rules off the field. 

i'm sure Henry sees it as hiring a dozen new nerds is cheaper than any free agent.

[Bellhorn04]

3 minutes ago, Duran Is The Man said:

i'm sure Henry sees it as hiring a dozen new nerds is cheaper than any free agent.

Just wait till John finds out they're going to need a large new building to house all the analysts and computers.

[mvp 78]

15 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Andrew Bailey and the pitch mix revamping did have a sensational April.  After that things got a little sketchy.

And we hired former Yankee hitting coach Dillon (Hit Strikes Hard AKA Swing Hard In Case You Hit It) Lawson, and our offense went on to record a franchise record in strikeouts! 

There was a lot good movement down on the farm in pitching development. That's probably where we'll see the greatest strides. In MLB, it'll just be fake it until the better options show up. It was clearly smoke an mirrors at the beginning of the year, but you also have to give Bailey credit for the year that Houck had. He went from being a 4/5 starter or bullpen arm to possibly a #2. 

[mvp 78]

1 minute ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Just wait till John finds out they're going to need a large new building to house all the analysts and computers.

They have enough real estate around Fenway. Should be ok.

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

Bloom didn't bring any Rays guys over, so it's hard to compare these moves to what Bloom did or didn't do. I think the Rays have had success acquiring and evaluating talent, so I don't think it's necessarily "let's find people who like pinching pennies." 

I get that, and agree, but I do think bringing in Bloom was an attempt to have a GM that found "gems in the rough" at low cost. He was involved in those types of moves with the Rays, despite not being the one who did the evaluations to determine which ones to get.

As it turned out, Bloom did not do such a great job finding the right guys, and it seems obvious, it was because he did not have the proper people in place to identify the "right guys" to sign or trade for.

Peraza, Martin Perez, Godley, Weber, Covey, Kickham, Stock, Brice and that whole 2020 mess of a roster. He did "find" Schreiber, Aroyo, Kike I, Renfroe (seemed like a typical Rays add-on,) Refsnyder, Wacha, Strahm but then there were more like Cordero, Andriese, Sawamura, Richards, Diekman and Kluber types.

I'm cautiously optimistic we are doing the right thing and heading in the right direction. I know I have said this too many times, already, but I do think we are already seeing improvements at the ML level from our farm development (Houck, Crawford, Bello, Duran, Casas, Rafaela and more) and talent evaluators (Abreu, Whitlock, Fitts, Slaten, Wink, DHam, Wong, Kelly, Weissert, Bernardino, Criswell and others acquired from other teams.)

[dgalehouse]

A lot of newly created, feel good positions. A lot of near useless overhead. Trendy, but a waste of money.  Picture a bunch of stiffs sitting around shuffling papers and sipping coffee all day. 

[Bellhorn04]

19 hours ago, dgalehouse said:

A lot of newly created, feel good positions. A lot of near useless overhead. Trendy, but a waste of money.  Picture a bunch of stiffs sitting around shuffling papers and sipping coffee all day. 

It does kind of have the feel of "look at all this stuff we're doing!"

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

20 hours ago, dgalehouse said:

A lot of newly created, feel good positions. A lot of near useless overhead. Trendy, but a waste of money.  Picture a bunch of stiffs sitting around shuffling papers and sipping coffee all day. 

But no expensive take-out from Starbucks. They brew a big pot of generic ground Stop & Shop brand.

And everyone has to drink it black, so they don't waste the budget on cream and sugar.

[moonslav59]

22 hours ago, dgalehouse said:

A lot of newly created, feel good positions. A lot of near useless overhead. Trendy, but a waste of money.  Picture a bunch of stiffs sitting around shuffling papers and sipping coffee all day. 

How can anyone know this, for sure?

[Bellhorn04]

4 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

How can anyone know this, for sure?

In reality I don't think we'll ever know if moves likes this have an impact one way or the other.

But I perfectly understand the cynicism of an old schooler like Denny.  They get tired of hearing about all the supposed upgrades in analytics and other off field programs when the actual major league team continues to flounder the way it has basically starting when they hired Bloom. 

I seem to be the only one here who was dumbfounded that they hired Dillon Lawson after the Yankees canned him midseason, and in 2024 the Yankees got much better in the K/BB department and the Red Sox got much worse.    

 

 

 

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

7 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

I seem to be the only one here who was dumbfounded that they hired Dillon Lawson after the Yankees canned him midseason, and in 2024 the Yankees got much better in the K/BB department and the Red Sox got much worse.    

 

 

 

I don't feel dumbfounded as much as just dumb, wasting all summer watching an entire team of swing-and-miss, and believing dumb stats that say a bunch of whiffers have such a good offense.

Any Sox fan who watched this batting order with runners on third, or even ghosts on second, knows that pitching, defense, and baserunning aren't the only problems.

[moonslav59]

4 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

In reality I don't think we'll ever know if moves likes this have an impact one way or the other.

But I perfectly understand the cynicism of an old schooler like Denny.  They get tired of hearing about all the supposed upgrades in analytics and other off field programs when the actual major league team continues to flounder the way it has basically starting when they hired Bloom. 

I seem to be the only one here who was dumbfounded that they hired Dillon Lawson after the Yankees canned him midseason, and in 2024 the Yankees got much better in the K/BB department and the Red Sox got much worse.    

 

 

 

On the surface, the Lawson addition does seem suspect, but it was one hire out of many.

I can also understand the cynicism.  6 years of futility can do that to anyone.

[Bellhorn04]

6 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

On the surface, the Lawson addition does seem suspect, but it was one hire out of many.

It was one hire, but a pretty significant one when the guy just got fired as hitting coach by our arch-rival.  The Yankees offense under Lawson was roundly criticized for being one-dimensional, home run or nothing.  And the numbers bore it out.  Why would they think this guy was a plus?

You can keep making move after move, but it doesn't get you far if your judgement continues to suck...    

 

[moonslav59]

7 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

It was one hire, but a pretty significant one when the guy just got fired as hitting coach by our arch-rival.  The Yankees offense under Lawson was roundly criticized for being one-dimensional, home run or nothing.  And the numbers bore it out.  Why would they think this guy was a plus?

You can keep making move after move, but it doesn't get you far if your judgement continues to suck...    

 

I dont know why anyone would think that hire was a "plus." Maybe, if you heard them explain why, there might be something that makes some sense.

I do not think all their moves suck. We do seem to focus on the ones that do, and it's understandable, after 6 years of grief.

It's too early to tell, but I like the Brez hire and have optimism towards our future. More optimism than I felt in 2018 (towards the future & extended future.) Somebody made some good chocies to get us here.

[mvp 78]

On 10/25/2024 at 1:51 PM, dgalehouse said:

A lot of newly created, feel good positions. A lot of near useless overhead. Trendy, but a waste of money.  Picture a bunch of stiffs sitting around shuffling papers and sipping coffee all day. 

Shuffling papers instead of reading our posts? These new positions are useless!!!

[mvp 78]

On 10/26/2024 at 5:06 PM, Bellhorn04 said:

In reality I don't think we'll ever know if moves likes this have an impact one way or the other.

But I perfectly understand the cynicism of an old schooler like Denny.  They get tired of hearing about all the supposed upgrades in analytics and other off field programs when the actual major league team continues to flounder the way it has basically starting when they hired Bloom. 

I seem to be the only one here who was dumbfounded that they hired Dillon Lawson after the Yankees canned him midseason, and in 2024 the Yankees got much better in the K/BB department and the Red Sox got much worse.    

The philosophy of this organization ever since they hired Bloom was to build it from the bottom up. That means any change that they make is going to take a long time to reach MLB. That's what teams with limited budgets do. It's a never ending waiting game. 🤷‍♀️

[moonslav59]

6 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

The philosophy of this organization ever since they hired Bloom was to build it from the bottom up. That means any change that they make is going to take a long time to reach MLB. That's what teams with limited budgets do. It's a never ending waiting game. 🤷‍♀️

I don't disagree, and Bloom was hired 5 years ago. The wait has been long and painful. 

I think 2021 gave JH some more "playtime," but the time is up, now, IMO.

We do seem pretty well set for a 5-6 year window, but some big gaps remain and need to be filled from outside the organization. Either JH has to step it up, or Brez has to be a mastermind- something we haven't seen our GM/CBO do in a very long time.

[mvp 78]

16 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I don't disagree, and Bloom was hired 5 years ago. The wait has been long and painful. 

I think 2021 gave JH some more "playtime," but the time is up, now, IMO.

We do seem pretty well set for a 5-6 year window, but some big gaps remain and need to be filled from outside the organization. Either JH has to step it up, or Brez has to be a mastermind- something we haven't seen our GM/CBO do in a very long time.

Bloom did a very poor job organizationally with the pitching. There were a few wins, but mostly they just treaded water by hoarding prospects. His draft strategy didn't see dividends at the MLB level for the first 4 years either since he focused early on HS players. If he grabbed college guys, there could have been an influx of talent for the big club. There was definitely a long game being played and it outlived his days here. We'll see how it eventually plays out. It just calls for A LOT of patience. 

[moonslav59]

11 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Bloom did a very poor job organizationally with the pitching. There were a few wins, but mostly they just treaded water by hoarding prospects. His draft strategy didn't see dividends at the MLB level for the first 4 years either since he focused early on HS players. If he grabbed college guys, there could have been an influx of talent for the big club. There was definitely a long game being played and it outlived his days here. We'll see how it eventually plays out. It just calls for A LOT of patience. 

I'm not so sure the "swing and miss" on pitching development was and is as bad as many seem to think it was/is. While Bloom did not acquire Houck, Crawford, Bello and Perales, his guys did help with "development," and those 4 are the best 4 we've seen in a very long time, come out of our farm.

Wink is not anyone to write home about, but getting Whitlock was a nice move. (Getting vets like and younguns like Wacha, Jansen, Martin, Strahm, Pivetta, Schreiber, Kelly and Bernardino was okay.)

All-in-all, I agree. He did not seem to move the organization forward on pitching. We did well with what he started with, and the amount of useful pitchers he added in 4 years was underwhelming, to say the least.

His pitchers on the farm are largely TBD, but none have jumped up the rankings, all that much. Brez actually has more top pitchers than Bloom's 4 years combined:

8. Perales DD

11. Sandlin Brez

12. Fitts Brez

13. Tolle Brez

19. Penrod Bloom

20. Wikelman DD

Bloom: 20 E R-C, 22 Monegro, 24 Valera, 25 Early, 26 Mullins, 27 Guerrero, 29 Paez, 31 D Reyes, 34 Wehunt, 41 Dean (Ingrassia)

Brez: (Slaten- graduated) 23 Carson (SS, too), 33 Neely, 39 Clarke, 40 Tygart, 42 Carlson (Judice)

 

 

[Duran Is The Man]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

The philosophy of this organization ever since they hired Bloom was to build it from the bottom up. That means any change that they make is going to take a long time to reach MLB. That's what teams with limited budgets do. It's a never ending waiting game. 🤷‍♀️

i hear this a lot, but respectfully and seriously, what does it even mean? build through the farm with draft picks? doesn't every team have a farm and get to draft? aren't these no-brainers that every team does? IMHO, it just means this: we're too f***ing greedy to spend money on free agents, so we are going to just play what we have and hope for the best.

[mvp 78]

The only difference is that they intentionally sucked to get better draft picks so that their farm could be better than if they actually fielded a real team. They also hoarded their prospects instead of trading them at the trading deadline or the offseason to make the MLB team better. They have put the farm above the MLB product. That's the difference. The teams that want to win, don't do that. 

[TheSplinteredSplendor]

On 10/25/2024 at 8:40 AM, Bellhorn04 said:

Andrew Bailey and the pitch mix revamping did have a sensational April.  After that things got a little sketchy.

And we hired former Yankee hitting coach Dillon (Hit Strikes Hard AKA Swing Hard In Case You Hit It) Lawson, and our offense went on to record a franchise record in strikeouts! 

Strikeouts are up pretty much across the board the last few years. I haven't looked it up but I would guess that many franchises have set their franchise record for strikeouts recently.

[Bellhorn04]

23 minutes ago, TheSplinteredSplendor said:

Strikeouts are up pretty much across the board the last few years. I haven't looked it up but I would guess that many franchises have set their franchise record for strikeouts recently.

That's true.  Maybe more pertinent is that they went from 18th in K's in 2023 with 1372 to 3rd in 2024 with 1570.

[mvp 78]

4 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

That's true.  Maybe more pertinent is that they went from 18th in K's in 2023 with 1372 to 3rd in 2024 with 1570.

What did Lawson have to do with any of those k's??? He was in POR and WOO.