Elktonnick

Most fans can not name anyone in the Red Sox farm system except those on the 40 man roster and could care less. Mlb's baseball move to sever ties and restructure the minor leagues portends the future. The farm is becoming less important in the grand scheme of things. The trend towards younger and younger players making the majors and the improvement in College baseball is expediting the process of MLB moving toward a player development system more akin to that of the NBA and NFL. The movement to increase the pay for players in the lower minors is only going to acceralate this transition.

So I surmise you are one of the few who cares about the farm. (If you write it twice I guess that doubles your vote.)

The farm will take care of itself. No cares about the farm except a few posters on this board. If the farm is so important why does MLB want to abolish so many minor league teams.

Resetting only makes sense if one believes that the Lux Tax regime will continue after the CBA is renegotiated. It probably won't. The Red Sox total revenues increased by a whopping 63 million dollars from 2017 to 2018. Total revenues were a half a billion dollars in 2018. With revenues like that the Sox have more to lose financially from resetting than from any Lux Tax penalty. That why I say I will believe it when I see it not before.

I agree Price is no fan favorite and many including me won't cry if he leaves. Other than him, I just do not see a major deal that sheds payroll significantly happening certainly not before the trade deadline. I also continue to believe that the so called budget crunch is being vastly overstated.

The are, as I post this, above the LT .

That is why I think this so called reset strategy economically unwise for the both short and long term.

I think the Yankees have a case. Ellsbury should be suing whomever advised him to seek medical treatment not Yankee sanctioned.

We can not be even sure of that because Betts will get a raise through arbitration so there actually could be a net payroll increase. Bloom has yet to do anything major that tips his hand other than letting Porcello walk which probably would have happened regardless of whomever was running Baseball Ops.

I learned a long time ago to take everything coming out of the Red Sox Front Office with great skepticism. The are about as forthright as both politcal parties.

I more or less said more or less the same thing a month ago.

Look I do not want him to do anything but put the best team on the field. I think this whole "get below the LT" is bull crap. If they trade Betts while they can still contend fans will revolt. So quit giving false choices. Bloom has a great rep but that all it is reputation. So far he has done Jack sh*t to justify all the hype around his hiring. The proof will be in results nothing more.

This means this whole reset idea is a goal not a mandate.

So far, I see no serious attempt by the Red Sox to get below the LT.

If Bloom trades Betts and Price and other key players in a dramatic effort to cut payroll then Sox total revenues will drop as they did from 2008 to 2009.

There will be a new CBA before the third year penalties kick in. The current thinking is that the players will never agree to a continuation of the current Lux Tax regime so the fears of that large a penalty are largely misplaced. In any case the growth in Red Sox revenue well out paces the financial burden of any potential lux tax. By not fielding a competitive team will likely have a more adverse affect on total revenues than any tax penalty.

Red Sox revenue was 516 Million in 2018, up from 453 million in 2017 and 434 million in 2016 and 398 million in 2015. The idea that the Red Sox doesn't have the "payroll' is ludicrous. Their Lux Tax bill was slightly more than JBJ's salary. In any case I thought Bloom was brought in to get below the Lux Tax. Still waiting for any movement on that front.

Judging from the comments on twitter I would say everyone is underwhelmed.

I agree that one issues dividing DD from the rest of the FO were issues such as the farm. DD refused to accept input from others. The disagreement over these issues was not however why DD was fired but rather HOW DD handled subordinates opposing points of view. He apparently made others feel that their points of view did not matter and began cutting them out completely. That was rap against him for bringing in Wren and LaRussa. I also suspect that is why Cherrington did not want to remain in Boston. He knew of DDs lone ranger act reputation. But the substance of the disagreements weren't why Henry and Werner finally decided not to renew his contract in February. It was the toxic environment. Remember as in major corporation Henry and the Board had to sign off of any contract of the magnitude that Sale received. I think Henry would have stuck with DD regardless of the state of the farm and the big contracts if he had managed the FO better and treated his subordinates with more respect. I think that was point of Gammons article and Chris Russo's comments.

Henry could have stopped the over spending but he chose not to. These contracts only became a factor in the cover story after DD was fired just as Chris Russo said on nationwide radio and tv on the MLB network the day following DR's firingg. Hey you can believe in DDs spending being the reason if you want to. But those major baseball writers and MLB.analyst with access to better sources are not buying the Red Sox cover story.

You know that Peter Gammons left the Boston Globe over 30 years ago.

The last three lines of the portion of the article said; "In fact, when Dombrowski arrived in Boston, Kennedy picked him up at the airport. Dombrowski asked Kennedy to arrange a meeting between him and Cherington. He’d been hired and didn’t know Cherington was already gone. A year later, Hazen, Jared Porter and Amiel Sawdaye, three key figures in a decade of success, left for Arizona with no love lost for Dombrowski." Once again the evidence strongly suggests that Henry and Werner decided not to renew DDs contract in the spring around April. Remember Henry said he was going to renew DDs contract in February well before ST had begun. The fact that he did not do so then is highly suggestive that Henry had no intention of renewing the contract. Since the Sox did not make the playoffs means we will never know. But I think FO staff were so miserable and the work environment so toxic as I recall one Boston sportwriter putting it that Henry could no longer tolerate DDs leadership style.

Re read the post I posted about the front office personnel leaving as did Gammons. The only one talking about players was you.

I think it is well substantiated.

Sure we do. Henry has plenty of money. But he can not afford to restructure the entire FO which is the heart of the team's success. Like I wrote earlier the Lux Tax isn't the greatest threat to the long term viability of the Red Sox. But a failure to attract and retain outstanding FO talent would be. That is why DD was fired