The problem with this position is that, whether it was Cherington's idea or not, the Sox did spend a ton of money on Hanley, Panda, Porcello and Castillo, and none of them performed.
And as MVP says, the Sox also charge the highest ticket prices.
Kimmi, I was a Ben supporter up until 2015. And I do agree with you that he did a lot of good things.
The short version of why I think Ben had to be replaced comes down to this:
When you're the GM of the Boston Red Sox and blessed with one of the highest payrolls in the game, you can't finish last two years in a row. No matter what the underlying reasons and explanations are, that is a crushing failure.
Duquette was not a bad GM, he procured some great players, we had some good years under him. But ultimately he failed us. He couldn't finish the job. Also from what I understand in his latter days he had somewhat of a mental breakdown and became something of a paranoid creep.
He also reportedly shunned the team's legacy and didn't want players from the past anywhere near the park.
I guess I'm in the camp that thinks of Boggs as a major ******* who happened to play for the Sox.
But I have to say that if the Sox hadn't blown it in 1986 I would think more highly of him. In the infamous Game 6 he had 3 hits and a walk.
I'll say this, the current Sox ownership has been fantastic with the legacy stuff. Maybe it's all with a view to the bottom line, but that's OK.
It has some, Kimmi. But we would not have been able to acquire Price if John Henry wasn't willing to go over the tax threshold by $15 million. We did not have a lot of payroll room coming into 2016.
I suspect when they looked at his 2014 numbers they made some allowance for his terrible start. From May to September his OPS was .774. In October his OPS was .888. So from May to October he was in line with his career averages.
Personally I'm willing to give Ben a pass for a lot of things. I don't think finishing last in 2012 was his fault. I hated finishing last in 2014, but after winning a championship the year before, I gave him a pass for that too. 2015 was his disaster, especially the pitching staff.
A Marlins official was quoted on what they wanted from us. It was so ridiculous that it seemed more like a joke.
http://nesn.com/2015/12/marlins-official-reveals-huge-red-sox-package-wanted-for-jose-fernandez/
“We thought we might be able to piece something together with the Red Sox,” a Marlins official told Peter Gammons. “With E-Rod (Eduardo Rodriguez), Mookie Betts, Christian Vazquez, Yoan Moncada and another pitcher I thought we had something that might work.”
No one has ever suggested Porcello gave a discount in his salary. The idea was that 4 years was 2 years less than he could have gotten as a free agent.
Cueto's price got knocked down considerably by injury concerns.