sk7326

His low OBP/low power combo hurt a lot more. From Butch Hobson to Ryan Klesko to umpteen other cases, teams have survived with dumpster fire defenders who could hit. (and in Hobson's case he didn't really hit all that much). 1B or 3B he will be less bad if he hits to his normal ability. Heck, if he hit to his normal capability, he'd have been a justifiable starter. His teammates have done quite nicely the last 2 months ... it has been fun.

Bradley won't be the centerpiece to anything. But he doesn't have to be. The Red Sox are loaded with CF types anyway - and other position players who clearly could start for somebody (Merrero, Cecchini, Shaw, honestly probably Margot, some catcher). If you think the team needs a corner bat, there is the currency. Obviously it is currency for pitching. What is Bradley? Really the odds were in favor of him being a big league competent hitter - he has hit at age appropriate levels throughout. I think what he is now is what he is ... .269/.350, with some power (probably not this but who cares). That is a solid starter/fringy all-star without doing much else.

That meant he's gonna be a shaky fielder wherever - but his bat plays anywhere. He went in the toilet after he hurt his shoulder ... it happens. Offseason to heal, and that part will be fine.

Hanley will be fine. Give an offseason for the shoulder to heal and he will hit - enough to put him wherever you want on the field, including first. Shaw is a decent guy who will be useful trade bulk. Sandoval is what he is - certainly better than 2015, but probably not that good. Dombrowski's work with the staff is considerable - the tools he has to fix it are pretty vast.

Things have not changed - baserunners are the name of the game. 3-run homers are still optimal, but you can work around that some. You don't want outs - period. Manufacturing runs has always been largely bunk - at least if you intend to score more than a couple. With or without the 3-run homers, you still want those bases clogged. That said, Boston is 8th in the AL in HRs, 3rd in OBP and 3rd in runs ... so the homeruns are not a requirement (this was the profile of the 2007 team also). What HAS happened though is a large jump in doubles - from dead last to 4th in the league. I do think for Boston specifically - that is sustainable. We know Fenway is not a great homerun park, but it is a great doubles one and so a team of gap hitting can get pretty far too.

The team mashed since the all-star break, and that's without their 2nd best hitter providing any real contribution. (and if you wanted to go get Jason Heyward or Justin Upton, I wouldn't argue at all) But the lineup is a relative nonissue.

Basically - this is a good news, bad news thing ... Good? He has figured out how to cover all of his "cold zones" Bad? He is not forcing them to throw into his hot areas Good? He's 22 and made a major hitting adjustment to be a net asset offensively, while working on his fielding to the point that he's quite solid. Next step for him is to lay off the out of zone pitches and get more things to drive. But he has made adjustments at every level of baseball to date - including this one. He's still just a baby. This is the sort of guy you bet on.

His power run was never going to sustain ... the 1 for 27 will pass too. Question is whether the bat can be enough to hold up the rest of the package. I am bullish - no reason he can't be a solid OBP guy with the occasional hot streak. Basically Mike Napoli's offense (without the power) as an elite center fielder? I'll take that.

It makes his reign really odd - I never said he shouldn't have been ousted. The major league record was fair game. But it's also noteworthy that he left a ton behind. There are posters who talk of the disaster left in his wake - and that is not supported by much of anything. What happened in Seattle (as a counterexample) was an actual disaster. Milwaukee also is in a situation which will take a few years to dig out of. Dombrowski's job is clear - and he has an unusually good number of tools to do his job. The concern I have is a housecleaning that is largely not necessary - because so much of what exists currently is like league best level. If he keeps the infrastructure around mostly - this has a chance to work out really well. We know a lot of the stupid things which he did in Detroit were at the behest of the pizza guy.

Helps to avoid a cheating scandal while you are on sabbatical.

They'll be in the mix next season - Dombrowski will figure out the pitching. Doesn't have to do a lot with the lineup. Ramirez' shoulder heals, and he'll be fine - a bad defender wherever they put him, but a good player in sum. Funny thing is if you flip your statement around while maintaining all the facts ... won a championship in four seasons, leaves behind the game's best farm system and a starting lineup full of young, cheap star level talent ...

All players deteriorate by their mid-late 30s, where things like approach and knowing how to play baseball has to trump athletic skills - shocking. Even Pedroia - over whose hands you continually wring - got 8 good seasons! That's a good number for anybody. And Pedroia is going to end up with a near 3 win season despite all the injury time. That is the funny thing about Pedroia - trying to usher him out the door when he has slipped from one of the best players in the league vs merely one of the best second basemen.

No - because that would be stupid. He is a terrific athlete. That is really the common thread of the guys the Sox are acquiring. These are all good athletes who would be effective in other sports (assuming they had the training). The height is somewhat incidental.

A five year break yes, a one year one not so much. Coaches do that all the time - often taking TV gigs to say things that everybody knows.

Why would you say that? High pressure gig, somewhat thankless. Probably has a lot of money. GM gigs out there do not look that awesome (and there will be others). Take some time off. If it were 1980, I'd say follow the Dead for a summer. You have the rest of your life to punch the clock. Most people don't have the luxury to take some time away. It's a loser's mentality I suppose if winning means just acquiring and consuming ...

Was he? He predated the ownership! Let's look at the basics here. He was an exemplary scouting and development head before he got to assistant GM. He was a guy smart people wanted to work for ... notice how little turnover there was in the development machine even after Epstein and McLeod left. (by contrast, SEA went through them like infant diapers) He did not do a great job with the major league roster - which is why he is out, and why they brought in Dombrowski. But he left the system loaded - not as loaded with pitching, but plenty of currency that Dombrowski kind of HAS to trade anyway. It's a system that is going to spit out half of our starting lineup next season. It will be curious how much house cleaning Dombrowski does - a new guy will always do some of that ... but realistically, the team he inherited is largely very good and only needs a couple of things (the things Dombrowski himself is best equipped to do). The GM position in Boston is a de facto assistant position now - but it will still require a lot of work, keeping the machine going, which Dombrowski himself doesn't really have the interest to do at this point. Dombrowski's job is to identify who is untouchable - and Cherington has fortunately made that a tricky question.

I think it has been a way to get to pitches which gave him a lot of trouble last year ... I think it might be the latter more than anything. But he has command of his PAs, which is good to see. But yeah, his next step is to lay off those pitches he has figured out how to spray ... and make them groove something he can smash.

Absolutely - worked out great for us ... he was considered untouchable hot garbage at the time. (a 31 year old on a big deal coming off of a horrendous 2005) Taking his money was essential to get the premium asset.

and Anibal Sanchez, and took on Mike Lowell's contract ...

Maybe - or he just wants to go on vacation. What is clear is that not all the GM positions are equal - all have the same title, but clearly fundamentally different gigs. SEA: Win now without trade assets MIL: Classic rebuild PHI: Clean up some of the infrastructure, get analytics to industry standards. Prez will be involved in beisbol, but not as much as say Dombrowski. BOS: Prez is managing big league roster. GM keeping rest of org going, try to limit brain drain. ANA: Meddling owner and no control over the field manager.

Olney podcast yesterday flew through the openings - really the Boston one for GM is going to be a guy who can manage "other stuff". Clearly Dombrowski is making decisions about the big league club, and probably at his age and mandate does not intend to spend much time on the org (which is not actually broken). So Hazen would actually make sense in terms of assuring the continuity on the stuff which has worked.

If Cherington wants in, this is a perfect fit.

I think the scouts matter there, but it's a pretty small part of the overall scouting operation. And Hanley's issues have been A) medical and stuff you could have guessed. I had issues with the Sandoval acquisition from the beginning. Masterson and Craig are about speculation and medical evaluations largely (all are great prices if the guys could bounce back). But yeah that has not worked out and it is something Dombrowski needs to address. But unlike most failed GM-ships, Cherington left a lot of good stuff. As I pointed out elsewhere, if you look at four years and see, "four years, one title, stacked development system", you'd wonder why he was ousted. (I am not questioning why he was ousted, there were too many losses) This is not the shambles that say the Mariners situation is.

The team has an elite farm system - amateur and pro scouting have been among the league's best (and the staff has been kept together largely). The org is going to have at minimum four Top 50 prospects (Margot, Devers, Moncada, Espinoza) and at least three of them in the Top 20 or higher. And Johnson, Travis and Guerra will all be on somebody's Top 100. The scouting and development have produced four or five guys who'll be starting next season for this team.

Perhaps a source of arbitrage. Of course, Pedroia is a total freak - very little about him has ever made sense from a scouting perspective. Betts of course was a middle infielder who has forced them to figure out a way to get him on the field. Sox have definitely favored acquiring CFs and middle infielders - since the scouts have coveted premium athleticism and that's where you find them for the most part.