sk7326

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.

Because LF is an easy position - players hit fly balls to shortstops allegedly, and guys have gone from the middle infield to the outfield before (Yount, Biggio, Chipper Jones a few). He also played a little CF many years ago at AAA when the Sox were trying to figure out how to unblock him. He was remarkably bad in LF - and combine that with his poor offense, you can't make a Ryan Klesko-esque case for him.

I noted 21-4 gets to 85 wins ... (21-3 now) ... which is on the "stranger things have happened" level. I certainly wouldn't bet anything important on it.

Oh I actually think someone would take Castillo now - there is clearly a solid player there, and if you think this is a legit guy his salary is really modest for that production. But no, not as a centerpiece for a 26 year old ace sort.

I would consider it - because you're trading young talent for young talent. Getting a young star is why you touch untouchable players. I'd look at Sale first though - but you collect the chips for a reason, and the Sox are loaded up the middle.

Another thing ... and I'm not saying to even put it on the radar, because clearly the odds are basically nil ... BUT 16-9 gets the Sox to .500 20-5 gets the Sox to 85 wins stranger things have happened. But whatever - sit back and enjoy that they are a fun team to watch finally.

This is mostly right. What is possible - not likely but possible - is that if the Red Sox offer the Mets a place to send Michael Cuddyer's contract, that it could help reduce the package a little bit.

Absolutely - and the funny thing is, if you wanted them to tank what would they be doing? Rolling out kid heavy lineups, right? Go figger.

It will be a blip - the issue has always been about form.

I voted no, but it is complicated. Sox have the 10th worst record right now - and 10/11 is the difference between surrending a 1st to sign someone big and not doing so. It would be beneficial to not pass the Orioles. At the same time, if you tanked, how would you do it and not burn options needlessly? You'd do it by playing Jackie Bradley all the time, and by playing Travis Shaw at 1B. You'd run Henry Owens and Matt Barnes out there from time to time. The problem is that the kids the Sox have turned to are not awful ... Go figure, Ben could not assemble a group of young players who could lose frequently enough. So he stunk at tanking too.

Football is an easier commitment. I remember on the old Sports Huddle (for the wayback machine) Mark Witkin comparing baseball to marriage and football to an affair - the best description of the two fandoms I can think of. I will say the Red Sox being bad seriously harms my ability to manage my rotoball team - because I have trouble digging into the other 29 teams when the Red Sox fall out.

Here is the funny thing - they were among the league's best in 2013 and 2014. And Bogaerts was the CLEAR weak link in the 2014 alignment. And that has improved signficantly. Really, their defensive uh-ness is driven by exactly two positions. Fixing it is not difficult.

The Royals starters are not good - but they have an excellent bullpen and their defense provides a lot of help. Interestingly, the same is true of the Giants largely. (Bumgarner the obvious exception) Both also are built for giant run-sucking ballparks. So the Red Sox formula should be more offense-centric, just plays to the natural assets. The bullpen is also interesting in that it points to - I noted this elsewhere - a measure of risk taking in acquisition that the Red Sox could benefit from. I do think on the pitching side, the Red Sox have a bit of the same quandry Beane and Ricciardi (in TOR) ran into - if you keep taking college guys because of lower risk, you are punting on the kids who are far more likely to become stars (and far more likely to go boom - if you are not drafting high, you have to live with that).

The team was 3rd in the majors defensively a year ago - the leakage this year is almost entirely to two players. Zobrist was one of the best players in the league - but he's 34, his defense fell off at least this year, and probably will get overpaid. It's not a terrible idea, but price needs to be right.

Or if you simply like it when our team outscores theirs - and the players are fun. I wish there was a banner behind it, but whatever at this point. Beats the 2012 tankapalooza.