sk7326

But did Ben have final say? That is the main question which will drive the success of the Dombrowski era.

Ownership meddling is ALWAYS a risk. That is the nature of working - you do what the man who signs the checks wants. I don't blame Dombrowski for doing what ownership wants in Detroit - Ilitch wanted a title and wanted to deal kids to make sure it happened (well, you can't MAKE SURE you win a title, baseball doesn't work like that). There are only 30 jobs, it's not like you can snap your fingers and make your own startup. Now will ownership priorities be healthy?

I think Owens starts in Boston too. There is clear major league swing and miss and feel. His ability to shake off the horrible start to his last outing was a good sign. I think they need at least one more "top shelf" pitcher for the rest of the rotation to fall into place. Kelly in the pen seems obvious to me too.

Hanley at 3B ... which he should be able to handle, and maybe even be good at. Move Sandoval whose ceiling is just not that high. Make those two fixes, and you'll find that the pitching gap will be easier to close too.

Without a doubt. Shields can crank out 200 average-ish innings, which is what this team desperately needed as much as anything.

Of course - the Detroit thing was in a much, much, much easier division ... but I am not going to s*** on him. His GM choice will be important.

Except that they weren't. Ben predated every single one of them - unless you think he was not part of the brain trust at all the previous 14 years. It's not like he rolled out of bed and joined the team in 2012. And the 2012 disaster was almost entirely health-related. He predated the ownership. His responsibility was player development before full GM - and that would sure seem to include Pedroia and Ellsbury and Lester and Yoook. He made some mistakes. Iglesias for Peavy did not work out - but flags fly forever, and you take a stab when you can ... Peavy was good before the acquisition. The salary dump I don't give him a ton of credit for - that was an ownership level deal. Cherington actually got a couple of legit prospects out of a salary dump (which is not common). Neither worked out, but they were not without risk.

I think Dombrowski could do a good job. What you say about the big league club is not unreasonable. The issue - and the concern - is throwing out the good stuff organizationally, which is considerable. He also let the Tigers system rot so that the team got old all at once. Now I don't think that was all his choice - Ilitch wanted it that way. But he is great at shaping a big league roster, and this team needs that. Cherington won't be out of work long, so nobody should pity him - Philadephia under McPhail would be a good match for one. I am more alarmed at the possibility of Frank Wren, who did a horrible job in Atlanta, being the GM. If Dombrowski is empowered to put his stamp without throwing out the good stuff (the scouting and development machine), there is a good fit here.

Chicago, LA (which are kind of Red Sox satellite operations now) ... on the BBTN podcast Law noted that Philadelphia would make all sorts of sense for him too.

Well he and Jed were the co-GMs at the time, so it is not an unreasonable call. Now it is possible that they were in conflict and Hoyer won an arm wrestling contest or something. I will be curious where he ends up. One suspects his standing in the industry was not tarred too much by this.

Do you really think a career player development director who traded two blue chip prospects for Josh Beckett doesn't know #4?

I thought the RUN PREVENTION on paper looked okay and that the rotation could be upgraded if the standings dictated it. I thought this team through 110 games could be some sort of 57-53 with more 13-9 losses than I'd prefer ... so you go harvest Johnny Cueto from the Enterprise Pitcher Rental shop and go for the finish In 2013 we were counting on two starters coming off of >4.50 ERA seasons and one who had a surgically repaired elbow and was the worst qualified starter in the American League before that. Some days you win.

Over those scant 17 years in player development predating this ownership he did not see the value of pitching or that time he traded multiple top 50 prospects for Josh Beckett. Got it.

The team is overloaded with CF talent ... Bradley, Castillo, Margot, Benintendi (although he'd be a PTBNL), Betts. No doubt somebody might be attached to an albatross contract or bait to improve the ML roster. (obviously I am not including Betts as trade bait, just as part of the CF inventory).

Moving Hanley to a position Manny Ramirez, Ryan Klesko, Albert Belle, Kevin Mitchell and several potted plants at various points have navigated without killing themselves is not inevitable. LF and 1B are very much the traditional "whew, well at least he can hit!" positions.

Some good chatter on the moves in Boston http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=13467549 Cherington's ouster is still a stunner. 17 years and whatnot. He will find work without much difficulty if he wants to. That said, very smart to get Dombrowski in right now - and use the month to evaluate. The front office has a lot of talent (talent which spawned shops in Chicago and LA) - the turnover will be interesting.

A lot of the success was driven by geographic luck as much as anything, although 2012-2014 were very good teams. I think it could go well, but the rumored GM choice is quite bad.

I would have been fine with him staying. But if they wanted to bring in somebody else from a similar ilk (I cited Jason McLeod often as an example) I would not have objected. I did not hate the offseason plan, although the Sandoval signing was unnecessary. (I saw the upside in the signing, but for me Ramirez as a 3B solution was sufficient)

Cherington was a key part of the organization responsible for the best decade in this team's modern history. That method did not get passe. But I think after 2011 the front office basically ran from it in reaction to the collapse. There has been a lot of mixed messages since. The most coherent offseason they had, they won the title.

Also did not value the draft - at least in Detroit. I am willing to give him a chance. But this smelled of a deeply reactionary move without a ton of baseball thought.

Of course they do - from the eyeballs on NESN to the calls to various chat shows. PR is a business reason btw.

Ben was the simplest scapegoat ... I did not say he did not make mistakes. I am saying that ushering him out is the easiest way for them to publicly address the season.

The problem that has been addressed is that Ben lost the confidence of the Nation and thus management axed him to alleviate that. That much is known. Now how much of that reflects internal concerns is a different matter. I am not doubting it probably had something to do with it. But Ben was the simplest scapegoat - regardless of the merits - and so the axe fell. Dombrowski at first blush smells a lot like the sort of "win the news cycle" signing that the Sandoval-Ramirez tag team was. After all, Cherington DID bring in DiPoto to do some self scouting and whatnot. And then he got axed a week later by the sexiest executive name out there. This does not have the aura of a decision made entirely on baseball merits. I am not one to say that Cherington deserved to stay - although I think the answers are a lot more complex. He was one of the key front office pieces during the seminal decade of modern Red Sox history, and given the status of the Cubs rebuild - the Red Sox Way as it were did not suddenly get passe overnight. What is true is since 2011 the ownership/management has very much dithered in a very reactionary way to fan opinion on this stuff, instead of trusting what Lucchino, Epstein and the baseball ops had built. So what we're left with is a front office overhaul, but a very haphazard one - enough that I can't say thank god ... because this could end up quite bad.

(he was a manager at Dombrowski's stops in Miami and Detroit)