sk7326

Or (more likely) their parents or grandparents were.

Levangie will probably take the fall - though a decision like that is made at a much higher level. It's too big a change to have been delegated down. So you get a year where the Red Sox have 3 position players who will get MVP votes (remember the MVP ballot is 10 names long) and never get close to a playoff spot.

A hitter in a ... SLUMP? Oh noes!

Chacin is absolutely worth bringing him back. There is no reason he won't be a perfectly adequate mid-rotation type of guy.

Speier is a very smart guy. Frankly (obviously I am just a guy on the internet), I think trading Betts is like a >50% possibility, and this will be one of the goals of said trade.

Most teams don't keep that sustained level ad infinitum. The kids have to ... you know, perform. The Top 100 is not some immutable cast in stone list.

The Red Sox did a pretty good job replenishing the system after all of those trades - but the quality is at the lower levels. It's hard to maintain both at the same time - and the Sox are not exempt from that. Of course the big leaps in the system were in single A with Jimenez and Duran in AA.

I suspect he will have intense scrutiny because this is Boston and that comes with the uniform. It's been a relatively tough year - we'll see what happens.

Decisions like that are done at the organizational level. So Dombrowski has to get some credit for that move - possibly a majority of it.

The jung post is too long to quote - and contains both a lot of good sense and a bit of "old man yells at cloud". But here goes: - Baseball ratings are down. But so are the ratings for almost all other television. Note that the 2019 Super Bowl got a below median rating, and for the most part the 21st century Super Bowls have been in the bottom half of TV. Nobody watches ANYTHING in the concentration they used to. There is very little real interest than fan interest is down in that sort of way. - Analytics have led to a more strategically correct sport, but I'm not sure it is a more entertaining one. Durable quality starting pitching has been a hallmark of the sport forever - and while it is okay that there are no more Old Hoss Radbourns around, I don't think the bullpen heavy world we live in is all that great. I liked seeing Pedro strike out 17 New York Yankees. - The juiced ball has not led to a sport that is all that fun. Chicks dig the long ball and all, but some real variety among players is a good thing. - The union got bamboozled by the owners in the last CBA negotiation. In their zeal to avoid a salary cap, they forgot to get minimal revenue guarantees - so they ended up with the worst of all worlds. And it's not a great world for the fans, where owners have zero incentive to try to improve. They will attempt to fix this in 2021. I fully expect a work stoppage, and it's frankly deserved. - Pace of play is a problem, but the pitch clock is a bad idea and only increases the likelihood of pitchers getting hurt. Unfortunately the best way to increase pace of play is fewer damn commercials, and we know the likelihood of that happening. Also requiring pitchers to face 3 hitters at minimum would be a good thing. - The biggest thing the commissioner and the industry has done wrong is frankly not getting rid of all the old people. The national announcers are disasterously bad. The MLB Network flagship broadcast consists almost entirely of old guys yearning for a time when men were men and everybody had .310 OBP and spoke English as their first language. Prominent national analysts (A-Rod, Joe Simpson, Rick Sutcliffe) are legitimately dumb. Many legacy baseball writers are incredibly ill informed about how teams operate in 2019. The sport does not celebrate itself - and often actively roots against itself. There are a variety of reasons that Mike Trout has not penetrated the public imagination like he should (some mentioned above), but a big one is that the baseball industry and baseball television industry does not celebrate it. - The game is not in danger. But it is run and marketed by stale, old people - and the consequences are self fulfilling.

It's baseball - no parade is guaranteed. Four years after the miracle against the Yankees, the Red Sox feel just a few innings short of a comeback only slightly less ridiculous.

The Yankees won 100 games last year - they are not untalented. Now one thing the Yankees organizationally have done well - something Cashman deserves credit for (go figure that Cashman has lasted longer as GM than the last four Red Sox GMs combined during the same time frame) is be able to get right tailed production from DJ LeMaheiu types - guys who had "utility/extra guy" sort of reputations. Of course, with the arena baseball being used now, I don't understand anything anymore.

I have been a fan since 1985-6 or so - ranking the Red Sox managers Terry Francona Jimy Williams Joe Morgan Alex Cora John Farrell Grady Little Kevin Kennedy John McNamara Butch Hobson Bobby Valentine Joe Kerrigan

There were stories (either urban legends or open secrets depending on who you talk to) that Yawkey had a black player quota on the team well into the 1970s. Part of the real joy of the Pedro and Papi experiences was it happening in what was the liliest white franchise of them all.

I think his option choice will be deeply connected to the franchise direction and the Sox will be open with him. (if they traded him after he opted in without his consent, that is the sort of thing which does not make you friends with agents) While I don't think a 5 year deal is in his future - he is still a really good hitter and will have a market. That said, I could see JD deciding that he won't do better than opting in. I think it's really a coin flip. Another option might be for Martinez to opt out for a longer deal with a lower AAV - where he gets more money over the life of the deal and the Red Sox can lower their payroll e.g. opting out of 3/62 in exchange for a 5/85 or something.

They charge too much money to be able to justify a rebuilding year. Obviously Martinez' option is the first agenda item. There are good arguments in both directions there. I could see the Sox keeping this front office structure and naming one of them GM for governance purposes (to represent the Red Sox during league-wide GM governance sorts of meetings).

Tito is the best, though he and Williams are close and completely different. Williams' style was of its time and much less prone to last. In that way he was like Billy Martin - great baseball mind who could get immediate improvement out of a team ... but could wear out his welcome very quickly. Tito had 8 years in Boston and now 7 seasons in Cleveland - and I think Boston's moves since his ouster show that the lack of organizational stability certainly wasn't Tito's fault. Cora was the best managerial prospect in the league when the Red Sox hired him. He has proven them mostly correct - be he is still a 2nd year big league manager. So the jury is out at least a little bit. But he did help steer the greatest Red Sox team of all time, and he can't be held particularly responsible for the injuries and underperformance of the starters - a deficiency which directly impacted the bullpen. Everybody has to do better, and he is certainly not exempt from that.

That was a joke. And of course the first title came after a managerial brain fart led directly to blowing a pennant the year before.

The firing is both strange and kind of understandable. I mean Dombrowski and Henry go way back - Henry can't pretend that he did not know what Dombrowski would do. Indeed, Henry probably ordered it. So it's weird when Henry complained about profitability and plundering the farm. He told Dombrowski to do it - and Dombrowski's moves contributed to the single most dominant Red Sox team ever. Did Dombrowski do a good job? Relative to Henry's charge - absolutely. He traded a lot of the farm for major league help - but for the most part he got the help he was looking for. He also identified the gems in the system and promoted them aggressively. I'm not sure every GM would have thrown Devers and Benintendi into the fire like he did, and he was vindicated. There are a lot of good candidates - indeed many of them Red Sox alums. The new guy will have some big decisions - so it is a good time to put him in charge. Either way, the whiplash shown by Henry here is not really a healthy way to run a club.

Firing Cora is possible since there will be a new GM I suppose. And since 3 of our last 4 titles were done by first timers, might as well draw another name from a hat. But on a more serious note - I'm not sure you blame Cora for the Red Sox starters ALL having below median seasons relative to expectations.

No catcher is going to play more than 110-120 games, just nature of the beast. But the Vasquez we have this year - below average hitter but can hit some homeruns in juiced ball 2019 - is a good player.

Losing JBJ, and finding a reasonable CF or RF (can't be picky) should not be all that difficult. Travis has probably shown enough to plug him into a corner as a worst case. This year I think is a bit of an aberration, in that the pitching was all bad at the same time. The only exception was Rodriguez, and even he was more an "above average" outcome than a crazy outlier. I guess I should say Workman as well. Position player wise the team is fine. C: Vasquez - Quality Starter 1B, 2B: Open to ideas 3B: Devers - Sure looks like a Superstar very soon SS: Bogaerts - A not quite superstar LF: Benintendi - A very good player, if not quite a star CF: Bradley - decent starter RF: Betts - actual Superstar DH: Martinez - A not quite superstar but absolute stud

Some fun research on outfield defense and jump https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/jump?year=2019&min=q

1. There is a lot of variability in the lists - ESPN and Fangraphs, BA and MLB have full time people on the job, so the lists all have credibility. The methods differ too, so you get some diversity. (fangraphs and ESPN scout the prospects themselves) 2. Ultimately signability matters in a lot of these choices. Remember, the Sox HAVE to sign their Top 10 picks to claim all of the pool money. I think from the picks it's pretty clear they are going to try to find some bonus money for Keane who they took in Round 11. Faltine in Round 39 I am assuming will honor his Texas commit (he doesn't last to Round 39 if he showed any inclination of signing). You have to assume that the college seniors the Sox took in Rounds 6-10 are there more or less because they will allow them to save pool money for Keane. (Dalton and Scott are probably org guys who will take the $10K bonus happily)

Keith Law's writeup on AL draft classes http://insider.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/26905439/keith-law-2019-mlb-draft-recap-al-team-team-breakdown