Kimmi

The philosophy did not stop working. The philosophy is the correct philosophy behing building a franchise that will have sustained success.

I still don't think Ben is at fault here for the extreme amount of underperformance that we've seen. I still believe it was a good offseason plan, despite the plan not working. I can understand why he is being let go, not to say that it's fair, but I would have liked to see him stick around one more year at least.

Reasons for concern about Dombrowski, and what appears to be a 180 turn from the Red Sox philosophy: 1. Large contracts given to free agents. 2. Trading away the farm. 3. Does not really value analytics. 4. Does not see the importance of defense. I'm sure there are other reasons, but what I've listed is enough. I'm willing to give Dombrowski a chance. He has not done anything yet, good or bad, so I will keep an open mind. I will say, however, that my initial reaction is not a warm, fuzzy one, but rather one of deep concern. I certainly hope this is not a panic move to the other extreme that will end up backfiring, much like the Bobby Valentine move.

From Speier: The statement that I bolded and the one that I quoted from Speier's article are what concern me the most. Theo and Ben both operated under the same philosophy, which happens to be a spot on philosophy. That philosophy has made this team one of the most successful since this ownerhip took over. Why change something that is proven to work, and go in what seems to be the exact opposite direction? Signing guys to big free agent contracts and trading away the farm might help us in the immediate future, but the long term outlook will suffer.

I can agree that it was probably time for a fresh pair of eyes, but I thought that was what Dipoto was brought in for. Personally, I would have given Ben another year to clean up his mess. Despite the extreme lack of success the team has had the last 2 years, we did win a championship in 2013, and this team is set up for the long haul, with a good core of young players, and several more 2-3 years away. IMO, the team does not need an extreme makeover to be competitive next year.

I am starting to believe that the intent is to trade JBJ for a starting pitcher this offseason. Who knows what groundwork and what kind of interest there was at the deadline. We know that pitching is our biggest need for next season. So, perhaps despite JBJ. Betts, and Castillo being our best outfield alignment, we need to think in terms of what the best alignment is for the overall good of the team. If JBJ can help fetch us a top, cost-controlled starting pitcher, then it's a move that likely needs to be done. JBJ's stock has never been higher.

The gambles really weren't as big as they seem. It's the fact that none of them worked out that makes every gamble look so bad. Look at the Yankees, as just one example. They took at least as many gambles as our FO did, and IMO, they took more. Think about the health questions of their starting rotation. Think about the question marks behind their offense, of which they really did nothing during the offseason to address. Really, the only thing that wasn't a question mark about their team was their BP. The difference with their gambles is that they mostly broke in the Yankees favor. All teams have question marks and all teams take gambles. To have virtually every gamble fall the wrong way, not to mention things that shouldn't have been gambles, like Porcello, fall the wrong way is really unlucky, not to mention enigmatic.

I'm chill. Insult away, if you must. I just think that it's sad that you have to do so.

I happen to agree that if the Sox have any inkling of moving Hanley to 1B or moving Kelly to the pen that they should be doing it now.

Sometimes, you just make too much sense.

Manny did some things well in LF, but despite that, he was an overall terrible defender. However, even in his worst defensive years, which rival Hanley's year this year, Manny was a 3 WAR player because of his offense. The FO was not blind to Hanley's defensive shortcomings. Yes, they were hopeful that he might play LF better than he played SS. But even if he didn't, they figured, and rightly so, that he would be a roughly 3 WAR player at least.

It's sad that you cannot have a debate without resorting to insults.

The first thing to remember about WAR is that it does not do as good a job as a predictive stat. The next thing to keep in mind is that the rotation was not expected to be our strength, so the low WAR total should not be that alarming. That said, much of the low WAR total from 2014 is a result of injury and/or lack of innings pitched, particularly in Masterson's case. Once again, I'll point out the in 2013 Masterson was a very good pitcher, so I don't think his 2014 WAR was a good indicator of what we should expect this season, due to him being injured. Yes, he was a risk, but it wasn't an insane risk. There was really no reason to expect Porcello, Miley, or Kelly to be big risks. Miley has more or less given us what we expected. Kelly has pitched about to career norms, ERA aside. He is not one who has ever pitched close to 200 innings, hence part of the reason for the low WAR, but he should have been serviceable for at least the first half. Neither one of them were expected to be front line starters. Porcello has fallen way short, but there was no reason to expect that.

We all know it didn't work out. The point still stands that you can't take a single stat at face value, especially one like ERA.

Without going into all the details again, here is another good example of the importance of digging deeper into stats to understand why it was reasonable to expect a better combined ERA from the starting five. Not great, mind you, but better.

I have. And I still believe that. And at the ASB, the team was still very much in the race. That's not to say that the pitching was great during the first half. It also says nothing about the slide that the team took after the ASB. My statement that the team would have been in first place at the ASB if the offense hit in May is not the same thing as saying May is the reason for this horrid season.

I am allowed to state my reasons for why I think something may or may not work. Also, I am allowed to defend my opinions when someone questions them. If that involves using "malcontent" to make my point, then I will bring it up. Why question why I brought something up?

It's very enigmatic. The whole team stinks far worse than anyone expected. It's a huge enigma.

"We could have had a real power hitting outfielder" Sounds kind of hypothetical to me.

First off, I have never said that May is the reason for the horrid season. Secondly, I have never said that the pitching doesn't need improvement. If one is a true devotee of statistics, she knows that in order to truly understand the whole picture, she has to dig deeper into the stats than just looking at the overall season numbers. She knows that some outliers can skew the data, making the data misleading. This is an extreme example, but let's say that over 30 games, the Sox scored 100 runs in 3 games, and 0 runs in 27 games, for a record of 3-27. Let's also say that the team ERA was 7.5 during those 30 games. Well since the offense averaged 10 runs/game during those 30 games, the 3-27 record must be the fault of the pitching, right? I'm not saying that our pitching hasn't stunk. I only said Thunder has a valid point about the Sox scoring 45 runs this past weekend skewing the overall placement of the Sox being 3rd in runs scored.

IMO, it doesn't matter. This is not something Francona had to do. It's a terrific gesture of their friendship either way.

Exactly. The point of FIP is to take the defense out of the equation as much as possible.

I'm pretty sure you are the one who started this argument.

Because he has been a SS, and he has played some 3B, I would prefer to move him to 3B over moving him to 1B.

That's a point I've been trying to make regarding his defense. We knew his defense would likely be bad. Not as bad as it's been this season, but his defense has always been bad. Even with that, he's always been a very good overall player because his offense has been good enough to overcome the poor defense. There is no way that Hanley should be worse than replacement level.