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I think you need to launch a Tweet Storm at Bloom and get him to call up the MataHorn. Also, to make sure he gets that nickname...

And be fair to Hanley. He got off to an incredible start in 2015 where he hit 10 HRs and had a .999 OPS in April. Then he injured his shoulder, and posted a .654 OPS with 9 HRs the rest of the way. Yes, he hit 10 HRs in April and did not hit 20 that year. But if Hanley doesn't hurt himself, while he probably doesn't have a .999 OPS with 10 Hrs every month, he does probably exceed his 2016 totals, possibly by a lot...

If the plan is to have an opener, the bullpen becomes an even more pressing need...

Again, the 2015 rotation really might not have been the big problem people say it is. In that respect, Dombrowski's early trades to acquire Kimbrel, Thornburg and Carson Smith were actually smart ideas in hindsight, despite two of them flaming out catastrophically. I still think Kimbrel was an overpay, but at least he was addressing the biggest need, despite many not recognizing it as such. (Whether or not closer itself was the biggest need from the 2015 team that had Koji Uehara, who was coming off a very good year, is another matter.)

And which ones they address prior to the season. If Perez is bad Perez, but they have already added Trevor Bauer, not so big...

The 2015 Sox starting pitching was 13th in fWAR and 11th in FIP that year. In both cases, they were ranked ahead of the World Series champion Royals. The 2015 Sox bullpen ranked 30th in fWAR and 30th in FIP. I'm not so sure the starting pitching was the actual problem. What you're doing (and many fans do) is judging against preconceived notions of what a starting rotation should look like, and making that the cause of the team's failures. "They didn't have an ace" was not the problem. The problem was, they didn't have a bullpen. Now there is some organic relationship here, in that the bullpen might have been better had the rotation eased some of the burden. But ultimately, they were the weak link and at best, the rotation exposed them more. Of course, the Sox bullpen ranked 19th in IP so maybe the issue of overusage was not the biggest factor in the root cause here either...

Maybe he did?

His bullpen audition went pretty sour. Somewhere between Robinson Leyer and Dylan Covey...

But that doesn't mean he wanted to do so at the expense of Cherington. In fact, the closest parallel between the two is the remarkably similar approach DD took with the 1997 Marlins and Cherington with the 2013 Red Sox (minus the fire sale). He possibly even assumed that this meant they could work together...

Who was the ace of the World Series champion that season? The Sox tried the "groundball pitcher" approach, with guys like Porcello, Miley, and Masterson all having history if inducing lots of groundballs. And Sandoval actually had a solid history as a defensive 3B, giving them what should have been a good defensive infield. There was a strategy in place here. They even moved their worst defensive infielder to the outfield, possibly hoping the high groundball totals would mask his deficiencies. They were not helped by a lot of people having flat out bad seasons, highlighted by Masterson, who was roughly a 4 fWAR pitcher for the Guardians, but a negative fWAR pitcher upon returning to Boston despite still only being 30 years old. And also by Sandoval and Ramirez, who at times looked like neither had ever played baseball before... And don't forget, the Sox had some sort of moratorium on giving out big contracts to pitchers over 30. That's a deathnail on the free agent market, where the overwhelming bulk of pitchers are at least 30 years old...

It does still whitewash the positives. That would be like summing up Dombrowski's tenure by saying "his team missed the postseason with one of the highest payrolls in MLB history". It is true. Does it tell the whole story?

The chances of all those things working against the Sox are probably not that great, but the chances they all work out are equally unlikely. Out of those 6 possibilities, what if 3 of them become reality?

ERod should be treated like a bonus if he comes back. Of course I would think the Sox have more insight into his condition than Uninformed Fan Notin...

He’s he did. From 1991 until Beinfest...

The Orioles didn’t...

So the Sox might have their 3-4-5 in Eovaldi-Perez-Pivetta. Now they just need to add a 1 and 2. And most of a bullpen..

Not to mention, you pointed out the massive understatement of "3 last place finishes in 4 years." Was 2012 really on Cherington? He took over a team that was coming off a September that had to be among th worst months in franchise history, and with a heavy payroll on a team that had quit on everybody and was probably a dysfunctional mess on multiple levels. Oh, nd he was not allowed to spend to the point where he had to deal Marco Scutaro just to add Cody Ross and his borderline minimum wage salary. This team looked to be heading for a serious abyss, especially given the big money still on the books for Guinness Book Disappointment Carl Crawford and two declining contracts in Josh Beckett and Adrian Gonzalez. What GM was going to salvage that under those conditions? That the team won a World Series the next year was a remarkable job that shouldn't be written off with the tagline "3 last place finishes in 4 years," one that ignores the title even happened at all and solely underscores to low-lights to the point where it attributes one of last place finishes to him that he had absolutely no chance of preventing...

And really, the Sox cannot even think about heading into 2021 and hoping to compete with only Eovaldi returning to the rotation. When you're smallest question mark is still a pretty big question mark, that is a bad thing.

Well, he said he wanted him on board. Not sure what diplomacy buys him. I would think the reason is Cherington, who very likely knew Dombrowski professionally, figured he would be unable to work with him, either because they had drastically different philosphies or he figured DD to be a micromanager, or possibly even because DD was an insufferable human being. But bear in mind, Cherington worked under Lucchino, who carries an (undeserved?) reputation as a micromanager himself, and under Henry, who hamstrung his ability to spend anything his first year as well...

But the point is, DD wanted Cherington to do Cherington things...

Bloom is Chief Baseball Officer Brian O’Halloran is the GM Sam Kennedy is the President and CEO (Dombrowski’s former position)...

Apparently it’s Chief Baseball Officer

Dombrowski reportedly admitted he wasn’t expecting it. And he promoted Hazen to fill the role. It’s entirely possible Cherington quit because he knew his philosophy for running a team was in complete contrast with the Farm Killer. He would hardly be the first person ever to leave a position due to philosophical differences...

Plus Lucchino’s title was President, which was also Dombrowski’s title. Cherington was replaced by Mike Hazen...

I think he does. The Sox have too many holes in the staff to go replacing the guys who aren’t...