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There were moves made, you know. The only two players on the 2019 team and 2023 team were Chris Sale and Ryan Brasier. How would you characterize the state of the Sox after 2019?

The 4.95 ERA from the rotation wasn’t a factor?

Not at all. The Marlins sell off, while planned, was to avoid all the contracts they gave out. Those contracts absolutely could have gone very bad and turned the Marlins into an expensive flop. The Sox made a series of moves to alleviate some of the financial damage DD did leave behind. David Price, for example. Remember they had $300mill (ish) still tied up in Price, Sale and Eovaldi after 2019. Those three gave the team exactly one full season and a bunch of partial ones. They weren’t exactly flush with pitching prospects coming up to help. They still had the Betts contract situation. And an owner wanting a reset. That’s not devastation? And then Sale needed TJ in the first year of a 5 year deal? And with all this money dedicated to pitching and more needed for Betts, etc. what minimum wage players was the non-emptied farm bringing up? Michael Chavis, Bobby Dalbec, Darwinzon Hernandez and Tanner Houck. Those are the only rookies to debut in 2019 and 2020 to come to Tori the Sox farm and have a positive fWAR. Not sure they were going to ease the financial burden at the other positions. Are you really arguing he left this team in good shape? John Henry might side with me here…

I don’t think that’s fair. There is probably someone who could. The A’s been cheap for a long time and has some very successful seasons…

No. I don’t think that. Why would they think that? Do you think Sox fans thought like that when the Cubs won the World Series in 2016?

And you might be shortchanging him. He may have taken the Sox to two World Series if not for Alex Cora and his All Percussion Band. But the issues many have with DD isn’t his abilities as much as it is his short-sightedness. He makes moves that work short term but leave a devastation in his wake. This has been true in Miami, Detroit and Boston. Those teams all j just didn’t hire incompetent people; they hired people to clean up what he left behind. Really the whole Noah Song scenario is sort of a microcosm of his methodology. I understand his having faith in Song, but he seemingly turned it into a “Song had to pitch now Now NOW” scenario by taking him in the Rule 5 draft and then following up with nothing to get the kid ready. Had he completed a trade to keep Song, he could have taken him along properly rather than just throwing him into the fire and watching him burn. The last 4 years were the cleanup. Granted Bloom appears to have made it more painful than he could/should be have through his own inability to follow through with anything. But some of that failure was inevitable. And history has shown this two previous times…

He could never do it. How about Las Vegas?

Not much of an answer. But since he was clearly unable to convince Mookie to stay, what next? Did he trade him? Or let him walk? I will say he might have been able to extend Bogaerts after that weak ass extension, assuming Bogaerts really did only want Story money. If he passed on Yoshida, he has $90mill to spend on pitching. As he clearly likes Taijuan Walker, let’s say he gets him in Boston. Now does he sign Martin and Jansen? Tough call. He sort of has a rep for ignoring bullpens. But let’s say he does. Do Bogaerts and Walker (in place of Yoshida and Story) get Boston yo the postseason? Also Boston has no Verdugo and Wong…

I openly said I was baiting in the post. In the sentence before the part he responded to. One could argue your post about Citizens Bank Ballpark was closer to trolling…

Willingness to spend. Dombrowski is not an idiot, but he does have an addiction to spending that has negative long term repercussions…

How do you think things would have been different if the Sox kept Dombrowski?

Need any help getting that hook out of your mouth?

Granted. Neither of us is wrong. And you (willingly?) proved my point. But the bottom line for most fans actually isn’t the wins and losses so much as the passion and titles and don’t want excuses. So (and I agree with you on this) if the goal was prolonged mediocrity with an eye on 2025, just keep Bloom for one more year. I hope the change signals more than just putting a new nameplate on an office door…

If you publicly demand success, you have to follow up and work towards it. Another year of mediocrity under a new regime just causes fans to lose faith in the people ultimately in charge and ruins their narrative. And you certainly cannot say “well this was because of the last guy.” Trust me on that one. I’ve thrown out my negative yet factual picture of the end of 2019 and yet people still think Dombrowski had nothing to do with that and the Sox would be in the postseason of he was still here. I can publicly bait people and get responses on this. Watch. How many realize that in the 3 years since DD was hired, the Phillies have only won 11 more games than the Sox and only made the postseason one more time?

If that was the plan, the simplest course of action would have been to give Bloom another year…

Agreed. But then was this ever a consideration? Fairly certain hitting Bloom to build a farm while slashing payroll was not designed to sit well with the fans either…

Espinoza highest rank ever was 19, by BA before 2016. One year earlier, MLB.com ranked Henry Owens the same…

What’s your point? Even if Dombrowski stayed in Boston, the Sox were still not very likely to keep the pace from 2016-2018. Unless Henry allowed for massive budget increases, which he was clearly not going to do…

The thing is, at least that would have been a decision. Maybe unpopular, but not necessarily bad. Same with 2023. Heck even the dual “buying and selling” approach would have been something. But the limited and ultimately useless moves Bloom made proved inconsequential at best and arguably detrimental…

Even with the slow start to 2022, the Sox got hot, got back on it, we’re a couple games out at the trade deadline, and Bloom basically quit. The worst part is this became a pattern for some reason…

He will set the budget, but will he make actual baseball personnel decisions?

I think 5Gold had an interesting thought in that “no, this team isn’t just 2 SPs away.” I didn’t and still don’t agree, but I can certainly see the possibility of the new boss thinking this team might need an overhaul. If so, any combination of the following players might be dealt: Verdugo, Jansen, Martin, Story (his 4/$92 deal might not look so bad), Yoshida (same but at 4/$72mill), Urias, Duran, McGuire, and Whitlock. Obviously the others are not off the table, but some are all but immovable (Sale) and at some point, they will need to field a team…

And a very good starter in 2017. Fell apart in 2018 and went on to become a lights out reliever for other teams…

And he kept some ranked guys who flopped, like every GM/CBO ever. Not like he capitalized on Henry Owens hype…

It’s nothing new. Billy Beane was offered the job and even announced as the new GM when Henry took over but famously backed out. Turned out to be one of the best things to happen to the Red Sox in team history, since they then just moved on the a little known internal option in Epstein. Really how many external hires for GM/CBO have there been in recent team history? Really just Dombrowski and Bloom, right? (I suppose Mike Port, if you count interim guys.) If the goal is to, to paraphrase Keith Law, start acting like the Red Sox again, shouldn’t start with hitting from within?