drewski6

thats too much of a swing for me. had we missed, I would have given him a d+, if we make the playoffs , ill give him a c- *results are 30% of my grade

no

thats fair

of course the bottom line matters, but if we are trying to assess breslows job performance accurately, he doesnt get an A+ automatically if we make , and he doesnt get an F- automatically if we miss. We have to dig a little deeper. Going purely by results will lead to inaccurate assessments.

luck and level of competition are huge determinants in make vs miss playoffs. so to judge your gm/execs based on solely make/miss will lead you to draw incorrect conclusions about making vs missing people just dont want to accept how much luck factors in. thats why stupid myths like "good teams find a way to win championships" exist. The patriots may have been good, they may not have been. But getting past the raiders in the snowgame was pure luck. Drafting brady in rd 6 was mostly luck. A ball hitting a foul pole vs sailing around it is mostly luck. Making the playoffs because of 2 games out of 162 is mostly luck. The improvements are there and im happy with this team. But im not going to put my full confidence in Brez because we made the playoffs. Similarly, had we missed, I wouldnt have fired him just for that. Because you need to assess him accurately, and going by if we made or miss doesnt do that.

I agree that he had a bad deadline, and we can call it a bad deadline without any further information and its a big black eye. I agree that Im not sold on him But you are the one who put all your eggs into the make/miss playoffs basket and now we are going to make. So now , you have said the red sox have been flops for decades but are no longer the flops because they made the playoffs in 2025, which is a very weak year. Other people are saying that you are not looking around enough because of the first paragraph in this post (well he didnt do much, but neither did anyone else). Im saying you arent looking around enough because of the second paragraph. Breslow doesnt magically become something else because we made the playoffs. But you not looking around enough made you think our chances of missing was greater than they were. And I told you this at the deadline. Breslow did a bad job at the deadline, but we'll prob still make the playoffs cuz the AL stinks right now and more the half teams are barely trying.

Now you are the one not looking enough at the context. We made the playoffs over a team that sold off at the deadline. Wowie! Not saying im not happy. NOt saying Brez sucked. But you both are putting too much into a 2 game swing out of 162. Theres a huge luck component to all of this, so I choose to focus on what we did vs the results we got. Especially over a sample of 2-3 games (difff between making and missing playoffs). In NFL, a fg kicker missing a gimme can be the difference between a team making/missing playoffs. Should an NFL coach (on either side) be fired/retained over somehting so "there was a strong gust of wind at the exact moment..." Going solely by results will lead to good people with bad luck getting canned and bad people with good luck getting retained. Brez should not get fired if we dont make the playoffs and he shouldnt auto keep his job if we do make. Personally, I would ask Cora, in a room alone: Are you happy with this dude as your boss? Do you trust him to get the right players for you next 3-5 years? And if Cora says no, I axe Bres. And if Cora says yes, I keep Bres. Because the outcome doesnt tell the whole story.

David Ortiz was a much better major leaguer than he was a minor leaguer too.

joey bautista, alex gordon, other dudes im sure. Usually it can be traced back to something. Duran for example, got way better when he confronted his mental health demons. I saw christian guzman add 30 points to hi batting average after eye surgery. Not sure on judge, late bloomers happen. My best guess is he started making lifestyle changes around 24-25 yrs old. Maybe stopped drinking during the season? Maybe started going to bed at the same time every night? Maybe hired a nutritionist? Maybe he had lasik? I dont know. Maybe he was paired with the right batting coach. Prob something tho.

100%. 78 win teams that prob would have been 88 win teams and playoff makers if they were in the AL central to boot. Im not an all-or-nothing based on make playoffs = pass and miss playoffs = fail because it ignores too much context. But fred doesnt claim to be anything but a bottom line guy so it doesnt bother me. But this is the reason that im not a bottom line/results only guy

breslows best deadline move was not trading duran and that should count for a lot.

Thats not true. The whole team was ecstatic at the trade deadline because he didnt trade duran.

No

This feels so true and obvious in hindsight but I was screaming get joe ryan at my tv with 2 mins left before the deadline.

But you do realize that you are on the cusp of taking back the flops label. Youve backed yourself into a corner on this one. Due to your pessimism, you have missed that we were 90%+ to make the playoffs for awhile now. As you continue to paw at a possibility of an epic collapse that was further away than you thought. And part of the reason why that collapse was further away than you thought is because you arent caring enough about what other GMs do. The red sox are going to make the playoffs, and now you cant call them the flops. When just yesterday you were going on about the flop. Whether or not we make the playoffs has always had more to do with the rest of the league. And the league is in a dismal state. Now that doesnt mean we havent made great improvements and look better set up going forward. Im liking our future. But the fact that we will make the playoffs, has a lot to do with a weak AL and even some luck (there is always luck when you edge out teams by 2 games over 162). So now you have to stop calling them the flops and completely change your tune on team because they went from 95% likely to make the playoffs to 98% in the last couple of days? Not much has changed. The AL has been horrible the last 3 years. Sometime over the offseason (prob the crochet trade) we went from average in a terrible AL to well above average in a terrible AL. It doesnt mean this team has had a radical change to their identity in the last week. But now they must in your eyes becuase theyve been floppers and losers for years in your eyes, and now they arent because they made the playoffs in a year where teams who sold off almost made it?

I heard some dude told him this and he fired that guy. Like he fired the guy who called him a stiff. Dont tell Brez something he doesnt want to hear.

Agreed. Momentum is important, want to sail in with our heads high, not limp in because other teams ran out of time to catch us.

Its an interesting question and ive pondered it myself, not trying to be argumentative. But look how much better judge is than literally anybody else. Plenty of guys do the baseball stuff well. But what sets him apart is his raw freakishness. 6'8, fast, strong, twitchy, reaction time, arm

But a team full of Jacob Wilsons loses to a team of Aaron Judges. You can have a team of regular looking folks who baseball really well, but I wonder if they would beat a team of 6'6 freaks who are just faster and stronger. Of course, the freaks have low floors to go with high ceilings. Like Cruz and plenty other freaks have flamed out. I guess its floor vs ceiling.

One is 6'7 and a brickhouse. Its crazy that Judge can be 6'8 , have all that power, and still be fast enough to play outfield. I really dont want to be trapped in this conversation. I just find it weird how dismissive some are over Wood. He's 6'7 with very impressive sprint speed , built like an absolute brick house, has a ton of power. His defense is getting better. Dude is a monster athlete. A true freak of nature. Like Judge or that NFL player peppers. Humans arent supposed to be like that.

theyve practically made the playoffs.

But were the fans screaming pay the refs or return to work and accept what the mans gives you? Im not sure if the sentiment was on league side or ref side, but it should prob be with the refs. NFL is awful.

And James Wood is not available.

Aaron Judge is a freak, Elly is a freak, James Wood is a freak You trade the farm for freaks.

He wont stay a DH. Hes a better defender than Soto