Not sure what there is to be confused about. Preller would make deals to get impact players to Boston while Bloom would not pull the trigger to do so. All I'm saying is don't trade the whole farm in the process. Identify which ones to keep and which ones are most valuable in a trade.
What players? They’re expensive players but they haven’t actually accomplished anything that the players Bloom brought in weren’t able to accomplish.
Right, I'm not saying Friedman stinks, obviously. Just that not everyone who inherits a great situation makes the moves or decisions to win a title with it. Cherington did, for instance. So did Click. So did Dombrowski. Though, honestly, I think we're arguing a very small bit of ground, and I'm more just illustrating the point as to my preference and the reason behind it is all. Again, I'm more than fine with either of the Braves assistant GMs, wouldn't hate the idea of Gomes, etc.
But if it's all about results--which many people think it was with Bloom--Preller's suck. He's an action junkie, but a crappy GM. This is his 9th year with San Diego, and his teams have won 0 divisions, have made the playoffs twice, and have won 1 playoff series. He makes headlines, but doesn't build very good teams.
I think this was pretty obvious. Antonetti has been with Cleveland for nearly a quarter-century and has been their baseball guy almost since day one... Shapiro was a personnel guy (he had a knack for hiring the right people for the right job) and brought Antonetti in to be one of the first in a major league front office to set up an analytical system to evaluate and literally translate performance into dollars. I'm sure he'd enjoy having more money to spend, but he built his career in baseball on cost efficiency. I could be wrong, but I also don't think the Red Sox have an official job promotion to offer him. I couldn't find the details of his contract with Cleveland, but he essentially has a lifetime deal – complete job security as long as he wants it – an ownership that completely trusts him and a sympathetic fan base that will always blame ownership rather than him. From his perspective, why give that up for a job he'd most likely be fired from or burned out by within five years? From the Red Sox perspective, is there evidence he's better qualified to hand out big contracts than other candidates?
Hm. Might not want to look too deeply into Hazen's track record, there, either.
Preller's a fantasy GM. Not as in the guy you fantasize about running your team. As in he's a middling rotisserie GM. Always tinkering, always offering crazy trades, but his teams always seem to be less than the sum of their parts.
Don’t disagree. Part of this post is just wanting to have a dog in the race, and I do think Mejdal will start getting interviews and offers soon. One drawback is that he worked in that crazy, toxic Houston front office. I don’t think anyone wants that culture on Yawkey Way (unless you are a completely blinkered championships or nothing kind of fan).
I am just now realizing that potential GM Eddie Romero is not the middle infielder of my 1980s season ticket holding years, he of the career -5.2 bWAR, but his son.
My question re: Click is why he doesn't have a job already? Did Houston make him sign a non-compete or something? (Note that this is an implication-free question, genuinely wondering!)
He works for the Blue Jays, he left HOU in November after they only offered a 1 year deal and was hired by TOR three months later.
He’s VP of Baseball Strategy, which is a nice place to land. Shouldn’t hinder his job search.
Here is a good breakdown. Seems Crane had issues with him being too deliberate . . . but also vetoed one of his trades. Click publicly complained about the one year extension Crane offered Click despite Click's accomplishments and reputation throughout MLB. . . so Crane fired him:
Seems they WERE very high and lost their top guys to MLB. I see BA now has them down at 20. That is concerning that they had such little depth behind those guys. They didn't make a blockbuster trade to cost them a half dozen top prospects.
I'm inclined to agree with this, but there's another question, which is "If you don't promote your extremely successful employees, how long before they go work for someone else?"
I wouldn't put too much stock in this -- looks like it's just Rosenthal guessing.
Not sure if I've heard any buzz about Romero for other teams. Another option is hiring an outside CBO who was excited to have Romero as their GM.
I know I'm in the minority here, but I actually enjoy the insights from Mazz' regarding baseball and the Red Sox. Lord knows he's not always right, but I think generally speaking his ideas are rational - once you get past the yelling.
Yeah, I knew we'd disagree on the Cora part.
I looked up Ed's stats. It is a tribute to him that he managed to stay in the league for 12 years with a 1-2 punch of bad hitting and mediocre fielding. In his time in Boston, he managed the nearly impossible feat of having a higher OBP than slugging. He must have been an incredible clubhouse guy.
Yeah... there's a group of people I expect to make mostly good decisions based on a good process.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/mlb/diamondbacks/2023/09/18/dbacks-derrick-hall-downplays-mike-hazen-red-sox-rumors/70896464007/
There haven't really been a ton of these searches with this ownership group. Really, it's only been 2002 and 2019. Cherington was elevated internally both times Theo left. Dombrowski was hired somewhat out of the blue while Cherington was still on the job. And even the 2019 search was apparently not a widely cast net. Bloom was their intended target from the jump.
Preller is my nightmare choice. I'm not concerned, though, because the Bloom choice represented a sea change in direction. I can't see them switching horses midstream.
I'm fairly indifferent on Cora but I don't see why he wouldn't be good for a rebuilding team. Our young guys seemed to thrive under him this year. In contrast to a guy like Farrell who I seem to recall (100 percent could be mis-remembering here) stifling the young guys whenever there was a veteran available. Of course, firing Bloom indicates that ownership feels we are no longer a rebuilding team so it's a moot point really.
Maybe he has a bit of an informed opinion. Mazz probably got a deeper look into the inner workings of the team last season when he was callng games. Previous and after his stint there, maybe not so much due to his day job, but he probably had a fair amount of access while he was there.
Clearly he was a brainiac if his kid is so accomplished in the FO. Also back then if you had even one middle infielder who could hit above his weight it was considered a minor miracle.
Yeah, they may want to push more chips in but not Preller "just throw all the money around" or Dombro "just don't even bother with development" style.
I can't think of a better way to get 29 MLB GMs to stop returning your phone calls than to have them waste their time and energy working out a deal with the GM only to have it nixed by someone else. If other teams thought Bloom was difficult to deal with, this certainly wouldn't be the remedy.
Totally valid. I suppose it would depend on what point in the negotiations Cora was brought in. But totally valid.
Just doesn't seem to be where he thrives. Or maybe he just hated Bloom. I have no idea. But based on some of his very public comments (most notably about it not being about where your farm system is ranked but how often and deep the team players into October), to me he seems much more like the type of manager one would want on a team that is comprised of veterans where maybe you're trying to break in one young position player and one starting pitcher and the idea is to contend for the World Series and not the 3rd wild card if everything breaks right.
