So....who is the new GM/head of baseball ops?
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Even if Showalter was the worst manager in history & Cora was the best, that would still have almost nothing to do with the point.
I might finesse your point. There's no question a manager can't make a player better if the player doesn't put in the effort. But the input of a coach/director/editor on the talent can have a huge bearing on performance and growth. A coach with the right insights, the right ability to inspire, focus, and motivate a player, knowing how to communicate with this particular player, can make a significant difference I think.
Jumping sports and metaphors. Belichick and Brady each made the other better, and you can't cleanly separate the degrees of impact they each had on outcomes.
I'll use my own experience a bit as professional actor. There are a couple directors I work who seem to always get the best work out of me. It's just what they see, and how they communicate - they seem to make me better! No "performance" exists in a vacuum.
Missed that, I bet the Sox sniffing around (both) didn’t hurt at the negotiating table.
Interesting look at the questions surrounding the process for the Sox. Some interesting nuggets within the article, including the fact that the last 8 titles were won by external hires leading the FO. In the 18 prior years, 17 of the 18 were won by first time FO heads, with 13 of the 17 being internal hires.
View: https://twitter.com/alexspeier/status/1709898491642728951?t=cVF8RfylxdXPc1V1rKsMKQ&s=19
View: https://twitter.com/alexspeier/status/1709898491642728951?t=cVF8RfylxdXPc1V1rKsMKQ&s=19
Just coming back to this but WTF does this mean? That they didn’t conduct a robust search when looking for Bloom? I feel like we were led to believe he was the perfect guy for the job. If they didn’t look at all possible candidates then what an utter failure that hire was.
Do they not have rules / parameters in place like the NFL and the Rooney rule??
Edit found this:
The MLB has its own version of the NFL's "Rooney Rule" -- dubbed the "Selig Rule" after former MLB commissioner Bud Selig -- which requires teams to interview at least one minority candidate for every managerial or front office opening.
And Selig rule doesn’t require interview, just “consideration”, iirc.
Apparently Alex Cora’s brother Joey once interviewed as part of that rule, and the team didn’t even know he went to Vanderbilt
Talk about a sham
It's a bit misleading to say he was the only one they interviewed because they explored other candidates, including Hazen (signed an extension similar to this time) and two guys who declined to interview (Antonetti from the Guardians and Falvey from the Twins). I get the impression several folks will decline interest this time as well.
The robust search mantra seems to be ownership's answer to anyone questioning why they will hire the right guy this time after they got it "wrong* with Bloom. "Last time we zeroed in on one guy from the start, this time we will conduct a robust search.". It's similar to how in football they replace an offensive head coach with a defensive coach or vice versa, and a player's coach with a disciplinarian or vice versa. This time it's a stated correction to the process instead of the person's background.
Robust seems to be one of those new age terms being tossed around in business these days. I'm guessing that others here have heard it being used in their work places in the past year or so, especially concerning future corporate plans and earnings.
Yes, and we are no longer are recording down time, but rather focussing on up time. Like we don't recognize that we're tracking the same thing.
I am a really big Alex Speier fan, but that article didn't really cover anything that hasn't been covered in this very thread.
Bob Nightengale is normally a moron, but I do believe that the next GM/"Chief Baseball Officer" will be either Sam Fuld, Josh Byrnes or Brandon Gomes. I think all 3 of them are very good candidates
If I HAD to put money on it now, my guess would be Fuld. Since he's also been on the bench, I imagine him and Cora will be a more synergistic fit than Cora/Bloom
Bob Nightengale is normally a moron, but I do believe that the next GM/"Chief Baseball Officer" will be either Sam Fuld, Josh Byrnes or Brandon Gomes. I think all 3 of them are very good candidates
If I HAD to put money on it now, my guess would be Fuld. Since he's also been on the bench, I imagine him and Cora will be a more synergistic fit than Cora/Bloom
Henry/Werner have brought in consultants for the search who specialize in exploiting the efficient synergies of social media and robust informational infrastructure to create an efficient search process that will set industry standards for best practices.
1. I thought it was a great article. I particularly enjoyed the analysis of title winning FOs.
2. I would be extremely happy with Gomes or Fuld, less excited about Bynes.
3. I would not be shocked if we get the "After an exhaustive nationwide search, we decided the best choice already works for our organization.". I think Ramiro might have a high upside, but as far as I know other organizations have not tried to poach him.
Did not realize Cora had a connection to Ng.
View: https://twitter.com/Bastards_Boston/status/1709259419828060658?t=ZCvkSlusAN-1eG9JEfnEMQ&s=19
View: https://twitter.com/Bastards_Boston/status/1709259419828060658?t=ZCvkSlusAN-1eG9JEfnEMQ&s=19
The Athletic did a profile of Ng this week - my takeaway from it is that I'm not sure she's going anywhere:
How Kim Ng changed the Marlins: ‘She’s relentless in trying to figure out how to improve’
Spencer Strider was a fourth round pick. Pleaspleaseplease hire people who are really great at identifying and developing young pitchers. You cannot add more value to a franchise than what you get from young pitching. It's reminiscent of the Celtics' approach to the Nets' picks: draft dynamic scoring wings, the scarcest commodity that everyone wants.
As much as Bloom has been getting pooped on over the past two years, I really like his strategy of picking high athletic dynamic "up-the-middle" type players with the higher slots and then casting a wide net across the lower drafts and International drafts for pitching talent. The fault there is that the wide net picks up a bunch of young fish who are further away from being ready to contribute than the upper picks.
You say this like Atlanta has a history of finding Spencer Striders just lying around. In reality they spend more high picks on pitching than anybody, and you can point to Strider and Elder as successes but their draft history is littered with first round pitchers that never amounted to much.
Is there general agreement that aside from the top very few (3-5) pitchers in the draft, it quickly becomes a complete crapshoot and therefore guys like Strider aren't worth taking before the third round or thereabouts? Or put another way, are there very few high-floor pitchers and a million high-ceiling guys who can be had later and developed? I would guess there is actual analysis here that supports this approach. If you (like me) start from the position that the only reliable path to success as a franchise is a deep well of young pitching (because the vets are usually very expensive and often not worth it), then you either have to tank for the top couple guys (bad plan), trade for a quick injection of young talent (tough but not impossible), sign young free agents (Yamamoto but then who else?) or play the long game.
The counterargument would ne that the Sox built their 2018 team without a deep well of young talent:
* two key trades from cheap teams balking at extensions (Sale and Porcello)
* one expensive free agent (Price)
* three sell-off-the-veterans acquisitions (Eduardo, Kelly, Hembree)
* one lottery tickets for all star deal (Kimbrel)
* two modest deadline pickups (Eovaldi, Thornburg)
* a couple system products (Barnes, Workman, Johnson), and
* some spaghetti at the wall guys (Brasier, Velazquez).
And it worked!! But in hindsight it's amazing it did, it had a lot to do with the two leaders Sale and Price being very high-ceiling types, and it was not built to last at all.
Sure, which is kind of what SLT was saying -- spend high picks on athletic, versatile position players and then cast the net wide.
They also snagged Max Fried from the Padres, which is another skill -- scout other teams and see if they will sell low on prospects whose value is uncertain. Maybe you would put Winckowski or Whitlock in that bin?
It does require having a "Pitching Development Machine".... which, however, I'm not sure how well Bloom's draft-pitching philosphy will work there. Dombrowski apparently gutted it (at least that's my reading of it, perhaps incorrectly?) and Bloom was starting with a wave of pitchers of which Winkelman is the closest to the majors but the cluster he picked and is developing are really only hitting the Single A's right now and are 2-3 years away still.
I do think there's still a shit ton of luck even if you do spend a ton of money and resources on developing and growing pitching talent from the lower levels up, rather than drafting the Leiters and Rockers. Those kids will develop (physically) and learn in drastically different ways. I did not, but I'm 100% positive if I had all the pitching talent in the world at age 16 that I would have pissed it away and consumed an insane amount of drugs and alcohol no matter who my coaches were. Pretty sure even if I didn't do that, my shoulders are pretty screwy and perpetually breaking down too. To me it's all a crap shoot, but I think the "wide net" philosophy will catch more productive guys than spear-fishing for top close-to-ready talent
Fried was the primary return on the Justin Upton trade for an Atlanta team that was about to begin a multi-year tank job. Would you have been okay trading Devers last winter for the next Fried, who'd be useful sometime around 2028? I wouldn't.
Upton was entering his walk year. That's a great trade by a team that was honest with itself about what the path to winning was, and they turned into what we see now. So yeah, I would be all for a similarly situated Sox team turning itself into the current Braves, although the analogy breaks down with Devers re-signing instead of threatening to leave. If you want to argue reloading vs fully rebuilding, that's purely academic and pointless now, the next GM isn't coming here for a rebuild. Anyway, the conversation started with my suggestion to emphasize pitching development, are you not for that?
I'm more for building better pitching development capabilities than spending high picks on pitching like Atlanta has done. I prefer Bloom's wide net approach to acquiring arms because they're so volatile.
Yeah I think we probably agree more than this thread would suggest. Your point is what Trotsky replied with earlier. All good, and I suspect that the bust rate on first round pitchers is higher than athletic position players.
It’s really hard to draft and develop pitchers. Under Bloom it seems like that’s why the Sox didn’t draft US High school pitchers, too much variability and then, what if they don’t sign….. the Sox seem to sign a lot of Latin kids hoping to hit on 10% of them as future pitchers. Maybe 5%. As someone posted earlier, it’s very helpful to be able to identify young talent in other organizations and acquire them via trade when possible/ the opportunity arises. So, for instance, perhaps trading Verdugo for a package that includes another teams lower level pitching prospect? This would require good scouts in place.
Mike Hazen's staying in AZ seemed certain, judging his family's history there:
https://wapo.st/3F6xxm3.
His wife was killed by the same thing that took Wake, and the DBacks community was enormously supportive.
https://wapo.st/3F6xxm3.
His wife was killed by the same thing that took Wake, and the DBacks community was enormously supportive.
re : Mike Hazen
The D'backs said, all along, that Mike is NOT available, and probably wouldn't release him.
He was also offered an extension there.
He also has a playoff team. The D'backs fan base isn't calling for his head. AND.... Finally ....
He is a widower - with four teenage sons he probably doesn't want to uproot.
The D'backs said, all along, that Mike is NOT available, and probably wouldn't release him.
He was also offered an extension there.
He also has a playoff team. The D'backs fan base isn't calling for his head. AND.... Finally ....
He is a widower - with four teenage sons he probably doesn't want to uproot.
Yes you’re way behind on this:
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/10/diamondbacks-extend-gm-mike-hazen.html
Awfully quiet . . . didn't Kennedy say interviews would start at the end of last week? Have not heard a peep.
Honestly, that's as it should be. We're not entitled to know who they're interviewing and when. And typically teams don't announce those sort of things publicly. Anything we learn during the process is usually reporters doing their jobs and sniffing things out (like seeing candidate X at the airport or a local hotel or walking into Fenway). If initial interviews are being done in video conferences (a likely possibility), that makes it that much harder for journalists to find anything out.
Also, it's pretty typical for teams to keep a lid on things during the playoffs unless it pertains to the playoffs. I wouldn't expect anything to come out of Jersey Street until they hire someone.
I don't feel entitled, but I recall previous processes being quite public. Perhaps that was just with managers.
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