The DDombrowski 2017 Report Card Thread

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...When the Sox were eliminated in 2016, I wanted Henry and Werner to clean house. I wanted Dombrowski gone, Farrell gone and half the team. I don't think Dombrowski and Farrell are bad, but that doesn't mean I think they're particularly good either. Dombrowski's career has been highlighted with "gambles" on huge names (Cabrera, Sale, Price x2), trading prospects and creating mediocre bullpens. He hasn't been at the helm of a winner in 20 years.
This could be the starter for a new thread about DD. I do, however, think that if someone is criticizing a (for example) GM, that perspective should be provided. Almost everyone in every position in baseball is a loser. There's no Auerbach or U Conn these days. I'll snip some sentences from Dombrowski's Wiki page to start discussion:

  • Dombrowski built up the Expos farm system during his term. He drafted, among others, Rondell White and Cliff Floyd. The team enjoyed .500 or better seasons in 1988–90 but struggled on the field in 1991

  • Although he built a sound minor league system, the Marlins, with Jim Leyland as their manager, achieved their first great success—the 1997 NL pennant and world championship—with a team composed of many high-salaried players signed as free agents. The following year, Dombrowski presided over Huizenga's mandated fire sale of those veteran players, and the Marlins failed to reach a .500 winning percentage in each of Dombrowski's final four years with the franchise...after Henry sold the club in early 2002, the Marlins managed to rebuild behind a nucleus of young players, and in 2003, with a roster consisting chiefly of players Dombrowski had acquired, won the World Series.
  • In 2003, the Tigers lost an American League-record 119 games, one fewer loss than the modern MLB record set by the 1962 New York Mets...Three years later, the 2006 Tigers, led by manager Jim Leyland, won their first AL pennant since their championship season of 1984. Along the way, they won the AL wild card, defeated the favored New York Yankees in four games in the division series, then swept the Oakland Athletics in the American League Championship Series. In the 2006 World Series, they were defeated in five games by the St. Louis Cardinals.
  • In addition to bringing Leyland out of semi-retirement, Dombrowski presided over the acquisition and development of a corps of hard-throwing young pitchers, and signed free agents such as catcher Iván Rodríguez, left-handed pitcher Kenny Rogers, and outfielder Magglio Ordóñez.

  • In 2012, the Tigers reached their second World Series under Dombrowski's tenure by sweeping the New York Yankees in 4 straight games. The Tigers were then swept by the San Francisco Giants in 4 straight games, losing the World Series.

  • On August 4, 2015, Dombrowski was released by the Tigers, and was replaced by his former assistant general manager Al Avila. In fourteen years with Tigers organization, Dombrowski led the Tigers to five playoff appearances, four consecutive American League Central division titles, four American League Championship Series appearances, including three consecutive ALCS appearances from 2011 to 2013, and two AL pennants, in 2006 and 2012. Prior to his hiring, the Tigers had missed the playoffs in fourteen consecutive seasons, and had just four playoff appearances in the 60 season stretch from 1946 to 2005.
I imagine there are reasonable arguments against these cherry-picked accomplishments, but it's tough to say he sucks - isn't it?
 
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lexrageorge

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I'll add that when Henry & Co hired Dombrowski and elevated him above Cherington to essentially replace Lucchino, it was not a short term hire. There was zero chance he was going to be fired just because the Sox got eliminated in 3 straight.

He's retooled a roster that needed some retooling after 2 straight appearances at the bottom of the standings, and the team has known quantities in a number of key positions on the roster. He's going to be with us for a while.
 

Byrdbrain

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I imagine there are reasonable arguments against these cherry-picked accomplishments, but it's tough to say he sucks - isn't it?
Well to be fair he didn't say he sucked he said he wasn't "particularly good" and that he should have been fired after just more than one year on the job along with half the team and the manager. Oh and all of this in a year that the team won the division.
It was a bad post that probably wasn't worth the effort you put in to refuting it but you did a nice job anyway.
 

Clears Cleaver

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I did this analysis last year. I need to find it. But basically the players he inherited generated 70 WAR for like $115m. He traded away five top prospects and signed players for xx millions that added like 5 WAR. Every single player he acquired performed worse than their prior year.

I need to find it. The numbers are staggeringly bad. He was paying like $17m per WAR and traded so much talent on top of that to the most cost efficient base roster imaginable. I stopped when I tried to add "what could he have done instead" aspect of the analysis. I.e. Scherzer instead of Price. Not Carson smith. Or chris young. Who besides pomeranz. Etc etc

Edit: after I did this analysis I referred to him only as "Dumbrowski"
 

Sampo Gida

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I dont care what he did with the Tigers. As for the Red Sox its hard to talk about 2017 in isolation . His hands were partly tied by what he did last year with his spending spree with dollars and prospects for Price, Pomeranz and Kimbrell.

I agreed with all those moves at the time even if they look a bit dodgy at the moment.

Price's contract negated anything doing on the FA market to replace Papis bat. Maybe an edict from JWH or self control, who knows.

So all he had in the cookie jar was prospects and he emptied that out for Sale. I am OK with that move as well which looks brilliant in hindsight given Price elbow issues (although one wonders if he had an inkling).

Hopefully his run of bad luck on his acquisitions is over and these guys return to health and perform at levels expected from them.

Perhaps somewhere Big Papi is taking BP since I dont see what DD has left in which to acquire midseason help.
 

lexrageorge

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None of the prospects traded has yet added a single WAR to their new teams. So one could argue that Dombrowski is still coming out ahead after one year. Not a sound argument, but no different than the ones criticizing him for the lack of WAR from Carson Smith, who, btw, was acquired for the useless Wade Miley.

The one acquisition that looks bad so far is the Pomeranz trade. That seemed to be more of a short term fix for which the Sox may have overpaid. But we have a ways to go yet before Espinoza sees meaningful innings, and Pom is still under team control for 2 more seasons.
 

Snodgrass'Muff

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I did this analysis last year. I need to find it. But basically the players he inherited generated 70 WAR for like $115m. He traded away five top prospects and signed players for xx millions that added like 5 WAR. Every single player he acquired performed worse than their prior year.

I need to find it. The numbers are staggeringly bad. He was paying like $17m per WAR and traded so much talent on top of that to the most cost efficient base roster imaginable. I stopped when I tried to add "what could he have done instead" aspect of the analysis. I.e. Scherzer instead of Price. Not Carson smith. Or chris young. Who besides pomeranz. Etc etc

Edit: after I did this analysis I referred to him only as "Dumbrowski"
Can you explain the bold? Miguel Cabrera alone has earned something like 48 WAR since joining the Tigers.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Can you explain the bold? Miguel Cabrera alone has earned something like 48 WAR since joining the Tigers.
Miggy plays for the Red Sox now? Pretty sure Clears is referring just to Dombrowski's acquisitions since he got to Boston.

More to the overall thread...the oldest player on the 40-man roster right now is Dustin Pedroia (turns 34 in August). Let that sink in for a second. The rest of the roster is relatively young. It may be an expensive roster, but it isn't one that is mostly on the back nine, it's a roster more or less in its prime whose core shouldn't be difficult to keep together for a few years. They won the division last year and are the prohibitive favorites to repeat that feat this year. The only thing holding it back is health, which is an X factor that can't really be solved by the front office waving a magic wand and only bringing in iron men.

I'm not sure there's any rational measure that indicates that Dombrowski is doing a poor job or is remotely in danger of or deserving to be fired.
 

lexrageorge

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The team that Dombrowski "inherited" had as it's starting pitching depth:

Porcello, Miley, Kelly, EdRod, Buchholz, Stephen Wright, Henry Owens and Brian Johnson. Also, the team had no real pitching prospects in AAA or AA at the time aside from Owens and Johnson. Miley, Kelly, and Buchholz have been replaced by Sale, Price, and Pomeranz, and Kendrick has been added to the Owens/Johnson break-glass category. Granted, 2 of those 3 are currently on the DL, but it seems likely that at least one of Price/Pomeranz will be back by mid-May at the latest.

Most of the lineup work was already done for Dombrowski, but he did add Chris Young (0.850 OPS in 2016) and Mitch Moreland on very reasonable short term deals that really don't impact the payroll all that much. They do have some depth in AAA in Hernandez and Sam Travis, so barring injury the lineup is one area where they look all set for the season.

Bullpens are always a crapshoot, as relievers are always volatile. Dombrowski's strategy has been to add known quantities (Kimbrel, Smith, Thornburgh) to supplement the usual flotsam/jetsam of unknowns and AAAA pitchers. Thornburgh and Smith are cheap, and even Kimbrel is reasonable value given his resume.

Just a reminder, the Sox won 93 games last year, enough to win the AL East by 4 games. They lost in the playoffs because Ortiz, Bogaerts, Pedroia, Betts, Bradley, Hanley, and Leon combined to bat 0.173 with 0.280 SLG in a minuscule sample of 3 games and 75 at bats, Porcello coughed up 3 HR's, and Sox starters endured a 0.389 BABIP against. Aside from Price's HR, none of these failures can be remotely assigned to Dombrowski.
 

uncannymanny

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The Farrell/DD stuff made the main board nearly intolerable last season. Can we have a V&NGT style forum on the main board this season for people who fancy themselves so much better than the professionals?
 

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The Farrell/DD stuff made the main board nearly intolerable last season. Can we have a V&NGT style forum on the main board this season for people who fancy themselves so much better than the professionals?
This is a great idea. It didn't just make the Main board intolerable, it basically turned it into a big game thread.
 

johnnywayback

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This is a great idea. It didn't just make the Main board intolerable, it basically turned it into a big game thread.
I had the thought that we should do a monthly Approval Rating thread, one for the FO and one for Farrell, where people can vote on whether they Strongly Approve, Somewhat Approve, Somewhat Disapprove, or Strongly Disapprove of how each is handling their job. And people could explain why, and we could track those ratings like Gallup over the course of the season. But it sounded like a lot of work.
 

charlieoscar

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Bullpens are always a crapshoot, as relievers are always volatile. Dombrowski's strategy has been to add known quantities (Kimbrel, Smith, Thornburgh) to supplement the usual flotsam/jetsam of unknowns and AAAA pitchers. Thornburgh and Smith are cheap, and even Kimbrel is reasonable value given his resume.
My first thought is that Thornburg and Smith should be cheap because they are not pitching. But going to Kimbrel, his ERA/WHIP his risen each year for a while:

2012 -- 1.01/0.654
2013 -- 1.21/0.881
2014 -- 1.61/0.998
2015 -- 2.58/1.045
2016 -- 3.40/1.094

Manuel Margot made the Padres roster as the starting center fielder. Carlos Asuaje hit .321/.378/.473/.851 in the PCL last year. Logan Allen pitched in 15 games for the Padres last season, with a 3.33 ERA and 47 K in 54.0 IP. His walk total was higher than one would like to see (22 BB) but he only gave up 2 HR. Javier Guerra did not make a good adjustment to A+ ball.

The Red Sox had an excellent opportunity to rebuild their club. They broke the jinx of not winning a World Series for seemingly ever and they followed that up with more. Then they began finishing last but instead of trying to rebuild from within, they felt they had to spend money and talent on players who had a "name," even if they wouldn't/couldn't fit in. Look at Boston's attendance durinf the recent years when they were not in the race; it was towards the top of the league, evn with one of the smaller capacity parks.

If they rebuilt from within, they would have gotten away from the luxury tax and the penalties they have paid. They have three teams in their minor league system in New England states. By expanding some television coverage of their minor league system their prospects could have attracted fans. Oh, well, it's too late to worry now.
 

trekfan55

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The Red Sox had an excellent opportunity to rebuild their club. They broke the jinx of not winning a World Series for seemingly ever and they followed that up with more. Then they began finishing last but instead of trying to rebuild from within, they felt they had to spend money and talent on players who had a "name," even if they wouldn't/couldn't fit in. Look at Boston's attendance durinf the recent years when they were not in the race; it was towards the top of the league, evn with one of the smaller capacity parks.

If they rebuilt from within, they would have gotten away from the luxury tax and the penalties they have paid. They have three teams in their minor league system in New England states. By expanding some television coverage of their minor league system their prospects could have attracted fans. Oh, well, it's too late to worry now.
Well, they currently have home grown players at 2B (not recent but still drafted and developed), SS, all 3 OF positions and C. They signed Hanley (not originally for 1B but he's there now) and Panda. What they needed, and was not readilly available at the minor leagues was pitching, both relief and starting. Whether the signing and trades for Price and Kimbrel will be worth it is yet to be determined. The same applies to Sale. But I do think it's a little ingenious to simply state that they had a chance to built from within and did not. They did, and then they used the prospects and cash to get the pieces they did not have, mainly pitching.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Pedroia
Benintendi
Betts
Bogaerts
Bradley

Five out of nine starters in today's lineup are homegrown guys, four of which have made an all star team. And that's not counting the guy who should be catching the majority of games going forward, the pair of homegrown* starters in the rotation and the handful of guys in the pen. (* yes, ERod and Wright were acquired via trade while minor leaguers, but they debuted in MLB with the Sox)

While there are certainly some high price free agent/trade acquisitions, the current roster seems like a pretty good blend of home grown and bought. I'm still waiting for the first prospect traded by Dombrowski to actually show himself to be good enough to have had a role on the team right now. Margot, for one, wouldn't likely be in the lineup today if he was still in the organization.
 

joe dokes

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Manuel Margot made the Padres roster as the starting center fielder. Carlos Asuaje hit .321/.378/.473/.851 in the PCL last year. Logan Allen pitched in 15 games for the Padres last season, with a 3.33 ERA and 47 K in 54.0 IP. His walk total was higher than one would like to see (22 BB) but he only gave up 2 HR. Javier Guerra did not make a good adjustment to A+ ball.

The Red Sox had an excellent opportunity to rebuild their club.

If they rebuilt from within, they would have gotten away from the luxury tax and the penalties they have paid. They have three teams in their minor league system in New England states. By expanding some television coverage of their minor league system their prospects could have attracted fans. Oh, well, it's too late to worry now.
Makes sense. If only they had kept Margot and Asuaje, they wouldn't be saddled with an aging outfield on the decline.
 

charlieoscar

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Or maybe they could have traded extra parts from the minor league system for young parts they were missing, like pitching, third base. As for the "aging outfield on the decline", well, Betts played in one minor league game in 2011; shortstop Bogaerts, 135 through 2011; Bradley, 10 in 2011. Not sure they were yet considered the OF of the future.

And frankly, I would have traded Pedroia instead of signing him through the age of 38 (mostly 37).
 

joe dokes

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Or maybe they could have traded extra parts from the minor league system for young parts they were missing, like pitching, third base. As for the "aging outfield on the decline", well, Betts played in one minor league game in 2011; shortstop Bogaerts, 135 through 2011; Bradley, 10 in 2011. Not sure they were yet considered the OF of the future.

And frankly, I would have traded Pedroia instead of signing him through the age of 38 (mostly 37).
Are we still talking about the time that they traded asauje and margot? That was 2015.
 

Snodgrass'Muff

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Or maybe they could have traded extra parts from the minor league system for young parts they were missing, like pitching, third base. As for the "aging outfield on the decline", well, Betts played in one minor league game in 2011; shortstop Bogaerts, 135 through 2011; Bradley, 10 in 2011. Not sure they were yet considered the OF of the future.

And frankly, I would have traded Pedroia instead of signing him through the age of 38 (mostly 37).
You mean like Chris Sale? And are you really lamenting Pedroia on the severely below market deal?
 

Y Kant Jody Reed

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Logan Allen pitched in 15 games for the Padres last season, with a 3.33 ERA and 47 K in 54.0 IP. His walk total was higher than one would like to see (22 BB) but he only gave up 2 HR.
That's the 2016 line Logan Allen put up for the Fort Wayne TinCaps, sorry, I know nobody likes a pedant.
 

Savin Hillbilly

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The wrong side of the bridge....
You mean like Chris Sale? And are you really lamenting Pedroia on the severely below market deal?
In value-for-$ terms, of course Pedroia's contract is an insanely good deal for the Sox, full stop. However, it's reasonable to be concerned about the length of the deal just in terms of the roster management/opportunity cost implications if he were to decline sharply with several years to go. That seemed like a somewhat valid worry after 2014; less so now.
 

charlieoscar

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You mean like Chris Sale? And are you really lamenting Pedroia on the severely below market deal?
The other side of the Sale question is why did the White Sox trade him? It couldn't be because they are rebuilding and decided that more and younger, less expensive prospects was the way to go?

And as for Pedroia, at the time his contract was extended, didn't the Red Sox have a glut of middle infielders working their way up through the system? Since I'm a proponent of rebuilding from within a trade seemed logical.
 

Bigpupp

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The other side of the Sale question is why did the White Sox trade him? It couldn't be because they are rebuilding and decided that more and younger, less expensive prospects was the way to go?

And as for Pedroia, at the time his contract was extended, didn't the Red Sox have a glut of middle infielders working their way up through the system? Since I'm a proponent of rebuilding from within a trade seemed logical.
When Pedroia was extended (July of 2013), SoxProspects had 3 middle infielders in their top 20: (1) Xander Bogaerts, (12) Devin Marrero and (18) Sean Coyle.

So which of those players would you rather have starting for the Sox?
 
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doctorogres

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The other side of the Sale question is why did the White Sox trade him? It couldn't be because they are rebuilding and decided that more and younger, less expensive prospects was the way to go?
Because he's more valuable to a team that can win now, so they're trading him for more of a chance to win 3 years from now.

The Red Sox have a great young core so the chance to put themselves over the top matters more to them than the difference between 75 and 80 wins does to the White Sox. Do you not understand why some teams buy and some teams sell?
 

lexrageorge

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The other side of the Sale question is why did the White Sox trade him? It couldn't be because they are rebuilding and decided that more and younger, less expensive prospects was the way to go?

And as for Pedroia, at the time his contract was extended, didn't the Red Sox have a glut of middle infielders working their way up through the system? Since I'm a proponent of rebuilding from within a trade seemed logical.
Last I checked the Red Sox are not in rebuilding mode. And Dombrowski had nothing to do with Pedroia's extension.
 

Snodgrass'Muff

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The other side of the Sale question is why did the White Sox trade him? It couldn't be because they are rebuilding and decided that more and younger, less expensive prospects was the way to go?
Chris Sale is in his age 28 season. He IS a young pitcher. He's entering his prime window. You simply do not get younger pitchers anywhere near his level in trades. Ever. And he has 3 years of control. If you want to harp on the Espinoza deal, be my guest. That one is at least legitimately questionable.

The Sale trade was acquiring a young top of the league talent for even younger not yet ready prospects. Yes. They were really really good prospects, but Sale is one of the top 5 pitchers in the world at the start of his prime years. He's an awful example of what you are trying to harp on.

And as for Pedroia, at the time his contract was extended, didn't the Red Sox have a glut of middle infielders working their way up through the system? Since I'm a proponent of rebuilding from within a trade seemed logical.
The middle infield prospect point was already covered so I'll take this in a different direction. The Red Sox HAVE built from within. Show me all the top of the league teams for just this season, or the next three that have more home grown lineups. Seriously. How many teams have developed this much talent through their own farm? More than half of their lineup is internally developed and really good. Four of those five are really young and cheap.

Hell, those numbers go up to 6 and 5 if you count Christian Vazquez and may go up to 7 and 6 by mid-season with Swihart in the wings.

The rotation has two of its five starters as players they developed. Yes, Eduardo was traded for, but he was acquired as a prospect and had his development finished by Boston. Even the pen has Robby Scott, Matt Barnes and Ben Taylor as internally developed options.

This team is loaded with home grown players. So please, find me all the teams that are more home grown that have a chance at a playoff run this year. You won't find many. Even the Cubs are sporting 11 players on their opening day roster who were acquired externally, including 4/5 of their rotation and 5 of their relievers.

You are complaining that a team that has developed talent internally better than nearly every other team out there hasn't developed talent internally enough. It's asinine.

There's wanting to see a home grown team, and there's being so obsessed with prospects that you have lost the ability to discuss major league rosters rationally. And then there's wherever you ware.
 
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YTF

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The fact of the matter is that unless deals provide insanely positive, immediate results they're mostly graded as an incomplete until the success or failure of the players involved plays out. As for charlieoscar's observations go, it's been widely pointed out here that the Sox have a home grown core and a damn good one at that. Lets give DD some credit for keeping the guys he's kept when many of the trade speculations in the past season always seemed to have started with Betts and have often included Bradley, Swihart and Bogaerts, players who are Major League ready.. DD not only kept the top young talent with a good amount of major league success but the moves he made also left the major league roster intact. The rebuild from within began a couple of seasons ago. We're seeing the fruits of it now and DD hasn't screwed that up. Not to mention that he signed Price as a FA and lost nothing out of the organisation there. IMO opinion he's done a great job in keeping the top talent and on a whole when you look at the players he's brought in via trade AND FA versus the players he's traded away (because I think that you MUST look at these two methods of adding players as a whole) I think he's done well.
 

Byrdbrain

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I don't think it is trolling I just think he has the Soxprospects mentality where my guess is he is a regular.

There is absolutely room to criticize Dombrowski, the Pomeranz trade certainly doesn't look good no matter what Espinoza turns in to. The Kimbrel trade could be questioned as well, I'd do it again but I can understand people who don't like it.

I think he clearly takes many of the other arguments way too far and most of his points don't make whole lot of sense.
 

Snodgrass'Muff

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In the first year he had them. Add Betts plus Papi plus Porcello plus Bradley plus Hanley etc
Okay, I see how I misread you now. How does he compare to other GMs starting with new teams? Or did you only look at him? I'm curious what the context is for drawing conclusions from that data.
 

charlieoscar

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Because he's more valuable to a team that can win now, so they're trading him for more of a chance to win 3 years from now.
And that is why I suggested trading Pedroia instead of handing him a long-term contract. Or have you forgotten that the Red Sox won 69 games in 2012, 71 in 2014, 78 in 2015?
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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And that is why I suggested trading Pedroia instead of handing him a long-term contract. Or have you forgotten that the Red Sox won 69 games in 2012, 71 in 2014, 78 in 2015?
Conveniently ignoring the 96 win 2013 team that won the World Series and the 93 wins the 2016 team earned in winning the division. It's nice and all that you didn't agree with the Pedroia extension four years ago, but regrets about it now seem pointless. I can't picture a Pedroia-less roster right now being in a significantly better position to contend in 2017 and beyond.
 

YTF

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I'm not overly concerned about Pedroia's contract that has an average yearly value of 14 million per. Right now 14 doesn't buy a whole hell of a lot and will buy less at the end of the contract. Also what you say about 2012, 2014 and 2015 can't be deputed, BUT let's not overlook the Championship season of 2013 where Pedroia was an All Star, gold glove winner and finished 7th in the MVP ballot or 2016 where he played in 154 games, had 201 hits, 36 doubles, 105 runs scored, 15 HR, 74 RBI. Did they extend a couple years more than they should have? Perhaps, but it is a very team friendly contract given the yearly salary and sometimes teams do that to hang onto to a useful. long term player. They can afford it and I seriously doubt that THIS contract is going to prevent them from making future deals.
 

YTF

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Conveniently ignoring the 96 win 2013 team that won the World Series and the 93 wins the 2016 team earned in winning the division. It's nice and all that you didn't agree with the Pedroia extension four years ago, but regrets about it now seem pointless. I can't picture a Pedroia-less roster right now being in a significantly better position to contend in 2017 and beyond.
And to expand just a little more, who would charlieoscar rather see manning 2nd right now?
 

doctorogres

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And that is why I suggested trading Pedroia instead of handing him a long-term contract. Or have you forgotten that the Red Sox won 69 games in 2012, 71 in 2014, 78 in 2015?
This has what to do with Dombrowski?

Who starts for the 2012 Red Sox at 2B if you trade Pedroia (which BTW was before the extension)? Also, those teams were sunk by pitching and injuries. Pedroia's WAY below market rate was not the problem. From upthread:

When Pedroia was extended (July of 2013), SoxProspects had 3 middle infielders in their top 20: (1) Xander Bogaerts, (12) Devin Marrero and (18) Sean Coyle.

So which of those players would you rather have starting for the Sox?
This is off topic though. Why are we even talking about Pedroia when your chief complaints with DD seem to be the Kimbrel and Sale trade? Every time someone rebuts your arguments you change the subject.

So, back on topic. This thread could be interesting as a "rate where you think we are coming into the season" that we revisit at the All-Star break. For me I feel great about the lineup, good about the rotation (lots of health question marks), and worried about the bullpen. I'm getting fed up with the fact that so many pitchers that DD has traded for are getting injured, but it seems like that's luck and not something that other teams have figured out how to predict.

I do want to point out re: Price's opt out clause that the scenarios where Price gets TJ are where you see clearly why it's a big benefit to the player and not the team. If he gets TJS later in the season and misses most of 2017 AND 2018, then pitches a month of showcase to opt out and score a big contract, the Sox end up getting the short end of the stick.
 

Van Everyman

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The thing about Dombrowski that I think gets a bit lost in all the advanced metrics discussions is his style as an executive. He is a *much* more decisive guy than Ben for sure but perhaps even Theo. He was not brought in to rebuild the Red Sox and plan for the future – he was brought into capitalize on the assets the Red Sox had and that Henry believed weren't being used appropriately.

And while we can all complain about what was lost in the Pomeranz or Kimbrel trades or that DD threw money at a guy like Price, what can't be disputed is that in Year 1, the guy did just that and got results. A year after coming in last place for the third time in four seasons, Dombrowski put one of the best teams in baseball on the field for Boston.

Now, a lot goes into a successful season. And we can all dispute how much credit he deserves for Mookie's MVP-caliber year, Porcello's Cy Young-winning year or JBJ's breakout. But does anybody here think that 2015 team would have performed the same under Ben Cherington as it did under Dombrowski? I have a hard time seeing it. And I kind of liked Ben.
 

johnnywayback

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Setting aside the question of how much you can judge Dombrowski by the team's 2016 success (although there's no reason to think the key drivers of that success -- breakouts by Betts, Porcello, and Bradley -- wouldn't have happened "under" Cherington, too), I don't understand this thing about "decisiveness." I'm not sure there's evidence that Epstein or Cherington were notably indecisive.

There is evidence that the ownership was tired/disenchanted/bored of the player development model and wanted an executive who would convert future assets to present assets. I didn't agree with that decision, but you can't blame Dombrowski for doing what he was hired to do.

The problem is, if your attitude is, "I want the guy I want and I don't care about the value proposition involved" (which is what I think most people mean when they give him credit for being "decisive"), you'd really better be right about which guy you want.

Price, so far, has been a mixed bag, and if he misses a big chunk of this season and follows a normal aging curve, he'll go down as an expensive miss. Kimbrel was good last year, but not elite, and, again, if last year was the best we'll see of him, that's a mixed bag, too. Chris Young has been a success, albeit of limited importance. Pomeranz, thus far, has been a huge miss. The jury's still out on Sale and Thornburg.

If the guys you want so badly that you're willing to overpay for them produce like you want, then you can shrug off the fact that you overpaid for them. But if they don't, the overpay makes the bad decision much more damaging.
 

jimbobim

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SoSH Member
Jul 14, 2012
1,558
I think DD's moves have made arguable sense and would seem to make a ton of sense given the young controllable assets all over the field. Consider the following

- The worst players on the Red Sox play 3b,1b, and probably catcher. Pablo Moreland and Leon/Vaz really are going to be the pressure points for how well this team does outside of pitching health in the bullpen and rotation. The alternatives for those positions ? Decently stocked with Hernandez Holt as a average maybe bridge to Devers. Travis will be up sometime as a serviceable 1b under control without the power you maybe want from the position. Swihart remains the catcher of the future and if Vazquez decided to hit more or Swihart's fielding remains blah he joins Travis as a less valuable but still controlled 1b.

- Other than those 3 positions there's a homegrown Sox graduate at every position with Pedroia and Hanley the only two not on the right side of 30. Obviously keeping Pomeranz Price and Eduardo healthy and throwing ( nevermind Thornburg and Smith) is huge but one could argue that the Sox sacrificed a top 10 farm system the next 2-3 years to make sure they're at least playoff quality the next three years at least. And the Braves Yankees and CWS remind everyone that farm systems can be replenished.

- DD's harder task will be getting Betts X and JBJ to sign away some FA years which is going to cost a metric ton. However, they are all young multi dimensional players playing premium defensive positions (Betts and Bradley both at a premium level X up and down) . It took them a while to achieve that. I can't see the Red Sox plugging in a formula that compensates for losing any of them and getting better value given the relative discount MLB players seem to be giving on these deals. I imagine none of them are going to give DD/Sox a song when its apparent how big and lucrative a market Bos is. I imagine an idea that no one wants to contemplate is trading X or JBJ if they don't sign to "replenish". That would be a very tough sell. I don't think resigning all 3 would be impossible but it surely won't be cheap and easy like Cle seems to make locking up young guys look.
 

nothumb

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SoSH Member
Jul 27, 2006
7,065
yammer's favorite poster
You probably should work on your reading comprehension.
This is rich coming from the guy posting minor league stats as MLB lines and complaining about moves made 5 years ago in a thread about Dombrowski.

Yes, DD has paid a premium for established MLB talent and has shown a willingness to gamble. Some of those gambles may not work out. But you still have to evaluate those moves in the context of 1) the mandate from ownership, which is pretty clearly to win now with this core, and 2) the overall status of the roster and payroll, and the market for the types of help they need to execute #1 above.

The goal is to win the world series as many times as possible before we die, not to make sure a miminum of 23 players on the roster are homegrown and no veteran hangs around into his decline years.