Cherington's bad run

[SydneySox]

Presumably, they're the same scouts who pushed hard to sign Abreu, so that's not really the whole picture. Where it comes to Ben, the oft-asked question is, "Did he overreact to just missing out on Abreu, and project the success that player had onto the next one, Castillo?". Guessing, but that seems likely to have been the GM's call, and clearly the same scouts we have to accept felt highly of Rusney's skills were the ones who'd so clearly just gotten it right on Abreu.

 

[uncannymanny]

Ah, Kei Igawa Syndrome.

 

[Plympton91]

It seems like Castillo was like buying a McMansion In the exurbs in 2006.

 

[crystalline]

that he thought he was safe in the eyes of Henry et al from the short term bridge years.

Yes, this seems right.

And I bet the changes in the long term plan happened when Lucchino left. We don't know whether Henry and Werner got fed up with Lucchino and booted him, or whether Lucchino left on his own and Cherington's biggest ally was gone, or whether some other dynamics was at play. But something went down in 2015 to change the front office and that started with the president and co-owner.

 

[wade boggs chicken dinner]

Doesn't fit the timeline, but to me, the Cherington era was best embodied the Melancon/Hanrahan swap - the centerpiece from the Sox' perspective was questionable from the start (I recall a lot of skeptics on this board, at least) but the minor-league throw-in turned out to be a hidden gem.

I think that Ben is best characterized by staying pat rather any particular move he made. For example, the non-trade for Hamels. The Red Sox are a good, young, and fun team to watch and we have Ben to thank for that. It would have been easy to trade off the farm system for a few (meaningless) wins but he didn't.

To me, without doing any sophisticated count, Ben hit on what I would think is an average number of transactions. It's just that he hit close to 100% in his first year and very few his second and third years. So instead of being in contention (and perhaps falling short) for three years, he went WS, last, last. In this day and age, high draft picks have to be the most valuable future commodity in baseball.

 

[richgedman'sghost]

I don't feel like working.

Here's the timeline:

July 1: Sold Rich Hill for nothing. Meh. Who cares.
July 16: Released AJP. Hooray! but, man. Why was he here in the first place. In 3 months he went to zero value.
July 26: Jake Peavy for Edwin Escobar and Heath Hembree. Another meh. We can assume there wasn't a lot of demand for Peavy, and these guys seem like decent flyers. In July of 14 I don't think Edrod was a gigantic step ahead of Escobar, for instance.
July 30: Felix Doubront for Marco Hernandez. Another meh.
July 31: Stephen Drew for Kelly Johnson. Another trade where the Red Sox seemed to place too much value on a guy in April of 2014 and his value evaporated by July of 2014. Can't blame Ben alone, but there is some organizational failure here.
July 31: Lackey for Craig and Kelly. Just bad. I know there are Kelly fans, but there are other semi-promising guys out in the world that don't require you to give up a pitcher of Lackey's caliber AND take on an albatross.
July 31: Lester and Gomes for Cespedes and a pick. Analyzed to death. Two months of Lester for 8 months of Cespedes isn't bad in a vacuum, on the other hand, it also wasn't good. obviously GMs fall in love with guys, but Shark and Hammel for Russel is highway robbery compared to Lester for Cespedes. Did Ben wait too long? I guess you can't blame him if he did. Also, see my comments above. It wasn't in a vacuum.
July 31: Miller for EdRod. Great one. I'm not as big on EdRod the ace as others, but he seems like he will be useful for a while, which is a huge get for 2 months of a reliever.
August 3: Released Carp. Notable again just to point out how much value the Red Sox saw evaporate in the first half of 2014. Not assigning blame.
August 23: Signed Castillo. Not a bad risk, again, in a vacuum, but why do this after moving Mookie to the OF and after trading for Cespedes and Craig? It's not like Castillo is 23. This was essentially a major league signing.
November 25: Signed Ramirez and Sandoval. Well debated. Terrible first year, all fingers crossed for later years.
December 11: Signed Justin Masterson. I don't think anyone thought this was a very good idea.
December 11: Traded Cespedes (among others) for Porcello. Not bad until signing Porcello to the huge extension.
December 12: Traded RDLR and Webster for Miley. Solid trade. Speaks again to the decay in value of Red Sox properties though.
December 19: Traded WMB for Hanigan. Solid trade, something for nothing.
January 27: Traded Ranaudo for Ross. Meh.
January 30: Signed Ogando. I like this at the time. Worked out terribly.

I'm not one to just blame or credit scouting. There is also luck involved. I think EdRod is a good example of why we may have wanted Ben to go fishing for prospects instead of major leaguers with Lester/Lackey. Accumulate some guys and hope to end up with a couple of gems.

I also want to note, that it is easy to deflect any criticism by saying it takes two teams to make a trade. I know this well.

Last, the most important point, no matter whether it is bad luck, bad management, whatever, the Red Sox had a 2008 housing collapse level of value erosion for about half of their roster between April and July of 2014.[/QUOTE
Minor point in the overall great summary of Ben's transactions and trades but I would classify the Heath Hembree and Robbie Ross trades as wins rather than meh. Jake Peavey was not going to be re signed by the Sox and Anthony Ranaudo has done nothing in Texas.

 

[richgedman'sghost]

Minor point in the overall great summary of Ben's transactions but I would classify the Heath Hembree and Robbie Ross trades as wins rather than Meh. Jake Peavey was not going to be re signed by the Sox and Anthony Ranaudo has done nothing in Texas. In addition, the Marco Hernandez trade also appears to be a win for the Sox. Including the Hannigan and Kelly Johnson trades, it seems like Ben was at his best with seemingly "minor " trades rather than big trades such as the Lester or Lackey trades.

 

[nvalvo]

Presumably, they're the same scouts who pushed hard to sign Abreu, so that's not really the whole picture. Where it comes to Ben, the oft-asked question is, "Did he overreact to just missing out on Abreu, and project the success that player had onto the next one, Castillo?". Guessing, but that seems likely to have been the GM's call, and clearly the same scouts we have to accept felt highly of Rusney's skills were the ones who'd so clearly just gotten it right on Abreu.

I think the statistical translations on these Cuban players are totally effed by a small sample that includes guys like Puig and Abreu, and Castillo scouts really beautifully with his speed, raw power, and chiseled physique. Now, it turns out that the league figured out a pretty effective way to pitch him after a few months, and we have to see if he can counter-adjust. I'm not sure that should necessarily have been obvious in four workouts or whatever it was.

We're not the only team who whiffed on costly Cuban signings. If you wade into that marketplace, you're going to miss on some. The Dodgers signed Puig, who's awesome, but they also signed Olivera for 6/$62m. That guy's downright awful, far worse than Castillo, who can at least defend. We got Castillo, on whom the early returns are mediocre to bad, and Moncada, on whom they're very good. Arizona gave Yasmany Tomas 6/$68m, and he's been pretty bad, particularly with the glove, although the bat looks to be coming around.

(NB: Maybe Tomas would make an interesting DH candidate?)