Well, he was VP of player personnel under Theo, so he can probably take some credit for those guys.
Garbage time again: what's the plan this time?
- Thread starter The Gray Eagle
- Start date
JimD said:
Pick away.
For me the every year journey and overall entertainment value i get out of that as a whole is just as important as any one year result (well, post 2004 at least lol). 2013 was great, and i completely understand the point you are attempting to make there. But if not looking forward to the possibility of sitting through a decade of suck following the high of one fluky Cinderella season makes me an entitled fan then yeah....color me that entitled fan i guess. A lot of what has happened since shouldn't have happened, and 2013 alone isn't enough to justify a lifetime pass for Ben/Farrell to mindlessly flush our future down the toilet.
If we continue down a similar path as we've seen over the past year, a few internal hits like Betts/X isn't going to be enough to fight off that flush job either.
plucy said:
Not to sound overly optimistic, but is the bolded such a reach? Is it not reasonable that 2016 may bring better performance/health out of Buchholz, Pedroia, Porcello, Ramirez and Sandoval at the very least, as well as improvements from the younger players like Betts, Bogaerts, Swihart, Rodriguez, Johnson, Castillo, Bradley, etc?
I think it's a bit short-sighted to look at the individual failures this year and assume that all of those players are simply done being productive major league contributors, particularly the ones signed long term.
Not just Cherington either. Guys like Hazen and Sawdaye deserve credit for all of that as well.smastroyin said:
I mostly agree overall, but I'd say there's a fine line between not panic-trading and holding on guys like, say, Cecchini for too long. Maybe that not a fair example, since we don't know what they could have gotten for him. Maybe dealing Ranaudo for Ross might be a better example of what I'm talking about.Super Nomario said:
But I think this gets to the point that smastroyin was making that I agree with - they have tried to have it both ways between building from within and spending their cash, and it's resulted in some decisions that are defensible on their own but underwhelming when taken altogether as a whole. Like I said before, I'm not really sure what their best option is from here, but I do wish they'd pick a path and stick with it.
The struggles of this team the last 4 years have come down to one thing: major league talent evaluation. They have done a terrible, terrible job identifying free agents and players through trade that fit the team's needs. Sandoval was a massive overpay who was 97th overall in OPS coming into this year. Why fans thought he'd suddenly become a power hitter in Fenway is beyond me. He is not an upgrade from Will Middlebrooks given his massive defensive struggles and his robust salary. Ramirez brings a good bat and has had a decent year at the plate, but just sticking somebody in left field based on computer projections saying he'd be fine is downright stupid. Sometimes in the FO, the human side of the game is not taken into account as much as it should. You have to know Hanley's past worts and questionable work ethic. How hard was he going to work to get better in LF? Mutnansky(who is always at the park due to his radio responsibilities) on a radio show last week said he always sees Bogaerts taking extra grounders and Hanley is nowhere to be found. Guess who improved at their position?? Porcello has been a complete disaster from Day 1. It was a huge risk to rely on factors outside his control(infield defense) to improve his numbers from Detroit. But, Ben compounded the mistake by throwing $82.5 million at him before even seeing him pitch in Boston. Sure, there's that risk with actual free agents but Porcello had a year to prove he could handle pitching in Boston. He constantly has picked the wrong people to gamble on. Masterson was a waste of money and everybody but Cherington knew it. I held out hope if he stayed healthy he'd be competent vs.LHP but even that has proven to be false hope (149 OPS+ vs. RHB). Napoli has been awful for almost a full season and a half(below .700 OPS in August/September last year and .652 OPS this year through 320 PA). He built no depth to last year's OF situation which resulted in 205 PA of .612 OPS baseball from Grady Sizemore and 306 PA of .612 baseball from a not-ready-for-prime-time Jackie Bradley Jr. AJ Pierzynski was an unmitigated disaster behind and at the plate(.633 OPS through 274 PAs).
He hit on Victorino and Napoli each for 1 of the 3 seasons under contract and Koji has been a revelation although bringing him into close wasn't his plan. It only happened after his guy Hanrahan blew up. Ogando for the most part has been serviceable even though 9 HRs in 41 IP are too much. Miley has been below aver
They have done a good job with the farm system, but those assets alone won't make a successful major league team.
He hit on Victorino and Napoli each for 1 of the 3 seasons under contract and Koji has been a revelation although bringing him into close wasn't his plan. It only happened after his guy Hanrahan blew up. Ogando for the most part has been serviceable even though 9 HRs in 41 IP are too much. Miley has been below aver
They have done a good job with the farm system, but those assets alone won't make a successful major league team.
Agree with Red October and would add that if there is an unbending philosophy -- whether Henry's or someone else's -- that will not yield in relation to pitchers approaching 30, something will have to give. Either that philosophy, or a willingness to open up the prospect vault and get some elite pitching in here. What we have now will not get it done unless your goal is barely making the postseason and waiting for a lightning bolt.
I do find it interesting that many of the moves for which Cherington's being criticized often made sense when taken in isolation. Unfortunately, a lot of those moves have worked out about as bad as they possibly could.
The Sox were right to be concerned with offering Jon Lester 7 years. Trading him for a RH power hitter/outfield made a lot of sense. And anyone suggesting that Cespedes could be useful in 2015 would have been in danger of being laughed off the main board, so he did seem like the logical trade chit for a starting pitcher. But overall the team went from having Lester to having Porcello, and the payroll being saved is roughly $5M/year.
The danger of firing Cherington is that there is a real danger that the GM ends up operating as if every year will be his last, which is hardly a recipe for success. In fact, the aggregate of these moves seems to be the result of Cherington perhaps feeling that way.
The Sox were right to be concerned with offering Jon Lester 7 years. Trading him for a RH power hitter/outfield made a lot of sense. And anyone suggesting that Cespedes could be useful in 2015 would have been in danger of being laughed off the main board, so he did seem like the logical trade chit for a starting pitcher. But overall the team went from having Lester to having Porcello, and the payroll being saved is roughly $5M/year.
The danger of firing Cherington is that there is a real danger that the GM ends up operating as if every year will be his last, which is hardly a recipe for success. In fact, the aggregate of these moves seems to be the result of Cherington perhaps feeling that way.
I am bullish on the kids but my expectations of the veterans, although never really high, have been reevaluated downward. I thought the Sandoval and Ramirez signings were overpays but meant to keep the floor up as the kids developed, a response to the '14 problems. But Pablo has not demonstrated the off field power to take advantage of Fenway, and his defense is going downhill fast. I have watched him play since his high A days in San Jose, and his quickness disappeared this year. Hanley may yet prove valuable once he gets to DH, but his fielding is atrocious, he can't steal. If he really wanted to play in BOS, why not a lower salary?Red(s)HawksFan said:
As for pitching Porcello cannot be a high K guy and succeed. So another overpay for a GB pitcher.
dcmissle said:
Well, you don't NEED to splurge on pitching. The Rays have never lacked the pitching it takes to be successful and its not like they spend a lot of money. Many of the teams with strong staffs do not pay that much. Paying huge $$$ for starting pitching is what you have to do if you don't develop your own.
This year the FO tried to circumvent both plan A and plan B, and get cheap young MLB pitchers without actually having developed them. The problem with this approach is its contingent on you being smarter than the other team. This whole notion of looking to acquire young, controllable arms smacks hubris, as if the St. Louis Cardinals are sitting on a mid-rotation starter and have no idea. If they're young and controllable, they are available for a reason.
Rodriguez, Johnson (hopefully starting tonight) - THAT is how you build a staff. From within. Owens is really turning it up at Pawtucket as well, and at this rate he could force the issue and get some starts.
plucy said:
I'm not even talking about the salaries involved, though. The money is spent at this point. I'm simply asking if this collection of players can't be reasonably expected to be more productive in 2016 than they've been in 2015. Sandoval and Porcello in particular have set their bars pretty low, and they also have youth on their side, so I have to think a return to career norms isn't out of the question.
As much as some of the new guys injected energy into the roster, the success of the 2013 season hinged primarily on a return to or an exceeding of career norms by returning players like Lester, Lackey, Buchholz, Ortiz, and Ellsbury. I'm not saying we're in for a repeat of 2013 next year, but I don't think largely bringing back the same roster is necessarily a recipe for disaster...provided they can address the obvious holes (1B, RF, bullpen) without breaking the bank or bankrupting the farm.
As a reminder, the Dodgers trade was mostly a Lucchino/Henry undertaking. I don't give Cherington much if any credit for that one.BosRedSox5 said:
http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8323305/boston-red-sox-los-angeles-dodgers-blockbuster-trade-anatomy
chrisfont9 said:
Because he paid them huge sums of money because he expected them to perform and every last one of them has been horrible.
I mean, sure, maybe it happens to one guy, but to 7 of them? That's not coincidence.
Look, the team is expensive, it sucks, it's not improving, and it's now looking like another waste of a season. The Trey Ball thing is just a cherry on top of the turd sundae. I'm not sure what a GM has to do to get fired around here, but Cherington's at least exploring the area.
I'm getting closer and closer to hopping on the fire Ben bandwagon the more I read.
Maybe this is nothing, but does it seem unusual to anyone else that (apart from Mike Port) the Red Sox have had a native New Englander as GM since Haywood Sullivan?
2012 - Present: Ben Cherington (Meriden, NH)
2003 - 2011: Theo Epstein (Brookline, MA)
2002: Mike Port (Southern California)
1994 - 2001 Dan Duquette (Dalton, MA)
1984 - 1993 Lou Gorman (South Providence, RI)
Is there a reason for that, is it just that the Red Sox attract a lot of smart, local, Ivy Leaguers who intern here and get promoted/hired eventually? Are there a disproportionate amount of baseball execs from New England because baseball is such a big deal here and in other places football is the #1 sport?
Maybe this is nothing, but does it seem unusual to anyone else that (apart from Mike Port) the Red Sox have had a native New Englander as GM since Haywood Sullivan?
2012 - Present: Ben Cherington (Meriden, NH)
2003 - 2011: Theo Epstein (Brookline, MA)
1994 - 2001 Dan Duquette (Dalton, MA)
1984 - 1993 Lou Gorman (South Providence, RI)
Is there a reason for that, is it just that the Red Sox attract a lot of smart, local, Ivy Leaguers who intern here and get promoted/hired eventually? Are there a disproportionate amount of baseball execs from New England because baseball is such a big deal here and in other places football is the #1 sport?
Doesn't that make it more likely that it is in large part the coaching staff? Most of those guys have decent career numbers to work off of. So while Rusney may have been bad evaluation by Ben, Sandoval, for example,falling off a cliff as a RHB vs. LHP isn't because Ben gave him a contract. Even if Ben was terrible at evaluating talent, shouldn't there be more of a random distribution of under and over performers? For every player he signs to be worse than expected and worse than in the past you would need him to have an actual skill for picking out players who are about to fall apart.Smiling Joe Hesketh said:
My facetious answer for Sandoval and Ramirez is replacement level is an improvement, but yes I see them as better than this year but my low expectations coming into this season are even lower going forward. I did not expect them to play at All Star level, but I dismayed by the reduction of Hanley's skill set to hit the ball hard, and that's it. I already addressed Sandoval. As to '13, the improved play from the incumbents was due largely to injury recovery, even with Pedroia's subsequent thumb injury.Red(s)HawksFan said:
moondog80 said:
Sheer unexpected luck. It happens.
Ben's been in charge 4 years and has finished last in 3 of them. I suspect that's a more likely indicator of his GM abilities than a single great year (and no doubt about it, it was tremendous).
This thread is ridiculous.
The notion that Trey Ball is a big knock against the front office is ridiculous.
The notion that all the free agents and trades have failed is ridiculous.
The notion that all the underperforming free agents/trade targets were predictable is ridiculous.
You want to say the front office has been more bad than good, go ahead, make the argument.
The notion that this team is in some terrible death spiral is ridiculous.
The notion that Trey Ball is a big knock against the front office is ridiculous.
The notion that all the free agents and trades have failed is ridiculous.
The notion that all the underperforming free agents/trade targets were predictable is ridiculous.
You want to say the front office has been more bad than good, go ahead, make the argument.
The notion that this team is in some terrible death spiral is ridiculous.
Rasputin said:
Strong arguments there, Ras.
The notion that the team has spent $200 million plus and is on pace for its 3rd last place finish in the last 4 years is what's really ridiculous.
Exactly. The front office brings them in the door. What happens next is up to others. Should they have foreseen dropoffs in productivity? In Sandoval's case maybe, not so sure about anyone else.moondog80 said:
I'm not going to bother commenting on the "last place and expensive" line. And I don't buy any of the "TREY BALL IS A FAILURE FIRE BEN NOW" stuff. Benintendi is crushing A- ball. Should that weigh on on Ben keeping his job? He's had a couple good weeks now, I think we know how this will turn out.
Smiling Joe Hesketh said:
Fuck, this is getting old. The season isn't over yet. They have NOT finished last in three out of four years because this year isn't fucking over yet. They might be done as far as post-season chances go, but there exists a greater than 0% chance that they can at least climb out of the cellar by the end of September. Particularly considering the nose-dive the Rays have taken in the last 3 weeks.
So I guess that does broach the question whether with a few roster adjustments over the next few weeks, and I'm talking more shedding dead weight like Napoli rather than trying to acquire significant upgrades, the team can right the ship a bit and finish out the year respectably. And if they do, does a 3rd or 4th place finish change the outlook for 2016 and beyond in anyone's mind?
While we're giving the minor-league scouts their due, it came out today that they apparently tried to get deGrom back in 2012 when they dealt Shoppach to the Mets. Didn't work, but the fact that they were on him is noteworthy.
It certainly does. If you're not going to make the playoffs, by all means, finish last. Aren't we mostly Celtics fans here? Surely we get how the draft works, don't we?Red(s)HawksFan said:
I wonder if some of us aren't struggling with some antiquated notion of "building" being this slow, steady upward mobility. Nowadays it simply isn't so rare to see a team go from last to first. Me personally, I'd love to see us make the playoffs every year, but in every year when we don't, I'd be perfectly fine with getting the top overall draft pick.
Rasputin said:
Not going to touch the draft or minor leagues because that has been a huge success.
The trades by and large have been horrible. Andrew Miller for Erod looks like a huge win everything else was poor or worse. Lackey for Kelly and Craig looks to be an unmitigated disaster and there were plenty of people AT THE TIME of the trade that predicted it would be. This isn't any sort of revisionist history. It was more than likely that Craig was done when Sox traded for him and Kelly was and still is a complete enigma. Lester for 1yr of control of Cespedes and then to turn that into 1yr of Porcello is a terrible return compared to what an elite starting pitcher typically returns.
Sandoval was a huge gamble given his weight issues and the fact he is completely undisciplined at the plate, which is not at all in line with the hitting philosophy of the org.
Let's not even begin to discuss the Masterson signing which has gone about as well as expected given how he performed last season. How on Earth was he worth 11M?
I think the FO needs a shakeup, but there are problems above the GM. Despite '13, it seems to me there's been trouble since the Teixiera episode, bad decisions made in near-panic mode -- Crawford after missing on Werth, the '14 deadline trades to meet immediate needs, Castillo after missing on Abreu. Sandoval I understand: it was an overpay for a needed piece on a supposedly good team, like Lugo and Drew in '07.
But to me, deciding what to do about Sandoval is now a huge issue. If he continues to play like this, he's another Craig, with a bigger contract -- he has no place on an MLB roster, because he doesn't hit well enough for first or DH. Another big issue is the decision point on Castillo, who is currently a 28-year-old AAA outfielder.
But to me, deciding what to do about Sandoval is now a huge issue. If he continues to play like this, he's another Craig, with a bigger contract -- he has no place on an MLB roster, because he doesn't hit well enough for first or DH. Another big issue is the decision point on Castillo, who is currently a 28-year-old AAA outfielder.
Red(s)HawksFan said:
I think it would, if only because that would happen as the result of certain players performing better than they have thus far - if they finish with a strong record because, say, Sandoval righted the ship or Hanley improved his defense or Porcello rebounded or Bradley came up and kept hitting like he has at AAA, then sure, I'd probably feel better about 2016.
I should probably also note that I wouldn't be especially surprised if these things happened.
What's wrong with the FO's approach?
* Keep FA contracts short if possible -- FAs are a crapshoot, and seem to not work out that often, but sometimes you need veterans. If you keep the contract short, you can try again the next offseason and might even be able to unload them.
* (mostly) Hang on to prospects -- Prospects are also a crapshoot, but if you have ten "studs" you should at least end up with two actual studs. Betts and Bogaerts look like a pretty good return so far.
And then there's what the Sox gave up in all these horrible trades. It wasn't "Lester," it was two months of Lester. Lackey maybe the same, although it ended up being a year and two months. It would have been nice to get more for them, but where is the evidence that the Sox turned down better deals? Porcello was a four-win player last year (B-Ref) when the trade was made. Now after a bad first half he's history's greatest monster? Hell, even at his worst his FIP is a run lower than his actual ERA. And who wants Rubby and Webster back?
Shit hasn't worked out, like historically. But it's still very early in the life of these moves, and Ed-Rod for two months of a setup guy is likely to swamp all of the other discussions.
* Keep FA contracts short if possible -- FAs are a crapshoot, and seem to not work out that often, but sometimes you need veterans. If you keep the contract short, you can try again the next offseason and might even be able to unload them.
* (mostly) Hang on to prospects -- Prospects are also a crapshoot, but if you have ten "studs" you should at least end up with two actual studs. Betts and Bogaerts look like a pretty good return so far.
And then there's what the Sox gave up in all these horrible trades. It wasn't "Lester," it was two months of Lester. Lackey maybe the same, although it ended up being a year and two months. It would have been nice to get more for them, but where is the evidence that the Sox turned down better deals? Porcello was a four-win player last year (B-Ref) when the trade was made. Now after a bad first half he's history's greatest monster? Hell, even at his worst his FIP is a run lower than his actual ERA. And who wants Rubby and Webster back?
Shit hasn't worked out, like historically. But it's still very early in the life of these moves, and Ed-Rod for two months of a setup guy is likely to swamp all of the other discussions.
Come on. If Cherington traded a season and a half of Lackey to St. Louis and fully expected Craig and Kelly to be essentially AAAA players, then he's a bad GM. If Lackey had that little trade value,the Sox were better off calling his bluff. He gambled that those 2 would be better, and maybe they will be, but the outlook's a little bleak.chrisfont9 said:
Sure, that deal looks poor, if you knew he was coming back on the minimum deal. That's the worst of it.jtn46 said:
I see it as the Sox being too scared of playing in the "rebuild mode" space, rather than the free agent space, since the Sox best assets dealt last season (Lackey and Lester) were intentionally swapped for MLB players rather than prospects.Rudy Pemberton said:
Which, ironically enough, means that the best possible options to acquire impact players, were in fact played straightaway from the Sox' actual strengths as an organization, which is amateur scouting and the farm system, into the teeth of where the Sox has proven least capable, which is pro scouting and evaluation.
j44thor said:
So, huge success in the minors.
Huge success in a trade.
But somehow the Lackey trade where we traded away a year and a half of Lackey for Craig and Kelly is an unmitigated disaster? That's ridiculous. We're going to have them under control for several more years. Even if you write Craig off as utterly useless for the rest of his contract, Kelly has three arb years left and still has plenty of time to be worth more than Lackey.
Rick Porcello was a good return for Jon Lester. Everyone seems to be judging the return based on the notion that Jon Lester was an elite pitcher based entirely on the 2013 post season and the first four months of 2014. Look at what he did before October, 2013, look how old he was, and look at the fact that he's already gone from the team he was traded to. Then look at what Rick Porcello did before 2015. Sure, it hasn't worked out well so far, but unless you're prepared to suggest the team should have known that his groundball rate would shrink, and his infield fly rate would be half his career average leading to career highs in both fly ball rate and homers per fly ball, it's hard to see how it makes any sense to blame management.
The Masterson signing was dumb.
Panda is overpaid but the options were pretty limited. Did you really want another season of Will Middlebrooks? Did you really want Hanley Ramirez at third base?
The criticism of the Ramirez signing is the worst kind of post hoc rationalization. Ramirez came to the Sox and said he wanted to play here, was willing to take less to play here, and was willing to play a position he'd never played before. Knowing how good a hitter he is and how old David Ortiz is, there isn't a single one of us that wouldn't have signed that deal. The criticism comes from the utterly shocking fact that he hasn't been a good left fielder in the first season he ever played left. The talk about him being the fourth worst position player in the majors or whatever the hell it is is based entirely on a defensive WAR stat that is completely useless in the sample we have.
I don't really give a shit if Ben Cherington has a job. I sure as hell give a shit if ownership is making decisions for stupid, poorly thought out reasons.
And sure, the team finished last twice in the previous three years, and is well on their way to finishing last this year. The Sox have been in transition during that period and if the results on the field haven't been as consistent as you'd like, the period does include a World Series title and the emergence of excellent young players at key positions. The team that shows up to spring training in 2016 is going to be built around guys who are under 25. Betts, Bogaerts, Vazquez, Swihart, Rodriguez.
OK .. I'm not suggesting Ben and Co. dont share some culpability for this mess. But the bottom line is that it's the players that have failed. It's not the front office's fault that Porcello went from a very promising young starter to the worst in the league. The same is true for Kelly. It's not their fault that Sandoval has regressed from a very good player to a really bad one in one off season. If he's playing like shite because of his weight then its HIS fault. It's not their fault that Hanley won't put in the time to learn to play The Wall. It's not their fault that Napoli fell off a cliff or Ortiz remembered he's 39 or both their starting catchers got hurt and they had to call up a not quite ready Swihart.
I know .. It's Boston .. Players Win and Management Loses. But blaming the FO for the massive underachievement of most of the team hardly seems like a sensible thing to do.
That being said , going forward I think they should:
- Trade or release Victorino and give the full time gig to Bradley .. 300 ABs to sink or swim
- Trade or release Napoli and move Hanley to 1B - a 60 or 70 game on the job training lesson.
- bring up Castillo - another 300 ABs to sink or swim
- live with Sandoval's performance this year but make sure he knows - under threat of riding the bench or worse- that he has to show up in better shape next year - for christs sake they've made a hundred million dollar investment - can't they get him a personal dietician and trainer?
- audition EdRo, Brian Johnson, Wright and Owens in the 4th and 5th spots. Try to limit EdRo's innings.
- ease Buchholz back
- trade Koji - they actually might get this year's version of EdRo for him.
- bring up Kelly and audition him in the pen.
- release Breslow
As far as the front office is concerned , as it's difficult to know who is actually pulling the strings it's difficult to know who to blame. That being said I'd get rid of Baird .. He seems to be responsible for both the Crawford and Castillo signings. These alone should really be firing offences.
Farrell ? the main focus should be on developing the young pitchers. If he's good at that then he should stay.
I know .. It's Boston .. Players Win and Management Loses. But blaming the FO for the massive underachievement of most of the team hardly seems like a sensible thing to do.
That being said , going forward I think they should:
- Trade or release Victorino and give the full time gig to Bradley .. 300 ABs to sink or swim
- Trade or release Napoli and move Hanley to 1B - a 60 or 70 game on the job training lesson.
- bring up Castillo - another 300 ABs to sink or swim
- live with Sandoval's performance this year but make sure he knows - under threat of riding the bench or worse- that he has to show up in better shape next year - for christs sake they've made a hundred million dollar investment - can't they get him a personal dietician and trainer?
- audition EdRo, Brian Johnson, Wright and Owens in the 4th and 5th spots. Try to limit EdRo's innings.
- ease Buchholz back
- trade Koji - they actually might get this year's version of EdRo for him.
- bring up Kelly and audition him in the pen.
- release Breslow
As far as the front office is concerned , as it's difficult to know who is actually pulling the strings it's difficult to know who to blame. That being said I'd get rid of Baird .. He seems to be responsible for both the Crawford and Castillo signings. These alone should really be firing offences.
Farrell ? the main focus should be on developing the young pitchers. If he's good at that then he should stay.
I personally started to feel concerned when Vazquez got hurt. Still think that hurt a lot. In hindsight I wish they passed on Panda and let either Mookie move over or played Holt there, but the rest of the moves I don't regret. Middlebrooks had to go, period, and he's been just as bad in San Diego.Rasputin said:
In the off season, I thought the pitching would be better than expected based on how good Vazquez is. I don't know how we'd ever get enough data to find out for sure, but I would love to know how much difference the loss of Vazquez has made.chrisfont9 said:
They won a world series with WMB at third. When the other option was a massive overpay, go with him or go with Holt and try to get an upgrade later. The availability thing is so bunk -- good teams work around those problems. If there are no good free agents that look to be available soon, you find the next player who comes out of relative nowhere to do an adequate job, and you go for the gold at other positions. You don't outbid everyone to get the mediocre free agent. I assure you that at some point there would be an option to get a better player than Panda.Rasputin said:
They assumed Hanley could play left sight unseen. He absolutely can't and they deserve tons of criticism for that. He has hurt his production at the plate because he hurt himself trying to field.
With all the guys underperforming, it's not enough to throw up your hands and say "Well Fangraphs projected them highly!" The team isn't looking at Fangraphs for projections. They are supposed to be having more advanced analysis with more advanced metrics and supplementing them with scouting that is supposed to help them avoid disasters like Porcello and Panda. It's not working.
Overall it was a good set of moves, but the Sox could have traded Lester for a prospect package which in hindsight would have probably been better. The extension was a gamble, and right now it looks like a bad one.Rasputin said:
Rasputin said:
I'm not sure what Ben Cherington's job is if it's not to hire people who are capable of determining what the future performance of players the Red Sox are acquiring will be. On what would you suggest we rate his performance other than the performance of the players he signs? I mean, if we're not going to blame management for signing players who don't play well (and/or hiring managers/coaches who are incapable of drawing the best performance out of the players they sign), Lou Gorman should've never been fired.
Numerous commentators who disdain the use of WAR have said that the eyeball test tells them that he's the worst left-fielder they've seen in some time. Suggesting that an overreliance on WAR is what's leading people to say he's a historically bad OF is ridiculous.
Also, the "he's playing LF for the first time" stuff is no longer acceptable. Starting with spring training, he's now spent over six months learning to play LF. If you want to just say he's a LF from the Michael Morse/Pat Burrell school, and you just have to hope his offense makes up for his defense, that's fine, but don't try to convince me that he just needs a few more innings under his belt before he's an acceptable LF.
That's hindsight based on what is now the worst two thirds of a session of Porcello's career at a time when the prospects would still be prospects. A year from now we might well be glad that we have Porcello in the rotation instead of having to try to trade for someone.jtn46 said:
Unless he's hiding some kind of injury that we don't know about, I think the rest of his time here is going to look a lot more like his Detroit career than his first for months here.
No. At least not in my mind. I want to know as much as possible about the guys who are major league ready or close to it.grimshaw said:
That means Barnes is up in the pen even if it costs games.
It means Rodriguez and Johnson are in the rotation. It means Owens gets up here and gets regular action as soon as possible.
Maybe they can use the Three rookies to fill two rotation slots to get good looks at them all while keeping their innings down.
It means we get JBJ and Castillo up here and playing regularly.
It means we audition everyone we have at first base.
It is the job of the front office to essentially make educated guesses of each player's future performance, and attach price tags to that projected performance. Absolutely. That's what they get paid for.
But let's not forget that we are talking about a little over one half of one season here for guys like Panda and Hanley and Porcello. Many, many players a lot better than them have gone through awful 3-month stretches. Baseball is just that kind of sport.
I was a fan of the Porcello trade but not of the extension. I liked the Hanley signing. I didn't love the Panda signing but I understood it.
I think it's foolish to write off these acquisitions as failures given that we are just three months into them. It may yet be the case that in the end, they WERE bad acquisitions. But it's also quite possible that they aren't. Time will tell.
But let's not forget that we are talking about a little over one half of one season here for guys like Panda and Hanley and Porcello. Many, many players a lot better than them have gone through awful 3-month stretches. Baseball is just that kind of sport.
I was a fan of the Porcello trade but not of the extension. I liked the Hanley signing. I didn't love the Panda signing but I understood it.
I think it's foolish to write off these acquisitions as failures given that we are just three months into them. It may yet be the case that in the end, they WERE bad acquisitions. But it's also quite possible that they aren't. Time will tell.
ivanvamp said:
I think it's pretty safe at this point to write the Porcello extension off as a complete and utter failure.
What would he be looking at right now going into this winter...a contract similar to what Masterson signed? Porcello could pitch great the rest of the way and still wouldn't realistically get anything close to what we payed out on him.
I think in general there are a bunch of moves that were close and debatable (many that haven't worked out) that are going to be characterized one way or another depending on how you feel. And then there are a few very clear wins and losses where the decisions don't seem all that close or the evaluation horizon seems reasonable at this point to pass judgment.
For me, the big, clear wins include hitting on the front end of the vet signings in '13, the Miller trade, and minor league development in general.
The really egregious losses are the Sandoval signing and the front of the rotation.
I think the last few years prove that there is a difference between gambling on short money or middling talent for hitters vs. doing it with the top of your rotation. The fit between the Sox' organizational philosophy and the SP market right now is broken, and I think it's mostly a problem of ML talent evaluation (as others have said). With no truly dominant SP at the top of the farm system, the Sox have to either find a way to efficiently and effectively gamble in the FA market for top-tier talent, or make a big trade to acquire it.
One of the luxuries of being a wealthy team is being able to pay full freight for a couple of elite players without totally hampering roster construction. In a sense, having a great minor league development system and a terrible ML talent evaluation shop (which I think is basically where we are at) is an especially inefficient use of resources in Boston relative to, say, Oakland, because we 1) have more flexibility to gamble in the ML market than many teams if we are smart about it, and 2) we are never willing to totally rebuild, so some of that minor league development is inevitably squandered.
So while we have some incredible organizational assets our big problems are 1) poor major league talent acquisition, which is especially wasteful precisely because it should be an advantage for us over all but a handful of teams, and 2) because of the poor ML talent evaluation and the unwillingness to fully rebuild / commitment to gambling on mid-tier FA talent, an inability to strategically align our assets based on their readiness / prime years - otherwise known as the too old / too young problem.
Bottom line - the scarcest resources in MLB are elite SP and elite power. Our financial muscle should be devoted to acquiring those things when we can't develop them internally, and our ML scouting has to be at a point where we can gamble on top-tier prime-age talent through FA signings or trades / extensions. We have great organizational depth and some amazing cost-controlled talent up the middle. Dealing from great depth and financial muscle should mean that even if we are not exploiting inefficiencies - even if our evaluation and planning is merely average - we should be able to convert those assets into a better team without totally mortgaging the future. But right now we haven't and I don't trust that we have the ML talent evaluation or strategic acumen to do so.
For me, the big, clear wins include hitting on the front end of the vet signings in '13, the Miller trade, and minor league development in general.
The really egregious losses are the Sandoval signing and the front of the rotation.
I think the last few years prove that there is a difference between gambling on short money or middling talent for hitters vs. doing it with the top of your rotation. The fit between the Sox' organizational philosophy and the SP market right now is broken, and I think it's mostly a problem of ML talent evaluation (as others have said). With no truly dominant SP at the top of the farm system, the Sox have to either find a way to efficiently and effectively gamble in the FA market for top-tier talent, or make a big trade to acquire it.
One of the luxuries of being a wealthy team is being able to pay full freight for a couple of elite players without totally hampering roster construction. In a sense, having a great minor league development system and a terrible ML talent evaluation shop (which I think is basically where we are at) is an especially inefficient use of resources in Boston relative to, say, Oakland, because we 1) have more flexibility to gamble in the ML market than many teams if we are smart about it, and 2) we are never willing to totally rebuild, so some of that minor league development is inevitably squandered.
So while we have some incredible organizational assets our big problems are 1) poor major league talent acquisition, which is especially wasteful precisely because it should be an advantage for us over all but a handful of teams, and 2) because of the poor ML talent evaluation and the unwillingness to fully rebuild / commitment to gambling on mid-tier FA talent, an inability to strategically align our assets based on their readiness / prime years - otherwise known as the too old / too young problem.
Bottom line - the scarcest resources in MLB are elite SP and elite power. Our financial muscle should be devoted to acquiring those things when we can't develop them internally, and our ML scouting has to be at a point where we can gamble on top-tier prime-age talent through FA signings or trades / extensions. We have great organizational depth and some amazing cost-controlled talent up the middle. Dealing from great depth and financial muscle should mean that even if we are not exploiting inefficiencies - even if our evaluation and planning is merely average - we should be able to convert those assets into a better team without totally mortgaging the future. But right now we haven't and I don't trust that we have the ML talent evaluation or strategic acumen to do so.
yeah it was part wish casting but the early returns were that he was both very good and a potentially stabilizing person at the position, which has obviously turned into yet another shit show.Rasputin said:
I was getting at that. Except I don't believe having Barnes in the pen costs them games and it isn't done just because it's "garbage time,". If he replaces Breslow or Masterson tomorrow, they couldn't possibly lose more games. I'm not terribly bullish on him based on the fact he has yet to force the issue in the minors with his so so numbers (for a guy who was a top 5 system prospect not long ago). What's to be determined is whether he's just another guy or not and that doesn't cost them games.Rasputin said:
I've been advocating JBJ all year. Right field is still up for grabs with all the ramen like bats there over the last year+. Again - they aren't sacrificing games based on the current performance. Totally ambivalent about playing Castillo full time until he shows he has a single baseball instinct. I'm fine with him as a platoon guy, but my stance on him has been that he isn't being paid to perform like a superstar, so you don't have to trot him out there every day unless he actually earns it. I want JBJ to seize the job and take a dump on Farrell's front lawn.
Auditioning anyone over Napoli is almost certainly an upgrade. Especially if it involves getting Hanley out of LF. They don't have a long lineup of guys to trot out there either. I'm not a Shaw advocate.
As for Owens - I believe he is ready, but they can't really sit there current guys. They can probably wait until September when they are officially out of it, to give him long relief stints like they did with the kids last year.
Calling Porcello a major disappointment would be a major understatement. That said it's hard for me to write off the extension as a "complete and utter failure" seeing he's not yet entered the extended years. At 26 years old, here's hoping that down the stretch and through the off season he's able to rediscover his 2014 form.