Well, he was VP of player personnel under Theo, so he can probably take some credit for those guys.
JimD said:
Not to pick on you, but my God - what an entitled fanbase we've become.
Winning championships is really, really hard. Strong organizations with good GM's underperform (Braves - 2nd highest win total over last 20 years with one WS title to show for it; Indians - averaged 93 wins 1995-2001, zero titles; Tigers - averaged 91.5 wins 2011-14, zero titles). Strong organizations with good GM's go through rebuilding phases (Brian Sabean's Giants averaged 73.5 wins from 2005-08).
By all means, fans are certainly within their rights to be disappointed in this team and organization (I certainly am) and to demand better, especially given the prices we are expected to pay to watch and attend games, but let's not become the type of fanbase that we used to despise.
plucy said:The front office and ownership need to rethink their approach to the five year plan concept. The last two have failed (need to give this one another year to be truthful). I thought the Punto trade and low cost restock signaled a departure from the boondoggle, but another massive spending spree on FAs and extensions beginning with the Craig acquisition has squandered the flexibility to respond to team needs. That's why I can't completely blame Ben. It happened under Theo's watch with the Lackey signing, Beckett extension, Gonzalez deal and Crawford's signing. Twice they have failed to build off payroll room by committing $400-500 million to stock the team for a long run rather than shorter term success.
Prior to the '14 season the only guaranteed contract for '16 was Pedroia. Now it's about $106 million. If Buchholz and Ortiz return on options (most likely), and the arb guys are kept, that's $145 MM. 40 man and benefits, you have about $163MM. So unless Henry green lights another foray into tax land ( which they will have trouble leaving unless Uehara or Buch are dealt since the expiring deals belong to underperfomers), the Sox will be relying on better performance from the existing team to become a contender in 16.
Not just Cherington either. Guys like Hazen and Sawdaye deserve credit for all of that as well.smastroyin said:Well, he was VP of player personnel under Theo, so he can probably take some credit for those guys.
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:The idea that Cherington is strong at building the farm system depends on assigning him credit for some of the moves before he took over as GM, right? Xander, Mookie, Swihart, and Margot all joined in the Theo era. Trading for Rodriguez looks great, and Devers and Moncada are making prospect waves, but it seems most of what he's done (and he does deserve credit for this) is not panic-trade prospects for vets.
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:
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.
dcmissle said: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.
plucy said: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?
As for pitching Porcello cannot be a high K guy and succeed. So another overpay for a GB pitcher.
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:I still think the Dodgers trade was inspired. It was a huge feather in BC's cap and allowed him to hit the re-set button on the team and start fresh. It was a big coup and we even managed to get two new pitching prospects who seemed pretty good.
chrisfont9 said:"The math" includes a lot of players who are underperforming their recent or career norm production. How is that the GM's fault?
But again, the same front office had nearly the exact opposite experience two years ago, where every move turned out awesome. If they are so terrible, how did that happen?Smiling Joe Hesketh 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.
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:
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.
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:
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.
moondog80 said:But again, the same front office had nearly the exact opposite experience two years ago, where every move turned out awesome. If they are so terrible, how did that happen?
Rasputin said: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.
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:But again, the same front office had nearly the exact opposite experience two years ago, where every move turned out awesome. If they are so terrible, how did that happen?
Smiling Joe Hesketh 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).
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:And if they do, does a 3rd or 4th place finish change the outlook for 2016 and beyond in anyone's mind?
Rasputin said: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.
Red(s)HawksFan said: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?
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:
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?
Sure, that deal looks poor, if you knew he was coming back on the minimum deal. That's the worst of it.jtn46 said: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.
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:I don't know if the Sox down turned better deals for Lackey, but they would have been better off giving him his outright release. They traded Lackey, Cory Littrell, and even threw in $1 million dollars in order to take on Kelly and Craig. It's hard to imagine a worse deal.
Insisting on major league players and the contracts they come with for Lester and Lackey had to have limited their options. I assume a large part of that was being so scared of playing in the free agent space- being so rigid with length of deals and age of players they'd pursue limited their potential options there as well.
It's just reakky difficult to see any kind of organizational philosophy. They are all over the place and who knows what the new plan will be this off season.
j44thor 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 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: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 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.
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: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.
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:
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.
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:
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.
Rasputin said: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 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.
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: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.
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:The whole "play the kids" thing doesn't really have much to do with playing for next year anyhow. It's more like "play the kids because the regulars suck so hard they can't possibly do worse,"
ivanvamp said: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.
MikeM said:
I think it's pretty safe at this point to write the Porcello extension off as a complete and utter failure.
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: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.
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: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.
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.