I'll get into this a little bit more. The basic point is what
@mikcou mentioned in one of his posts, namely that most large market teams (NY, LA, SF, StL, etc) don't go through these same boom-busts schizophrenic periods that the Red Sox have gone through in the last decade or so. I'm not going to go too far down this road on this particular point, but I think that this type of whiplash is detrimental to a fan base.
But the reason why I chose divisional places instead of overall records or games behind is because I was doing a very quick and dirty assumption: mainly that whether that team finished third in 1998 or third in 2012, we can presume that a third place record would be enough to have the team in the conversation for a postseason appearance with 2023 rules. Are all third place teams alike? Of course not, and you've shown that with a couple of W-L records over the years (thank you), but I think that one can safely predict that a finish in third place will show you a baseball team that had a cromulent year.
The Red Sox should be able to do this. A consistently good team over a long period of time is the goal here, or it should be. Yes, the rules have changed, but there are a handful of teams who seem to have been able to figure out a way to bring up quality minor leaguers, supplement some strong free agent signings and trades while fielding a good-to-sometimes-great team year after year after year after year. Why can't Boston do this? That's my question. Why can't the Red Sox front office be as smart as the Giants? Or the Cardinals? Or the Yankees? Is this too big of an ask? Am I asking too much from my team? Is this the "whining" that Bloomers talk about?
I don't know, but I don't think that it's crazy to want to hold your team to a very modest standard of not sucking.
Maybe you're right that the constant changes in the Front Office is to blame for this. And if that's the case, then we have to put the spotlight on FSG and ask them if they know what the fuck they're doing?
I'm glad you brought up the Astros, because they are an outlier (and I should have explained this a bit more in my initial post) for a number of reasons. One, they were really shitty about a decade ago. I know it seems as if the Astros are the "nouveau rich" of baseball, but they've been consistently good for almost ten years. That's a long time in baseball terms. No, it's not the Yankees or Dodgers, but just like the Pats weren't the Packers or Steelers (teams with long running winning traditions), the Astros are almost past the point of being a curiosity--that shitty team that lucked into a good season or two. Their almost decade of consistency means that they're up there with franchises that have been really good over a long period of time.
Another reason that they're an outlier is because they're really the only team that has done this "burn the house down and rebuild it back up" process that has shown long-term success. We all remember the lean Houston years and how awful they were but that doesn't guarantee success. Look at the Cubs, they did the same thing and their window was what? Three years? Four? The White Sox tried something similar and their window has just about closed. The Pirates, the Orioles (v1.0), the A's have all done similar things with minimal success.
What does this ultimately mean? At this point, even though history is working against the Sox, they may as well blow it up. This was supposed to be the offseason that they were going to get back into the thick of things, free agent wise, and it passed them by. They obviously don't want to deal off high ranking prospects, so I don't think this year's version of Pedro or Schilling or Beckett or whomever is walking through that door. I also think that Devers is gone. At this point, and I hate saying this because I don't think that the Boston Red Sox should ever do this, but the only real course of action is to punt 2023. And maybe 2024.
The one unknown in all of this is whether Bloom is the man to lead a complete and total rebuild. My confidence level in him to do this is practically nil right now. But the FSG seems to believe in him, so there's not much that I can do about that.
But maybe they’ll get lucky and things will work out. Though I feel that has been the motto of the team for the entire Bloom administration. So why change it now?
