Alex Cora named Red Sox manager

Hank Scorpio

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Hiding behind the poor recent minority hiring numbers in all baseball doesn't justify squat - it just makes the Sox one of a number of teams that should be criticized. And even moreso than most other teams because at least a good number of those teams have hired minority managers in the past. Sorry, but the Sox should be scrutinized especially hard here because of their shameful history of lagging behind everyone else in breaking the color barrier on the field. The organization has made great strides in minority-related issues over the last few decades on multiple levels so there's that of course, but still, the first Latino (Preston Gomez) and black (Frank Robinson) managerial hires happened over 40 years ago, and for us, it was yesterday. I'm not trying to be a buzzkill - I'm very happy about the Cora signing including because he seemed by far the best candidate - but just feel that this sorry legacy should be acknowledged somewhere
Why should this ownership be criticized?

They’ve hired three managers in approximately 15 years of ownership, the first brought us two championships and near-yearly playoff appearances. The third brought us another championship and three division titles in five years.

So I guess let’s shake our collective fists at the sky and hiss through gnashed teeth over the Bobby V hire, “they should have hired a minority!”

Alex Cora got hired because he’s Alex Cora. Not because he’s Puerto Rican, not because he’s a Latino, and not so fans can stroke themselves with one hand while patting themselves on the back with the other while musing that “it’s about time!”

He’s not Jackie Robinson breaking barriers, and he didn’t get bonus points because of his ethnicity. He got the job because he was the best candidate.

He’s not Pumpsie Green either. We’re taking about one job filled by one person, for typically multiple years at a time. The position of Red Sox manager wasn't entrenched in some systemic racism.

But if you want to feel better, just pretend the other Joe Morgan was our manager back in the 80s.
 

strek1

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Hiding behind the poor recent minority hiring numbers in all baseball doesn't justify squat - it just makes the Sox one of a number of teams that should be criticized. And even moreso than most other teams because at least a good number of those teams have hired minority managers in the past. Sorry, but the Sox should be scrutinized especially hard here because of their shameful history of lagging behind everyone else in breaking the color barrier on the field. The organization has made great strides in minority-related issues over the last few decades on multiple levels so there's that of course, but still, the first Latino (Preston Gomez) and black (Frank Robinson) managerial hires happened over 40 years ago, and for us, it was yesterday. I'm not trying to be a buzzkill - I'm very happy about the Cora signing including because he seemed by far the best candidate - but just feel that this sorry legacy should be acknowledged somewhere
It seems to me the Red Sox sorry legacy HAS been acknowledged in many places ad naseum. Can we move on now?
 

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Curt Young (friend of Tito) is rumored as the new Indians pitching coach.

Why was Hickey fired? I can't find a single article.
 

joe dokes

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Curt Young (friend of Tito) is rumored as the new Indians pitching coach.

Why was Hickey fired? I can't find a single article.

This sounds plausible:
http://www.tampabay.com/sports/rays-replace-pitching-coach-jim-hickey-with-kyle-snyder/2339794
Signed through the coming season, Hickey had no sense a change was pending when he went into a Tuesday meeting with his bosses. A good guess would have been they wanted to talk about their plan to pull certain starters early from games and regularly use relievers for multi-inning stints.
"Going forward we probably had a little bit of a difference of opinion on the strategies employed to get the most out of our pitchers," Hickey said Tuesday night. "I only had one year left on my contract and I wasn't 100 percent on board with the direction, so we simply agreed to mutually part ways one year prior than we probably would have anyway."
 

BestGameEvah

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Curt Young (friend of Tito) is rumored as the new Indians pitching coach.

Why was Hickey fired? I can't find a single article.


Time for Hickey to go

As good as Hickey is and as much as the Rays value pitching you'd think they'd do anything to keep him around. But Hickey wasn't long for the job, likely to leave after 2018 when his contract was up anyway. That was in part wanting to be with a team better positioned to win — having made the playoffs six times in 10 years with the Astros and Rays creates that thirst. And, as he admitted, having a "difference of opinion" and not being "100 percent on board" with the Rays' direction, which surely includes their plans to pull starters early and use relievers more. The pitching coach has to sell that and other strategies to the staff, and with the young arms they have coming, Snyder is better positioned to do that. Also, it wasn't about money as the difference in salaries between Hickey and Snyder wasn't much relatively (maybe a few hundred thousand), and the Rays could end up paying Hickey his full salary to not work. But expect him to land a big-time gig, with the Cardinals and Mets already rumored, and the potential for some other appealing jobs to come open.
 

Captaincoop

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Just about anybody is going to be an in-game and PR improvement over Farrell, but is anyone a little bit worried about having a first-time manager get the Red Sox job? Boston may not be the place for a first managerial position.
 

dcmissle

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Just about anybody is going to be an in-game and PR improvement over Farrell, but is anyone a little bit worried about having a first-time manager get the Red Sox job? Boston may not be the place for a first managerial position.
Not me. Anyone sentient who had endured Boston as a player should be just fine.

Edit. And this is NOT aimed at you. Anyone with priapism all season long over clipping Farrell would be wise to keep a low target profile at this point. All of these people knew the deal going in -- Tito was not walking thru that door; Maddon was not going to be shaken lose from the Cubs, or Girardi from the Yankees. Look at the guys getting the openings (and I heard no drumbeat for Gardenhire). The non-available perfect should not be made the enemy of good.
 
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Rasputin

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Just about anybody is going to be an in-game and PR improvement over Farrell
How do people say shit like this with a straight face?

Bobby Valentine--not a PR or in-game improvement over Farrell. Jimy Williams, Grady Little, Butch Hobson, Kevin Kennedy. Remember these fucking guys?

Don't get me wrong, I think Farrell was thoroughly mediocre, but holy fuck, have you completely lost all memory of what managers were like pre-Francona?

It's a lot easier to look like you'd be a good manager than to actually be a good manager. Alex Cora looks like he'll be a good manager but it could be completely obvious by the all-star break that he's a goddamn nightmare. We don't fucking know and if there's one goddamn thing we should have learned by the time we graduate from fucking kindergarten, it's that THINGS CAN ALWAYS GET WORSE.
 

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is anyone a little bit worried about having a first-time manager get the Red Sox job? Boston may not be the place for a first managerial position.
It's certainly something to watch. He appears to be an intelligent, composed guy, but playing UI for the Sox and managing the team are worlds apart in terms of press, pressure, fan focus, etc.
Francona failed in his first job, as did Belichick. It's not wrong to at least have a concern about Cora diving into this pressure cooker.
 

Rovin Romine

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Not me. Anyone sentient who had endured Boston as a player should be just fine.

Edit. And this is NOT aimed at you. Anyone with priapism all season long over clipping Farrell would be wise to keep a low target profile at this point. All of these people knew the deal going in -- Tito's was not walking thru that door; Maddon was not going to be shaken lose from the Cubs, or Girardi from the Yankees. Look at the guys getting the openings (and I heard no drumbeat for Gardenhire). The non-available perfect should not be made the enemy of good.
I think this inflates what happens here. Farrell had his plusses and minuses. Cora will have his plusses and minuses - and I have no doubt he'll get a grace period. (I don't recall a serous group gunning for Farrell until his third season.)

If Cora adapts and learns on the job, he'll be just fine, both in Boston and here. IMO the biggest things he could do in his first year to rile up the fan base is to somehow suggest the games don't matter, stake out and commit to a personal "quirk" or repeated "manager's decision" that's decidedly suboptimal, or break out the B squad when playing the Yanks.
 

dcmissle

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I think this inflates what happens here. Farrell had his plusses and minuses. Cora will have his plusses and minuses - and I have no doubt he'll get a grace period. (I don't recall a serous group gunning for Farrell until his third season.)

If Cora adapts and learns on the job, he'll be just fine, both in Boston and here. IMO the biggest things he could do in his first year to rile up the fan base is to somehow suggest the games don't matter, stake out and commit to a personal "quirk" or repeated "manager's decision" that's decidedly suboptimal, or break out the B squad when playing the Yanks.
I don't think I am exaggerating by much. And barring debilitating injury, if we're trailing in division by 8 come the ASB, I think we are going to see serious leash shrinkage.

The implicit demand for an off-the-shelf no-warts manager astounds me, but I suppose that's my naïveté as much as anything else.

As you note, people have strengths and weaknesses; complete packages are very rare (and earn $7 MM a year).

For example, one guy available is THE perfect person to address CC's concerns. Dusty Baker.

He would with great dignity and humor politely tell everyone in town not in the clubhouse or executive suite to go fuck themselves. Players would love him. He would play them all, overcome crises, and we'd have a well rested and primed club come early October. We'd likely get those 95 to 97 wins.

BUT, his lineups would drive us all crazy. His intuitive approach would have some of us institutionalized. And come playoff time, he would be tactically outmanaged -- and we know this because the sample size is pretty big and it happens pretty much all the time. Heads would explode.

There are no Dusty-Cora clones. At least that I am aware of. Given the success of this franchise this century, some people would do well to grow up.
 

Stitch01

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How do people say shit like this with a straight face?

Bobby Valentine--not a PR or in-game improvement over Farrell. Jimy Williams, Grady Little, Butch Hobson, Kevin Kennedy. Remember these fucking guys?

Don't get me wrong, I think Farrell was thoroughly mediocre, but holy fuck, have you completely lost all memory of what managers were like pre-Francona?

It's a lot easier to look like you'd be a good manager than to actually be a good manager. Alex Cora looks like he'll be a good manager but it could be completely obvious by the all-star break that he's a goddamn nightmare. We don't fucking know and if there's one goddamn thing we should have learned by the time we graduate from fucking kindergarten, it's that THINGS CAN ALWAYS GET WORSE.
Pretty much this. Im very happy and optimistic with the hire, but there's definitely a chance this turns into a downgrade.
 

Rasputin

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He’s not Pumpsie Green either. We’re taking about one job filled by one person, for typically multiple years at a time. The position of Red Sox manager wasn't entrenched in some systemic racism.
Of course it is. I mean, of fucking course it is. Systemic racism doesn't simply mean that the people making hiring decisions look at a bunch of equally experienced and talented people and always pick the white guy. Systemic racism means it's much, much easier for the white guys to get the chance to show their talent and to get the experience that shows up on a resume to make them a candidate worth interviewing in the first place.

Now MLB is doing okay on the coaching front. The last race and gender report card shows that 42.3% of players aren't white and 44.3% of coaches aren't white. Meanwhile, in both 2016 and 2017 there were a grand total of three non-white managers and only one of the guys on the list from 2016 still has his job.

So at the moment, we have two non-white managers and four non-white general managers in an industry where non-white people have been a huge percentage of the workforce for decades.

There's also a grand total of one non-white owner.

Now I'm pretty sure our current ownership and management don't really give a fuck about anything but winning, and they deserve some kudos for hiring a non-white manager, but if there are any non-white owners they're not the principal owners. Meanwhile the President/CEO and President of Baseball Operations are all white guys.

The lasting legacy of the Duquette administration is the death of racism as a feature of Red Sox baseball, but remember, the Yawkeys owned this team from 1933 until 1992 and it was held in the Yawkey Trust until 2001. Maybe there was a chance a person of color was going to be hired for a key position when John Harrington was running things, but under the Yawkeys, there was no chance.

But if you want to feel better, just pretend the other Joe Morgan was our manager back in the 80s.
You should be better than this.
 

Captaincoop

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I don't think I am exaggerating by much. And barring debilitating injury, if we're trailing in division by 8 come the ASB, I think we are going to see serious leash shrinkage.

The implicit demand for an off-the-shelf no-warts manager astounds me, but I suppose that's my naïveté as much as anything else.

As you note, people have strengths and weaknesses; complete packages are very rare (and earn $7 MM a year).

For example, one guy available is THE perfect person to address CC's concerns. Dusty Baker.

He would with great dignity and humor politely tell everyone in town not in the clubhouse or executive suite to go fuck themselves. Players would love him. He would play them all, overcome crises, and we'd have a well rested and primed club come early October. We'd likely get those 95 to 97 wins.

BUT, his lineups would drive us all crazy. His intuitive approach would have some of us institutionalized. And come playoff time, he would be tactically outmanaged -- and we know this because the sample size is pretty big and it happens pretty much all the time. Heads would explode.

There are no Dusty-Cora clones. At least that I am aware of. Given the success of this franchise this century, some people would do well to grow up.
The options weren't limited to Dusty Baker or a first-time manager. The question I raised was whether people see enough good in Alex Cora to outweigh his lack of experience. That is all.
 

Yo La Tengo

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And one person who has to be happy with the hiring is Rusney Castillo. Cora is his biggest booster, and since the Sox will be over the luxury tax anyway, maybe Rusney gets a chance to fill Chris Young's role next year.
I am fully on board with the Cora signing and it will be fascinating to watch Castillo next spring, especially if/when and by how much the Sox spend beyond the luxury tax threshold. FWIW, this year Castillo hit .314 with a .350 on-base percentage, .507 slugging percentage, 15 homers, 22 doubles, and 14/16 stolen bases in 87 games. Putting aside the contract and the disappointing history, I think we'd love to see that stat line invited to spring training with a shot at the 4th outfielder position.
 

Snodgrass'Muff

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I am fully on board with the Cora signing and it will be fascinating to watch Castillo next spring, especially if/when and by how much the Sox spend beyond the luxury tax threshold. FWIW, this year Castillo hit .314 with a .350 on-base percentage, .507 slugging percentage, 15 homers, 22 doubles, and 14/16 stolen bases in 87 games. Putting aside the contract and the disappointing history, I think we'd love to see that stat line invited to spring training with a shot at the 4th outfielder position.
Being over doesn't mean it doesn't matter how far over they go. They won't let their payroll get over 237M next year because they can't afford to have their 1st round pick knocked back 10 spots when they have one of the 5 worst farm systems in the game going into next season.

And they'll need room to maneuver in season as well. So if they make a big signing (like Martinez) there is no chance Rusney gets a shot at a roster spot.
 
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Yo La Tengo

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Being over doesn't mean it doesn't matter how far over they go. They won't let their payroll get over 237M next year because they can't afford to have their 1st round pick knocked back 10 spots when they have one of the 5 worst farm systems in the game going into next season.

And they'll need room to maneuver in season as well. So if they make a big signing (like Martinez) they're is no chance Rusney gets a shot at a roster spot.
Agree they won't go over the +$40 million threshold, but, if they are between +20 and +40 million (with I believe the additional 12% surtax) it will be an interesting decision, especially if Castillo performs well.

EDIT: Roughly, the Sox would owe $3.8 million if their 2018 payroll is $216 million and $10.08 million if the payroll reached $236 million.
 
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JimD

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Just about anybody is going to be an in-game and PR improvement over Farrell, but is anyone a little bit worried about having a first-time manager get the Red Sox job? Boston may not be the place for a first managerial position.
There are several reasons I'm less concerned about Cora than I might be about another first-timer in Boston. One is that he had a reputation as a stand-up guy as a player and never shrunk from the media after a tough game. I believe that quality is going to serve him well - I don't see him getting all defensive when he or the team are criticized or lose a few games in a row. His time spent at ESPN also doesn't hurt, in terms of at least having some understanding of how sports media operates.

The other is that his manager here was Francona. He got to see Tito at work both during challenging and disappointing times of 2005-06 as well as during championship-contending years of 2007-08. I can't think of a better school for a prospective future manager in terms of managing expectations, dealing with veterans and bringing in young players and pulling all the right levers to win a title.
 

Captaincoop

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1. Why do we have a general manager in 2017 who is "admittedly not well versed in analytics"?

2. Cora being besties with Pedroia could be good or it could be bad.
 

joe dokes

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1. Why do we have a general manager in 2017 who is "admittedly not well versed in analytics"?

2. Cora being besties with Pedroia could be good or it could be bad.

I think you are placing way too much weight on this throwaway line from Gammons's piece:

"to his credit, Dombrowski has never pretended to be someone versed in Pitch F/X or analytics,"

(which, to me, is not the same as "admittedly not well-versed," but that's beside the point)
 

uncannymanny

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1. Why do we have a general manager in 2017 who is "admittedly not well versed in analytics"?

2. Cora being besties with Pedroia could be good or it could be bad.
His job is to hire those people and take their input, not do it himself.
 

JimD

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Yeah, I'm aware of that. But do you see any evidence that the Red Sox have remained on the leading edge of this stuff in MLB?
Not sure if it's 'cutting edge', but there's this:

Rather than continue piecemeal modifications to Carmine, the Red Sox decided in 2015 — when Ben Cherington was GM, and shortly before Dave Dombrowski was hired as president of baseball operations — that they would engage in a comprehensive overhaul of their information systems.

...

“We had that conversation right around the time of the transition from Ben to Dave — right before. Then we had a conversation with John and Dave that that was not going to change this initiative. We still wanted to grow in this area.”

Dombrowski, who had a very small analytics department with the Tigers, recognized the value of Boston’s more robust infrastructure. Even though Detroit had been on the sidelines for much of baseball’s analytics revolution, Dombrowski quickly came to appreciate how that field was changing. He was on board with the planned expansion of the IT staff, which now features five full-time software developers as well as six full-time analysts in baseball operations. A seventh, Bill James, has a broader title of “senior adviser.”
This also suggests that the portrayal of DD as a baseball analytics Luddite may be in error:

“[New senior baseball systems developer Fred Hubert] has got a nuclear physicist-type background and I’m just amazed when you turn to the résumés of individuals and you look at what they’ve done and how impressive a group of people they are.”

It is a group to whom Dombrowski turns for different sorts of insight, whether seeking coaching and player development ideas from director of pitching analysis Brian Bannister and Dave Bush or seeking reports from Scott on questions related to player acquisition, most notably with Chris Sale (comparing Sale’s projected value to that of prospects Yoan Moncada and Michael Kopech) and David Price (examining his potential aging curves in determining fair market value when the lefthander was a free agent).
http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/redsox/2017/02/22/the-red-sox-are-retiring-carmine-for-new-analytics-machine/z6UlF4IIGzY3Q3lQQIBK2N/story.html?s_campaign=bdc:article:stub
 

uncannymanny

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Yeah, I'm aware of that. But do you see any evidence that the Red Sox have remained on the leading edge of this stuff in MLB?

I don't. And it's starting to bear itself out on the field, IMHO.
In all your time in the front office you didn’t see anything?
 

Captaincoop

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In all your time in the front office you didn’t see anything?
Oh, I missed the requirement on the SOSH entry form where you need to have worked in the organization to comment on it.

I'm sure everything is in fine order, though. Dombrowski can just keep throwing tons of prospects and money at whatever shiny toy is available and I'm sure the Sox will improve that way over time.
 

grimshaw

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Oh, I missed the requirement on the SOSH entry form where you need to have worked in the organization to comment on it.

I'm sure everything is in fine order, though. Dombrowski can just keep throwing tons of prospects and money at whatever shiny toy is available and I'm sure the Sox will improve that way over time.
Like Sale, Kimbrel, and Pomeranz? I'm on board.

I'm not seeing a prospect dealt for anyone else that is going to have much of an impact down the line, do you?
 

Captaincoop

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Like Sale, Kimbrel, and Pomeranz? I'm on board.

I'm not seeing a prospect dealt for anyone else that is going to have much of an impact down the line, do you?
I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about what happens when he runs out of prospects and payroll and still hasn't won a championship.
 

grimshaw

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I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about what happens when he runs out of prospects and payroll and still hasn't won a championship.
He is using prospects exactly the way they are meant to be used for a big market team. I'd love to keep the player development machine rolling, but there are different ways to win. The payroll mess was not created under his watch.

I'm only worried about long term deals to aging veterans, but he's stayed away from that so far.
 

uncannymanny

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Oh, I missed the requirement on the SOSH entry form where you need to have worked in the organization to comment on it.

I'm sure everything is in fine order, though. Dombrowski can just keep throwing tons of prospects and money at whatever shiny toy is available and I'm sure the Sox will improve that way over time.
You said you didn’t “see it”. I’m wondering how you’re evaluating that. You had no problem asking me to prove otherwise.
 

Adrian's Dome

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I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about what happens when he runs out of prospects and payroll and still hasn't won a championship.
You start over. Just like every other team with a particular window that doesn't take the entire thing down.

The goal is the World Series, but when did it become the expectation? Sometimes, shit just happens and you don't win and it's really nobody's fault in particular. Pitchers have off days. Batters go cold and nobody knows why. A ball bounces over a wall instead of kicking back toward the field. A catcher throws a bullet that's just ever-so-slightly off and a guy stealing second is safe and eventually gets hit in by Bill Mueller. Stuff like that.

I know most posters have a significant soft spot for the youngins, but really, what players have been traded that would've been impact players on our playing field right now? What trades did Dombrowski make that were considered disastrous (you can file Thornburg/Shaw under that one, only with hindsight, but Shaw wasn't even close to a prospect.)

I'm happy if the team is performing well and to expectations. My expectation with our payroll and lineup is to compete for the division and be competitive in the playoffs, not be hands-down favorites to win it all every single season, but perhaps that's unrealistic.
 

joe dokes

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You start over. Just like every other team with a particular window that doesn't take the entire thing down.

The goal is the World Series, but when did it become the expectation? Sometimes, shit just happens and you don't win and it's really nobody's fault in particular. Pitchers have off days. Batters go cold and nobody knows why. A ball bounces over a wall instead of kicking back toward the field. A catcher throws a bullet that's just ever-so-slightly off and a guy stealing second is safe and eventually gets hit in by Bill Mueller. Stuff like that.

I know most posters have a significant soft spot for the youngins, but really, what players have been traded that would've been impact players on our playing field right now? What trades did Dombrowski make that were considered disastrous (you can file Thornburg/Shaw under that one, only with hindsight, but Shaw wasn't even close to a prospect.)

I'm happy if the team is performing well and to expectations. My expectation with our payroll and lineup is to compete for the division and be competitive in the playoffs, not be hands-down favorites to win it all every single season, but perhaps that's unrealistic.

This is dead-on. As to being a "hands down favorite," that is simply not a thing of consequence, if it even a thing, outside of the hot take world. Who really gives a shit about who the "favorite" is? IMO, whether a team was the "favorite" in March is a stupid way to assess "how the team did" when the season is over. It might be a way to assess the people who make predictions.

Given their current rosters, both the Yankees and Sox should be good teams for the next few years. Whether their respective win totals hover closer to 90, rather than 100 depends on specific things that are, by their nature, unpredictable.
 

GaryPeters71

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Alex Speier's Boston Globe piece today, "Alex Cora well-versed for Red Sox challenge".

Link to article (subscribers only):
http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/redsox/2017/10/24/alex-cora-well-versed-for-red-sox-challenge/MAzMYw9i2ry9JEzVJoT6LO/story.html

Speier:
"Cora had met Aparicio, a Hall of Famer considered one of the greatest defensive shortstops ever, during his brother’s time with the White Sox. He also became close with Ozzie Guillen, a three-time All-Star and future manager who was one of his brother’s teammates."

Interesting...Wonder if Guillen is a bench coach candidate to join Cora in Boston?
 

timlinin8th

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I'm sure everything is in fine order, though. Dombrowski can just keep throwing tons of prospects and money at whatever shiny toy is available and I'm sure the Sox will improve that way over time.
Not every prospect is going to play for your major league club, as there are only so many spots to go around. The most important job of the front office is determining which ones are gonna be something, and which are expendable (you can't just keep those guys rotting away in the minors, its best to sell while they have value).

Has anyone traded for Sale, Kimbrel, or Pomeranz gone on to be something yet? You know which prospects have? Devers and Benintendi, who Dombrowski COULD have traded for some shiny toys at any time but showed that he gauged their value differently.

The bluster regarding trading prospects is overstated, trading second tier prospects is EXACTLY what you should do with them. What remains to be seen is if Dombrowski has the abilty to restock the system on the fly.
 

pantsparty

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Has anyone traded for Sale, Kimbrel, or Pomeranz gone on to be something yet?
Manuel Margot put up 1.9 fWAR/2.5 bWAR this year getting paid nothing while Kimbrel cost $13 million. Yeah, Margot didn't have a place with this team given the outfielders they have, and with how the market has shaped up in the past few years for elite relief pitchers I view that trade more favorably than I did when it was made, but in hindsight maybe DD should have gotten more for him.
 

ookami7m

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Mobile, AL
Manuel Margot put up 1.9 fWAR/2.5 bWAR this year getting paid nothing while Kimbrel cost $13 million. Yeah, Margot didn't have a place with this team given the outfielders they have, and with how the market has shaped up in the past few years for elite relief pitchers I view that trade more favorably than I did when it was made, but in hindsight maybe DD should have gotten more for him.
Trading what you just admitted was an asset with more value to someone else than the Red Sox for someone who fills a need is exactly what DD is supposed to do. And to get someone of the caliber of Kimberly you have to give up WAR to get WAR.
 

Snodgrass'Muff

oppresses WARmongers
SoSH Member
Mar 11, 2008
27,644
Roanoke, VA
Manuel Margot put up 1.9 fWAR/2.5 bWAR this year getting paid nothing while Kimbrel cost $13 million. Yeah, Margot didn't have a place with this team given the outfielders they have, and with how the market has shaped up in the past few years for elite relief pitchers I view that trade more favorably than I did when it was made, but in hindsight maybe DD should have gotten more for him.
This is a great example of how WAR falls short in capturing the value of relievers (especially elite relievers) relative to other players.

To suggest that Kimbrel and Margot are in the same stratosphere for value on the field is absurd.
 

Tyrone Biggums

nfl meets tri-annually at a secret country mansion
SoSH Member
Aug 15, 2006
6,424
This is a great example of how WAR falls short in capturing the value of relievers (especially elite relievers) relative to other players.

To suggest that Kimbrel and Margot are in the same stratosphere for value on the field is absurd.
WAR isn’t a good evaluation of RPs. I thought that was proven a few years ago.

Speaking of pitching I wonder if the Sox are going to pursue Rigetti or Bosio since it looks like Hickey is a lock to head to Chicago.
 

Adrian's Dome

Member
SoSH Member
Aug 6, 2010
4,424
Manuel Margot put up 1.9 fWAR/2.5 bWAR this year getting paid nothing while Kimbrel cost $13 million. Yeah, Margot didn't have a place with this team given the outfielders they have, and with how the market has shaped up in the past few years for elite relief pitchers I view that trade more favorably than I did when it was made, but in hindsight maybe DD should have gotten more for him.
Gotten more? He got one of the best relievers in baseball, and you didn't replace one really good reliever with another. You added Kimbrel right onto the back end of the pen (a pen which was quite weak at the time,) which slides out the worst reliever at the time and makes everyone else better by doing so. It's a trickle down effect. Trading from an area of excess to address an area of need and acquiring proven major-league talent for unproven minor-league talent.

What exactly did you want or think would've been been a better return for an OF that would've been firmly plastered to our bench?