When news broke of the Sale trade, the confirmed price of Moncada, Kopech, Basabe and Diaz stung and forced me to face up to the fact that Dombrowski had, in fact, decimated the best farm system in the game in the course of roughly one year. We were left with Devers, Groome and a whole lot of hopes and dreams. After the shock of the trade wore off and some analysis of the deal started pouring in, I started asking myself: Was it worth it?
Considering I'm one of the bigger prospect humpers around these parts, you might be surprised if
where I landed with it:
This is a topic where there isn't going to be one right answer (despite my firm stance), so I imagine there will be plenty of back and forth on it. If you come down on the side that is sobbing quietly into your cheerios every morning since the news broke, at least take solace in the fact that the team already has a fantastic young core in place and that the next three years are going to be one of the most exciting sustained periods Fenway park has seen in its history, outside of 2003-2005.
Thanks for the article. I really enjoyed it. But I think you have it all, and I do mean, all completely wrong. Couldn't be wronger. I mean that as someone who likes your thinking and analysis, but I believe you have been spun by the Red Sox spin machine.
Not sure where to start, but the Red Sox are not better for the trades that Dombrowski made. Kimbrel was a disappointment, Kelly and Kopech would have been better.
Carson Smith, elbow surgery. Pomeranz, fell off a cliff with arm inflammation. And now by far the worst trade in Red Sox history, Chris Sale with a sea of red flags around his arm after the worst year of his career in 2016. Sale's 2016 is
not an upgrade over the healthy Wright, or the ERod who should break out this year, who will be our 3 and 4 pitchers, and Sale may very well be worse than they are.
Which means Sale is at best a modest upgrade over Pomeranz or Buchholz, or the 7-8 pitchers, who don't throw that many innings, and even fewer innings in the post-season.
Dombrowski has become an easy mark for opposing GMs. He's now traded away several hundred million dollars in excess value for essentially nothing. He is a complete and utter bust as a GM.
You can argue that the Red Sox are coming into their window of being competitive, but that is also spin from the Red Sox. In fact, they just lost the heart of their order, Big Papi. Lineup production is heavily dependent on having a Papi-like bat. Without him, that lineup suffers greatly. If they really wanted to take advantage of the next few years, they needed to bring in the biggest bat available, ideally Miguel Cabrera, to make up for the loss of Papi.
If they really wanted to maximize their opportunity, they should have just gone out and spent money, and blown up the luxury tax cap. The penalties, if any, would not have hit for years. By then this window of talent would have already won them three or four titles.
You all know in your hearts I'm right. But because the Red Sox spin machine is so powerful, you have a kind of cognitive dissonance about this. It can't be true, can it? Why aren't any of the big sports writers writing about this?
John Henry owns the Globe, and nobody in this town is willing to write anything negative about Henry and his cynical dealings. He has turned the Red Sox into his own personal ATM machine, which has become his primary source of income after the failure of his hedge fund. On top of that, he has made close to a billion dollars in the book value of the Red Sox.
John Henry is the only winner here.* Everyone else, the players, the fans, even the subservient front office, are all the losers. The team has been systematically stripped of its talent all for the purpose of staying under the tax cap.
I was just banned from soxprospects by Chris Hatfield for taking this view. I understand... Nobody wants to hear this. But this view is thoroughly researched and heavily backed by analytical data. I'm sorry. Blame John Henry.
*And to a lesser extent, the minority owners.
ADD: I don't intend to respond to comments below. I expect there won't be general interest in a discussion of whether the Red Sox spin machine is manipulating the fans and the media, as my analysis claims.
If you are interested in more details or have any questions, please PM me. Thanks.