I don't disagree with this idea, but I strongly disagree with the way the org decided to go about making those changes. 2019 was a strange year where they were one five game winning streak away from being a WS competitor all season and just could never put one together. It was an odd odd season.
I grew up going to a dozen PawSox games every year. And one Red Sox game. That's all my parents could afford, but it worked. That baseball deprived the fine people of Lowell their very own minor league team because "expenses" offends me to my core.
I don't get to many minor league games OR major league games - maybe one or two a year max - but I love the minor league experience. It's a whole lot of fun and your analogy of it being a gateway drug to baseball is spot on. The kids have their favorites and love following them up into the majors. Instead of it being a player they read about on Soxprospects.com, they have had a chance to get his autograph and can say, "I met that guy!"
My kid first liked the Sea Dogs games because of the sideshows: Slugger The Sea Dog (got her picture with him), running the bases, the goofy promos, the Sea Dog Biscuits. I took her to the Sale rehab start a few weeks ago and she was still into all of that but also was REALLY into the actual game. That sort of interest takes time to nurture and ferment, and at $10 a ticket the minor leagues make it easy to carry out that fermentation.
You're doing yeoman's work in this thread. Thank you.
Yep. And that's awesome. Minor league games are just a fun experience. I took my dad to a Sea Dogs game earlier this year (Bello pitched...not well but still) and it was the first time we'd been to any baseball game together in YEARS. Just a fun night out.
I thought that for a while but honestly no. JWH is less engaged but Werner is more engaged, and I don't see Henry selling the only reason anyone in this country knows who the hell he is. Also the Red Sox are engaging in a Braves-like real estate renovation around Fenway which will be appealling to him as well.
Eh. DD was the same as Theo in that while he relied less on the farm system, he spent a ton of money to bring in talented players. Theo developed the system more but both guys won with extremely high payrolls. I don't see DD as a detour at all.
By your logic, the job of Bloom at this particular trading deadline was to either dramatically restock the farm system or go all in on maximizing this team’s chances this year to win the World Series. That is simply not the way a competent baseball executive would approach this entire organization at this particular stage of its transformation. And this is not Monday morning quarterbacking on my part.
At a certain point, a baseball executive needs to have some ability to swerve if results on the field are different than expected. I don't think Cherington thought 2013 was going to turn out as well as it did, for example. This year the Red Sox might have expected a bridge year but instead found themselves leading the division at the deadline. The choice to be made then was whether to try to take advantage of their favorable position or to consider it gravy.
Also, how did ownership radically shift after 2018? They brought the same team back for 2019 and were top contenders but came up short. Dombrowski signed Sale and Eovaldi to questionable extensions, which were contributors to the team’s inability to keep Mookie without incurring crippling penalties in the draft and international market. And then Shaughnessy reported that Dombrowski had alienated much of the front office and ownership and he was fired.
On this, I think you are correct. If for no other reason, they should do it for the return on investment. Maybe some teams are already doing this, but a system-wide nutrition program seems like a no brainer. Just for a starting point, let's say we're talking about 4.5 minor league teams (because one of them is short season), 30 players each, 180 days, and 200 dollars per person per day. That's 4.8 million per year (the actual cost would be less because you could subtract out whatever it is teams are already spending). There would be logistical challenges, but even if you have to cut some corners on the road and really implement it at home, how many extra major league quality players do you have to develop for it to be worth it, in an environment where guys like Garrett Richards cost 10 mil in free agency? This especially applies to teams like the Red Sox, who have very few avenues left to flex their financial muscle.
One last reply and then I’ll give you the final word if you want it:
Let's not forget that one of the reasons Theo ended up eventually leaving was because he felt the pressure to spend from the fandom. It seemed as if he had total control of the ship, he would have relied more on the minors. But he had to spend partly keep the fandom calm. And also due to the pressure to win EVERY year. He would have been ok not making the playoffs once every several years. But the market demanded a contender every year.
Cherington "swerved" as you put it to acquire Jake Peavy and Brayan Villarreal. That's it, that was all Cherington did at the deadline. That took one piece from the big league team (the starting 3B at the time, which like 1B now is a hole we were all screaming for him to fix) and three 19 year old lottery tickets to accomplish. It was a much more buyer-friendly market (5 deals on deadline day in total, compared to over 20 this season). And it's not like the standings looked much different than they did 10 days ago. They were a half game out of first when the Peavy deal was done.
My question to your (intelligent) conjecture about Bloom: did he have different contingencies depending on where in the 75-95 game spectrum the 2021 Sox were on? Because it would also seem silly if he didn't. If there was merely A PLAN, and that was the plan no matter what, that seems kinda inflexible, no ...? Certainly he'd sell parts if they were on the lower end? And, one might think, give up a bit more in prospects costs if on the upper end. To that end, I think some folks here indeed noticed there was a plan and wished there had been more flexibility with it, given the team was performing at their ceiling and a championship suddenly seemed in the realm of realistic possibilities. It didn't seem he showed any flexibility.
I'm paraphrasing because I can't find the actual quote, but Theo realized early on that the Red Sox couldn't make decisions based on what the fans and media said, and especially not on what the Yankees happened to be doing. Bloom is a very smart guy who seems to have the same view. They have a plan for long-term success, and he isn't going to move far off it just because the Red Sox were better than expected for the season's first four months.
I believe Theo said that a few months after re-acquiring Mirabelli, which he admitted was a panicky and ill-considered thing to have done. He got swept up in the mania about Wakefield's knuckler and the Yankees were in town so he made a bad trade.
Actually, I think there is a direct causal relationship between signing Sale and Eovaldi and not signing Betts. They put their priorities in the wrong place. I think they gave DD carte blanche, and then realized ... oh shit ...wait a sec ...
I think you are both correct, but where did the pressure come from on the signings like Carl Crawford, etc.? Was it from ownership?
I don't think Crawford was from ownership, Theo really did think he was still a dynamic player. There have been musings that Werner in particular wanted more "sexy" signings but I'm not sure Crawford falls into that category.
I just found these articles. JWH was against the Crawford signing: https://www.si.com/si-wire/2012/01/12/theo-epstein-john-henry-didnt-want-to-sign-carl-crawford
Bloom is spending a ton of money and there's no reason to think he won't keep spending it. And Theo and Ben didn't have to deal with additional luxury tax penalties beyond money, though you've already decided those aren't real so you won't acknowledge the difference.
To be fair, it's not like Schwarber is out for the season. He was an MVP candidate until he got hurt, and he's not that hurt.
This team has gotten clobbered repeatedly by the Astros, so if we are being realistic about their title chance (something like 6% right now) then it's not a team you sell out to improve, unless you think there's a move that puts you over the top of Houston. Scherzer went west. Nobody else could elevate this team in that way.
Yeah, what a terrible decision by the players union to let that in. Now in the next CBA talks this offseason they'll end up giving something else up in exchange for getting rid of or weakening those additional penalties.
The play/no play line is more important than the level of hurtness that keeps him on one side of it.
There is a difference between not selling out and basically getting nothing that will help the team. Schwarber could help the team, but no one knows when/if he will be in the lineup for the Sox. Both of the relievers that were brought in have been bad to putrid. I agree that they were not likely to beat the Astros or the White Sox in a 7 game series to get to the WS, but collapsing and missing the playoffs should not be an acceptable outcome either. People have given Bloom way too much credit because he has yet to build a team that wins the WS. Until he shows that he knows how to do that, he will be scrutinized for every move he does and doesn’t make.
Eh, you talk like Schwarber might never return. That's just not accurate. We should get 6+ weeks in the regular season from him, plus playoffs, and maybe a chance to re-sign him, which is a good return for a minimal outlay. Also I don't think the Red Sox want to invest in anything less than a legitimate shot at a title, not because making it to the LCS isn't a good thing, but trading significant prospects only to lose in the LCS is definitely NOT a good thing. If the current roster collapses and misses the playoffs, but holds all their cards for 2022 and beyond, that's far better.
Well they are down 4 games, so if he makes it back with 40 games remaining, or 35, and we add a huge bat for the stretch run, that's a good return. I agree, it's not optimal, but what alternative was? Paying more for Rizzo and his idiotic refusal to get vaccinated, which now has him and god knows who else on the covid list?
I wasn't purporting to address any of that. You said: "To be fair, it's not like Schwarber is out for the season. He was an MVP candidate until he got hurt, and he's not that hurt."
I wish this board architecture had the ability to put "likes" on a post. When your leading at the quarter pole, you usually pour it on to the finish. We'll see...I always said that printing the World Series tickets in July was a mistake!
And that’s where the problem is. unless they (JDM/Xander/Vaz etc) turn things around (and Barnes somehow fixes himself) there is no trades that Bloom could have done to fix the Sox. When your highly paid stars are dragging the Sox down with their poor play there is nothing you can do.
They need a 15 game winning streak to turn things around and that won’t happen.
Rizzo has Covid so he would not be helping the Sox right now. CJ Cron from COL would be nice. But its the Rockies we are talking about. They didn’t trade Story at the deadline and then Story torched the team and owners to the media.
If the season ended today they'd be in the playoffs, so describing that as being 5 games out and the season being over is interesting
Is a salary cap - or a de facto salary cap bad for the game? I never quite liked when the Yankees had far and away the highest payroll. Eventually a couple teams, including the Red Sox joined them, but it always seemed vulgar to me and the worst of America in a way. MANY Yankees fans, at that time, would say to me, to rebut being reminded of the unfair financial advantage the Yankees had, "if you can't afford a baseball team, don't go into the baseball business" and the like, essentially conflating the competition on the field for a competition between businesses (like Coke trying to drive Pepsi out of business or something). That is decidedly NOT the point of a sports league - to drive your competitors into penury or even bankruptcy.
Is it bad for the game? I think undoubtedly not, almost anything that gives more teams a chance to win is good for the game. But it's terrible for the players, especially when because it's not technically a cap it doesn't include a salary floor, which is why they'll never accept a cap.
You’re all over the place. “The season is essentially over” in mid-August, but the Sox should’ve rushed Sale back because an extra start or two would’ve made a difference?
Ownership radically changed course because DD made a couple blunders after 2018 which, coupled with his poor stewardship of the farm system and the moves he made to put us over the top, left the franchise in a hole. Bloom got hired to dig us out.
Yes, in the sense that Theo was tapped to turn the Red Sox into a high-rent version of the A’s almost 20 years ago. The Red Sox are being run now the way they’ve been run for most of the current ownership group’s tenure; the DD era was the aberration. I don’t regret it — as you say, flags fly forever — but we’re living through the hangover of mistakes made during his tenure.
Nothing puzzling about it. You can’t sell off when you’re in first place; you shouldn’t gut an already depleted farm system to fortify a team with as many flaws as this one. Inaction because you’re asleep at the switch is inexcusable, but making a conscious choice to take no action is perfectly fine. (And that assumes there was a big deal to be made — Rizzo might not play more games than Schwarber, and by all accounts Scherzer wanted to go west, so I’m not sure a difference-making acquisition was even possible.)
