It fits the current narrative some are advocating about the Sox that spending doesn’t equal winning, so the Padres are a useful foil. But I think predicting a decade of doom for them is incredibly premature. It’s kinda funny that some preach the virtue of patience… while suggesting the Pads are done after 81 games. If they start hitting at all they’re going to romp. Their pitching has been excellent.
I’ve been as critical of the Padres as anyone - maybe moreso, it’s in this very thread - but the way this narrative is deployed drives me up a wall. Among other things, the Padres didn’t suddenly decide to spend like mad this season, they were top five in payroll last year, too, when they reached the NLCS. The Mets and Phillies - the other two teams I see brought up as high-priced disappointments in 2023 - also had top-five 2022 payrolls and 2022 playoff appearances. Hell, for like two minutes, I thought the Phils really might knock off the Astros.
We were at the game yesterday, a group thing. Fans may be booing, but the place was packed, and we didn’t hear any boos in the six innings we were there.
If we're playing fair, let's note that the Red Sox came within 2 games of reaching the World Series in 2021, but a lot of people want Bloom's head on a platter. One can't have it both ways.
I've said this already, but the only reason that "2 games away" thing happened is because Kike f'n Hernandez hit like peak Carl Yastrzemski for two weeks.
Yeah, I mean other than Kique's 2017 NLCS and 2020 NLCS it was completely unprecedented. No credit.
I don't think they are set up for 10 years of doom and I don't necessarily think they are done. But the facts at the moment are that they are unquestionably built with an emphasis on winning now and/or next year, and they are currently 6.5 games out of the playoffs, nearly halfway through the season, with some pretty good teams in front of them (and the Mets, among others, not far behind). I'd expect they will play better than .474 the rest of the way. But they could be a lot better and still not make up that gap. If they are say, 5 games back at the deadline, should they be buyers? I could see an argument either way.
So Bloom acquires a player and gets credit if he performs well, but none if he performs too well? That's a take.
Kyle Schwarber hit 120/180/280 in the ALCS and Hunter Renfroe hit 063/250/125. Randomness works both ways.
Ok. Fair enough. But:
He's performed in plenty of games outside of that 11 game stretch. Let's judge him on that.
I'll grant that I don't remember everything I've ever posted on this here web site, but I don't think I've ever been among them, if that's your implication.
Johnny Damon was good in 2004. But that 2.000 OPS he had in game 7 of the ALCS -- I mean, who could have predicted that? Therefore, the Yankees actually won the game.
Is the argument here that Kike Hernandez is actually a good hitter? Like... Johnny Damon was?
No. The argument is that pretty much every postseason series win ever is boosted by people who, in small samples, massively outperform their career/season norms.
Yeah I agree with this. I'm just fucking tired of this "two games away" bullshit. We're probably gonna be hearing this same line in 2025.
Jackie Bradley knocking in 9 against the Astros couldn't have been predicted, either. NO CREDIT FOR YOU, DOMBROWSKI
It's almost as if building a farm system from scratch takes time. No matter who is running it.
Are you saying this as opposed to the guy who currently runs things for them? Because I have some news for you about his previous employer that you may find interesting...
In terms of Major League impact prior to this year?
Yeah all I know about Bendix is that he went to Tufts and probably attended seminars put together by a member here.
Back to Bogaerts. I don't remember him saying much of that type of stuff in Boston. Particularly anything about the quality of the competition they were facing and losing to. He must be very discouraged.
There's really no difference in how good the team Bloom assembled was if they were 2 games away or if they'd lose the wild card game to the Yankees. That team was legitimately really good over a full season.
Not sure why Xander gets a pass by some Boston fans who will absolutely crush Bloom or JWH for any reason. He grabbed a huge pile of cash to play for a stacked team in SD. He’s playing below the contract. and is now managing an injury that’s been around for a while?
Yes… “Results only count when they fit my narrative!”
The entire point in assembling a good team is so that someone might get hot during the post-season. It really does not matter who they are.
Great post. And to the bolded, I think that's where some folks are coming from when citing the Padres and Mets and Phillies and their big spending in the off-season. Sure they were big payroll teams before (and all made the post-season last year). But they essentially doubled down on that this winter and blew through the luxury tax, in contrast to the Red Sox'more measured approach, and there were some folks (not all here, some are in the media) pointing to that and saying "this is what the Red Sox and their deep pockets should be doing in order to be competitive NOW."
There's some German word that begins with an "S". . .
Similar to the (what I at least believe...) unexpected detour that the Sox suddenly took after winning the WS in '13. I always thought that Cherington had a long-term plan and that '13 year was built similar to the post-2019 year teams to compete.... maybe if everything goes well health wise they'll get in the playoffs and who knows what can happen. But that WS made Henry and Co. try to capitalize on that and add some bad long term contracts that took another several years to clean up. It's what I think Henry brought Bloom in to help avoid after DD did the same thing in 2019.
Neither were Franklin Pierce, Mildred Pierce, or Steve Pearce.
I think post-2018 was a somewhat different team than post-2013, and D's 2019 was somewhat different from what happened after 2013. But in general, I do think that Henry was concerned that DD was not a long-term answer going forward.
And the only reason the Phillies got close was they happened to get insanely hot at the right time. And the Padres and Mets are absolute messes. Look at the best teams in the league: the Rays, Orioles, and Braves. Look at the past decade of WS winners. The evidence shows again and again that spending a lot of money is neither necessary or sufficient to win a championship.
It seems that the teams that spend a lot though, do tend to do better and be able to sustain success longer than teams like the Royals or Pirates that can open a window through prolonged down times in which they draft well, then those drafted players all come up together.... .then the window shuts and they have to start over again. Teams that spend, but find themselves maybe one or two missing parts short of capitalizing on a great team seem to be the ones that blow it all on a long-term contract that tends to backfire. I dunno... totally shit-shooting here but it makes sense. You put together a good team that can consistently get into the playoffs but you see your team as perhaps just one bonafide start player short of as-close-as-you-can-get-to-a-guarantee-WS-victory team and you get that guy no matter the cost.
You'll take 2013 over 2018, but if you give me a choice between watching Pedro pitch for the Red Sox at the level he did from 98-03 (not even including the title year here) or having the 2013 team, I'm taking Pedro. There's no wrong way to be a fan.
Sustaining long-term success is hard, but, yes, it is easier if you either spend money or have superior talent evaluators. I'd like to say hats off to the Rays for their continued success, but that's getting to be a tough pill to swallow. The "one bonified star" line reminds me of the Astros and Verlander. You make that move every time.
There are many wrong ways to be a fan - one of the more obvious ways is for unrealistic and hyper-critical fandom to sour, canker, and settle into an unremittingly obnoxious toxicity.
The probability, yes. But Dombrowski did pretty well trade-wise, which should be noted.
Getting a Prime Pedro on your team is probably rarer than winning a World Series in a random 40-50 year sample. That type of dominance over the competition is an exceedingly rare occurrence in most sports.
Despite what I said upthread, I think the workhorse, dominating, deep game pitcher can really make a difference in the post-season. Beckett was the post-season difference maker in '07.
Yeah, the trades themselves were mostly fine. The much bigger issue was the lack of replenishment.
OK but we never won a title with Prime Pedro. Post-prime Pedro helped get the '04 team there, plus whatever you call Schilling. Then it was Prime Beckett, Prime Lester, and... I guess more like a bunch of #2 guys in 2018, but in all cases we had starting pitching that would just refuse to lose and had the stuff to back it up. Rovin's astute observation was that people bring ideas from other sports to baseball, like star-centered roster-building, and it doesn't work that way. Totally agree... except for the #1 starter. That's the ONLY spot on a baseball roster where I am all for paying the freight, and even there it's debatable because of the frequency of pitching injuries. But it's the only guy on the field where if you get to the postseason, you know that guy is going to make a big difference. Otherwise, the whole-roster approach seems pretty essential these days.
All of which (when combined with Benintendi and other prospects in the pipeline, with only Devers surviving) calls into question any plan around waiting for a "top farm system" to mature. Ahem.
Doesn't it do the opposite? They got the farm system producing and had the assets to trade for vets. Also pretty sure you left Betts, Bogaerts and Bradley out of this discussion (plus Barnes, Workman etc.).
