So....who is the new GM/head of baseball ops?
- Thread starter moondog80
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Although to instantly argue with myself, that's not the kind of guy that BOS needs right now, they need someone not afraid to spend, spend and overspend in this winter's FA market and next winter too if needed. That Dombrowski guy would be perfect actually...
I wonder if DD scared off Fuld. I’m sure there’s a bit of bad blood with DD. DD is also 67 and might be handing over the keys to Fuld soon.
If I were Fuld, I'd honestly rather work for the Phils owner than the Sox ownership at this point. The lack of patience they've shown with their GMs and managers makes them a much less desirable group to work for.
Stats with a nice pull from a Thad Levine interview
View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1714071222013554757?s=46
View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1714071228988711058?s=46
Full Interview here
https://www.youtube.com/live/OD9GgIW09EA?si=2cW0fJOla7HIarjO
View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1714071222013554757?s=46
View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1714071228988711058?s=46
Full Interview here
https://www.youtube.com/live/OD9GgIW09EA?si=2cW0fJOla7HIarjO
Few other interviews
From 2018
View: https://youtu.be/e39HkwwEe9M?si=IwrVmpRoRuTqD8ak
From 2020
View: https://youtu.be/T48dhR0Yjc0?si=K_t5KL9rsesulaUV
2021
View: https://youtu.be/aZljAoxJV3o?si=IHlsaQkPS46Il-hn
From 2018
View: https://youtu.be/e39HkwwEe9M?si=IwrVmpRoRuTqD8ak
From 2020
View: https://youtu.be/T48dhR0Yjc0?si=K_t5KL9rsesulaUV
2021
View: https://youtu.be/aZljAoxJV3o?si=IHlsaQkPS46Il-hn
I think the Breslow possibility is a bit "outside the box" in a good way. He is highly intelligent and knows the game from many perspectives. I like it.
Yeah, agreed. Sign me up for some of this ASAP.
View: https://twitter.com/sahadevsharma/status/1702339749548068892?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1702339749548068892%7Ctwgr%5E9dfc601589e90931758a1c97f08342e8c38ca677%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bleachernation.com%2Fcubs%2F2023%2F09%2F15%2Fmust-read-of-the-day-pitching-development-changes-paying-off-for-the-chicago-cubs%2F
The Red Sox have to make a push to pursue Kim Ng now that she is available - it was simply be a horrible look not to seriously consider a female candidate who is coming off of a run of leading a team back to playoff contention so that they can bring in a bunch of mostly white guys for interviews.
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But she took a team with a .517 winning % (.434 pythag) that got swept in the ALDS & had the #5 farm system into, 3 years later, a team with a .519 winning % (.463 pythag) that got swept in the Wild Card round & has the #26 farm system.
& was also determined by her current employer not to be worthy of a title promotion, & in fact they decided they wanted to demote her. Which as mentioned could be lol Marlins, but is a data point.
They should absolutely interview her, & if she's the best candidate they interview, she should absolutely get the job.
But she took a team with a .517 winning % (.434 pythag) that got swept in the ALDS & had the #5 farm system into, 3 years later, a team with a .519 winning % (.463 pythag) that got swept in the Wild Card round & has the #26 farm system.
& was also determined by her current employer not to be worthy of a title promotion, & in fact they decided they wanted to demote her. Which as mentioned could be lol Marlins, but is a data point.
A few contributing factors to this that I can see.
- The career-altering shoulder injury to Sixto Sanchez, a #20 prospect when Ng was hired in Nov. 2020
- The dimming of one-time prospect Monte Harrison, a key part of the Yelich trade, who fell off Top 100 lists by 2021
- The meteoric rise and graduation of Eury Perez (and to lesser extents, Braxton Garrett and Trevor Rogers)
It could also be relevant that the NL East has been stacked the last few years, with two teams in particular spending over a billion on reinforcements. And beyond the bottom-five payroll in 2021-22, we don’t really know whether playing in a state with the highest amount of Covid cases and hospitalizations affected potential free agent signings (or anything else).
The major difference is that the Marlins draft HS pitching high, and the Sox do not. I don’t know how much that has to do with Ng. But it also makes for a more volatile prospect base, I’d say.
Of the names involved right now, I’d be happy with Ng, Click or Levine. Unhappy with Huntington.
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This seems like a bit of projection. What exactly are 1st tier candidates versus 2nd tier candidates? How do we know the difference? Because the media frames it that way?
If it's truly a "robust" and broad search, wouldn't all potential candidates be considered equally? No "first tier", no "second tier", no tiers at all? Front office personnel aren't exactly like ball players where they have a history of performance at various levels we can look at in order to rank them even somewhat objectively, and project their performance going forward. We don't know that Sam Fuld or Brandon Gomes is clearly better than Thad Levine or Kim Ng or whoever else. It's all guesswork and speculation. They'll hire the person they think is the best fit from among those that want the job. That's all they can do.
2020 was such a weird year that Sixto was 3rd on the Marlins in IP & still was their #1 prospect when Ng took over.
Not sure that Eury has much to do with any of this. It looks like he was the Marlins #28 prospect when Ng took over. & none of those players were actually acquired by Ng.
My biggest pushback is with the narrative that she took some destitute franchise & turned out into a perennial playoff team. They appear to be in roughly the same position they were in when she took over & if they hadn't wildly overperformed their pythag this year, I'm not sure anyone would be pushing her as a candidate based on her body of work.
Not to say she wouldn't be great if given time to work her magic - just to say that this one season doesn't really show me much.
Agree that she's very likely to be better than Huntington & it seems like Huntington would be a really shaky hire... but when given enough rope, Huntington did put together a 3-year period where the team was 280-206 (.576) & was the GM for the team's only 4 winning seasons since '92.
In that 3-year run:
'13 - 27th in payroll
'14 - 27th in payroll
'15 - 25th in payroll
He was also an early adopter of analytics. The problem is, his last couple deals (Cole out/Archer in) were abominable & that was 10 years ago.
Fair, and Huntington seemed a colossal improvement at the time over his predecessor Dave Littlefield. Those Cole/Archer deals really were rough though.
I’m with you on the caution on any savior narrative around Kim Ng. In general it’s hard to isolate any of these characters’ essential qualities, especially when they’re working under notorious owners like Bob Nutting and Bruce Sherman. Hard to hold any GM responsible when their decisions are dictated by these billionaire weirdo reactionaries more interested in owning a tax shelter than a team.
I'm more of a Cora loyalist than most, but if org announced he was gone and they were bringing Rocco+Thad over, I'd be pretty stoked. As long as Cora's staying, however, I would think the smart move is for the team lean into someone he's worked with like Romero or Ng.
My issue with Huntington was that for the last half of his tenure, he really didn't do anything innovative or adapt the financial constraints he had. Earlier in his tenure he acquired a number of post-hype prospects (Andy LaRoche, Lastings Milledge, Jeff Clement) trying to get somebody to break out. There was a lot of draft spending (they spent a ton on the Gerrit Cole/Josh Bell draft class, which led to MLB implementing the draft pools), and as I mentioned previously, they were at the forefront of shifting. They shifted more than any other team in baseball at one point. They loved getting guys with good two-seam fastballs that could get groundballs, but the game changed quickly. Players wanted to hit the ball down. Four seamers up and sliders became the way to go, and the Pirates never adapted.
I'm not sure what their identity was after 2015. They didn't draft particularly well, they weren't overly aggressive in the international markets, they didn't spend on *any* free agents, and they didn't develop their talent very well. I'm not sure you can look at the last half of NH's tenure at Pittsburgh and find anything they did well.
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Oh stewardess, I speak Ale. He said that the FO's in great pain and he'd like to be tangentially reminded of Theo.
The only people that declined to interview that worry me a bit are Fuld and Gomes....but to your point, while I liked Fuld a lot as a candidate, I am not sure that he's that much better than Thad Levine.
I'm not worried about the search yet...and honestly, if it turns out to be Romero, I am fine with that.
Is that a factor? Or is it a lateral move to an organization that is already half built by someone else?
My guess is that they are planning to keep Romero, they're hiring a director of pitching, they're keeping Cora -- this is not a tear-down, so it won't appeal to guys who have already created their own structure. It will probably appeal to second-in-commands whose careers could level up, or people who don't have a job currently -- maybe Ng? But Falvey, Hazen, those types, why would they leave the already successful teams they have largely created?
Not that it's that similar but I left Boston, ended up in a pretty perfect job, and had some folks back there hint at offering me the exact same job back home. Pass. It'll always be home to me but not my wife or kids. Baseball is a little more exciting and romantic and all that compared to my work, but it's still a job, it's not more important than their family.
It's hard to know how team is positioning the role, right? If it is "Kennedy runs overall operation, Cora is the field manager, and we expect Romero to be a senior baseball guy, you're the connective tissue" that's a tougher sell for someone who already has full control or even a lot of autonomy.
If, on the other hand, it is "Kennedy runs business side and baseball ops is truly up to you. We think Romero and Cora are assets, and want your perspective on that, but ultimately the person we hire will decide who is in what role going forward" that's a pretty different thing.
I'm not sure we know beween those, really, though the sense of what I read is it is more towards the former - which would fit with those who currently have a senior role with autonomy not being interested. Whether that's a good or a bad thing for team going fowrard depends on how right they are about the others staying in place, seems to me.
Also, I imgaine I'm an outlier here, but I do not think Theo is 100% out of this picture....though specific role which would make sense for both sides is rather hard to peg. Kennedy and Thad Levine are longtime Theo guys, after all.
If, on the other hand, it is "Kennedy runs business side and baseball ops is truly up to you. We think Romero and Cora are assets, and want your perspective on that, but ultimately the person we hire will decide who is in what role going forward" that's a pretty different thing.
I'm not sure we know beween those, really, though the sense of what I read is it is more towards the former - which would fit with those who currently have a senior role with autonomy not being interested. Whether that's a good or a bad thing for team going fowrard depends on how right they are about the others staying in place, seems to me.
Also, I imgaine I'm an outlier here, but I do not think Theo is 100% out of this picture....though specific role which would make sense for both sides is rather hard to peg. Kennedy and Thad Levine are longtime Theo guys, after all.
Totally agree. It's a black box and people are in a rush to hang whatever label fits their POV on it. Without more info, it's easy to see ownership as aloof, or craven, or incompetent, or maybe Bloom hit the wall in his job and they are rushing in to fix it, spend aggressively etc. We are all entitled to see this how we want. But it would be nice if the usual media suspects didn't just exploit the uncertainty with a bunch of baseless shit-stirring.
Great post.
I am guessing that they are trying to sell candidates on the latter...but I definitely wouldn't begrudge any candidate who looked at it and thought it was the former (and maybe even worse, tbh).
EDIT: I don't think Levine is a Theo guy though? I don't think they've worked together professionally since they've both been in the game
Internal: Ben Crockett, Raquel Ferreira, Mike Groopman, BOH, Gus Quattlebaum Mike Rickard, Eddie Romero, and Paul Toboni
External: Craig Breslow (Cubs assistant GM/director of pitching), Josh Byrnes (Dodgers senior VP of baseball ops), Mike Chernoff (Guardians GM), James Click (Blue Jays VP of baseball strategy), James Harris (Guardians assistant GM), Neal Huntington (Guardians special assistant to president of baseball ops), Matt Klentak (Brewers special assistant to the GM), Thad Levine (Twins GM), Sig Mejdal (Orioles assistant GM), Kim Ng (former Marlins GM), Eve Rosenbaum (Orioles assistant GM), and Zack Scott (former Mets interim GM).
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/10/17/sports/red-sox-baseball-operations-search/?event=event25
The Red Sox have had two GMs in the last five years and each was given an objective, for DD the objective was to win now. He did so and was canned. For Bloom the objective was build for the future though ownership said that he also needed to be competitive--I'm not sure when they told him that but it appears that he completed the first part of his job and failed at his second. So there seems to be some sort of manic energy running through ownership where goals change pretty quickly. Add to that a manager with a lot of power who seemingly got the last guy fired and appears to be the next guy (after you) in the GM seat. Also the front office seems pretty stacked with people who have been here since the Epstein administration (four GMs ago) and seem not to be in any hurry to leave or might not be fireable. Oh yeah, the fandom is either apathetic (the ownership wants you to win them back with BIG moves) or completely myopic about how the last administration went that they may hold a grudge against you.
Does this sound like a great GM job to you? There is a lot of baggage that comes with this position. How is the media (???) at fault for any of this? This is the Red Sox taking an AK, flipping the safety off, pointing the barrel at their crotch and shooting themselves in the dick. Multiple times.
Two excellent posts.
Of course we don't know for sure how it's being positioned to respective candidates. We can only read between the lines of Kennedy's public statements (and Cora's) and the stories that have been circulated about the various candidates' lack of interest in the job. If the hierarchy is murky, it would almost certainly limit the candidate set. Some folks are perfectly fine with matrixed group-think environments, but I'd imagine that others know that the job here has a short shelf-life and would ergo want command and control of baseball ops. But the caveat is that we don't really know for sure that it's not the latter.
Probably in the minority here, but the two external candidates I really liked personally (and my opinion and $2 gets you a coffee at Dunks) and the internal candidate working "in tandem" with Cora that I wasn't really that opposed to as an outcome are all - ostensibly at least - still in play. So I'm feeling pretty good about where things stand right now.
Kim Ng is an interesting name to me as well. I'd personally still prefer either of Byrnes or Click, but Ng wouldn't at all be a hire that would concern me. Not sure where I'd fall on the continuum of where that would fit in relative to a promotion of Romero while Cora finishes up whatever time he has in the dugout before moving to a role under Romero in the front office.
Similarly very out on Scott, however.
Any thoughts on Eve Rosenbaum? She came up with Elias in Houston in their international scouting/development department before coming with him to Baltimore. She's only 32 and was recently promoted to Assistant GM. Harvard graduate. Seems like a Theo-ish candidate, and what Baltimore has been able to do with limited resources and not-so-great ownership has been pretty impressive.
I would be curious. Hard to know the role of any particular person in these organizations, & if we're org grabbing I think I'd rather go with a bigger market org still, but seems like a fine person to interview & find out about.
Young Jewish person from a successful small budget organization evinces Bloom tbh. Someone make her a Wiki.
& Gomes confirms lack of interest, saying his family is happy in LA.
View: https://twitter.com/FabianArdaya/status/1714380590856949935
View: https://twitter.com/FabianArdaya/status/1714380590856949935
She also worked in the Affairs department at Fenway for a year and a half (Town and Gown basically ithink) a dozen years ago and played softball on Harvard team I believe. D1 is D1. Bring her and Click together would seem like a good idea, perhaps?
I also kinda like the Psychology background for a front office position.
Budget-wise Baltimore & Tampa are much smaller than San Diego was during Theo's years. They also just flat out weren't very good after '98...
'98 - 9th (98 wins)
'99 - 17th (74 wins)
'00 - 16th (76 wins)
'01 - 25th (79 wins)
But it worked out just fine. I think it was a different era though where it was easier to get ahead just by being smart & modern.
If Romero doesn't get the #1 slot, I would expect him to move up to the #2 slot. Obviously I could be wrong, but I don't see someone like Rosenblum being placed above Romero.
So she doesn't want to be promoted to a job where she'll be fired in 4 years? I'd be concerned if I were with the team for 20 years that taking the job leads directly to the door.
Michael Hill becoming a candidate which I assumed came from Hill's people, only to refuse to interview is a vibe.
https://www.masslive.com/redsox/2023/10/former-red-sox-scouting-director-emerges-as-another-internal-candidate-for-gm.html
There's also stuff about Toboni in there including him being 33 & an important part of their recent drafting & development team.
https://www.masslive.com/redsox/2023/10/former-red-sox-scouting-director-emerges-as-another-internal-candidate-for-gm.html
There are no bad GM jobs. Just like there are no bad manager jobs.
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