beasleyrockah wrote:

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RedSox0407Champs wrote:

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Guidas wrote:

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Bury the Hammer wrote:

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No offense to Cherington or any of those guys, and I'm sure they have their own style, but saying they have a "new baseball ops" is a gross exaggeration (and one that, conveniently, allows you to criticize them without substantive arguments). It's the same exact machine, just different operators (or really the same operators with more lofty titles). And the Lucchino thing is just unfounded sports radio soap opera conspiracy BS. How much hard evidence do we even have about the changes in his role post-2006? 

And all I'm saying is we've seen in many sectors - business, government, and sports - where the "same, exact machine" gets a new leader and a slight re-org and yet somehow doesn't run as well as it did before. No one is suggesting Theo was the Pope and the others simply kissed his ring ha he made pronouncements from on high. But he did make the ultimate calls about player acquisitions and eliminations. And there's a big difference from being a top lieutenant and being in charge. Sorry my skeptical nature doesn't permit me instant blind faith in Ben Cherrington. It's an open book right now - he's proving his ability to do the job and I want to give him a fair shake. But it comes down to his actions to instill confidence in him and his process (guidance from or not from Lucchino included. Confidence? Too small a sample for that yet.

But I will say I have no confidence in anyone who tells me that what we had last year is good enough to win it all this year (give or take a minor tweak or two). Not when this team did not dominate and win it all last year, and when the immediate competition has gotten better. That makes for good P.R. in some quarters, I guess, but it make no sense.

Guidas, like you, I don't like the passive approach the Sox have taken with solving their problems.

I'm a huge fan of Theo Epstein and always will be.  When I think of where the Sox were when he took over and what occurred over those 9 seasons, I'll always think of that time with him and Tito as the golden era.

But, Theo made some serious miscalculations that have hamstrung the Sox in the present day.  In 2011 the Yanks got Colon and Garcia and got production.
In 2009 the Sox got Penny and Smoltz and got nothing.

So the Sox went the "safe" pitching route and got Angels ace John Lackey and gave up on Jason Bay, who was a sure thing in LF, to move Ells to left to play veteran short-term commitment money to Mike Cameron.

Those moves backfired, but I agreed with Theo's rationale.  I didn't think Lackey would be better than a #3 or 4 starter - I figured he'd be a little better than average but eat up innings.  Instead, he's been hurt the duration of his contract and he was worse than replacement level.  Meanwhile Cameron got too old to help out and the Ellsbury switch thing went bad and there was a rotating door in LF when Bay left.  Who would have thought that a 7 year commitment to defensively challenged Matt Holliday would be better than a 4 year deal to Bay or a 5 year deal to Lackey, but it has been.

Then this past offseason, Theo could have given a 3 year $9 million deal to many middle relievers who could have helped (the Jesse Crains of the world).  Instead he opted for a 2 year deal for $14 million to Bobby Jenks as Paps insurance.  Of course, Jenks was another fat and injured and broken down pitcher, so that backfired.

And then Theo decided to stabilize LF.  His predecessor spent $20 million/year on a DH who could mash the baseball (with help of course), even if he was an unstable man with many issues.

Theo took a look and said, it's a new era - speed, defense, all around play is the new value these days - the days of steroid inflated players hitting inflated HR totals are gone - so put the money spent on a new value, so he went out and got Crawford.

It made sense to me, even if the money was crazy.  Crawford, thru 5000 ABs had hit .296 lifetime with a growing BA, a growing walk total, growing power, and elite speed and defense, so I understood the rationale of that move, too.

Unfortunately, it backfired drastically.  Crawford's lack of discipline overwhelmed his other skills unfortunately - whether it was the pressure, I don't know - but his game declined dramatically all at once, so now the Sox have another $20 million/year wasted.

I can understand the owners saying, Whoa - stop paying so much.

And I think within those parameters Ben has done well to get Bailey and Melancon for Lowrie, Weiland, Head, Alcanatara, and Reddick.

My complaint is that the Sox are being penny-wise pound-foolish with their money, being scared off by the luxury tax when it's clear they really need to spend some money to have a legit shot of going deep into the playoffs.

But I don't hold Ben Cherington responsible for that with any of his moves or non-moves in this offseason.  Ben inherited a mess.  I would have preferred for Theo to stick it out one more year, finish his contract, and clean up his mess, but it wasn't to be.  

Jason Bay and Matt Holliday are in the same sentence, and Holliday gets stuck with the "defensively challenged" label?  Not to go off topic, but this was the one non-signing that confused me the most during Theo's tenure.  Holliday was there for the taking, there was a need, and the price was less than he was willing to give Crawford.  I'll always wonder what value Theo attached to Holliday.