More decisions being made before we get a new GM. Coaches, Wright, GHernandez and Smith. I would think it would become unattractive for a new GM to come into a situation where many of the team shaping decisions are taken out of his or her hands.
Maybe the choice is already made: GM by committee.
Sox 4 Ever
The problem with an internal hire is that four people have or think they have equal sway in the decision making process. That sounds like a comittee to me, and committees decision making is often the butt of jokes. Whoever gets the inside job would have the other three used to having equal sway and possibly delay or turn the choice to the least objectionable to the committee. An outsider would have the clear choice in decision making.
While the Sox could keep their offense and be competitive in run scoring and probably defense, the cost would push us to or over the second tier off the competitive balance tax. Maybe by keeping Moreland and Holt and choosing from Hernandez, Chavis, Dalbec and Chatham from the farm and we would have no additional needs. I assume Leon would stay under that scenario.
On the other hand, the Red Sox Pitching is probably not competitive in 2020, even if Porcello were to be replaced with another FA starter and we try to bring up either Mata, Houck and or Johnson. Too much unknown there to risk having to go over the second competitive balance tax. JH already has reacted to that saying he wants the reset. Clearly our relief pitching would also need some refreshment as well.
Generally, we talked about the need for maintaining a strong farm team to allow 3 or 4 players to move up each year to be supplemented with FA's and through trades. Having a very low ranked farm puts us in a weak position going forward. Just one more reason to reset now.
Moon has said it as have others. Get a GM who buys into the vision of improving the team by trading away assets that can't help us in 2021 and later. A positive spin on that would be to keep players who can help us. Play out long term contracts that were perhaps foolishly made and bolster the farm. These are not the most popular things to do as they require the Sox to be somewhat less competitive in the short run. Part of the process includes bring ing up some of the most ML ready farm players. Just because we have a weak farm doesn't mean all of the players are weak. We should have done more of that this year but I suppose the FO didn't want to burn arb years or the like.
So..
1. Hire and top notch GM from outside but one that buys into a rebuilding process.
2. Trade away assets that won't be there to help us in 2021 and beyond.
3. Rebuild the farm
4. Avoid long term and expensive contracts except for very special cases. (Especially true for pitchers who have the wear of many seasons on their arms)
I am not, or at least not some sort of technological advance. Maybe the catcher gets 4 challenges per game and the offensive of each team get 4 challenges per game. AA has shown its immediate in terms of return. Pitcher challenges, umpire gives the call. 3 seconds to challenge the pitch
Hal sucks
I would prefer challenges to robot umps, but I'd just as soon not even go there. I'm also not a fan of instant replay.
One of the things that bugs me is why some plays are reviewable and others are not. There was a missed catcher's interference a couple of games ago, but not reviewable. Is that play any less significant than any other play?
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/...eneral-manager
A really interesting idea, if true. Bloom has a good name around baseball circles and clearly has a lot of experience at this point in front offices.
The Rays are the same sort of progressive front office the Sox had been in the middle of the decade - so going this direction makes sense. Also obviously Tampa has had to make numerous difficult calls in budget crunches, so that makes sense too.
What could be a real sea change is the view of pitching. Epstein and Cherington were very suspicious of the risk level associated with amateur pitchers, and strongly favored the easier predictability associated with position players - and used other means to add pitching to the org. Tampa of course has been one of the real bright lights in the league at drafting and developing pitching and have not shied away from the risk. Neither approach is wrong - and both fit their environments and ballparks, but it could be a real shift. Certainly the Red Sox need more pitching in any case.