The Boston Red Sox are in trouble. No,
this isn't news. They've been trouble since August 2011. The trouble
with the Boston Red Sox is that they aren't going to win.
The Red Sox may have freed up upwards
of $250 million in contract space by unloading the bad contracts of
Josh Beckett, Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford on the Los Angeles
Dodgers, but they aren't going to do anything big with that space.
The loss of those enormous contracts wasn't just losing contracts or
players, it was also losing a philosophy, a way of doing business.
The Red Sox will not be offering huge contracts to keep stars in
Boston for a decade any time soon. So you can forget about them
signing Josh Hamilton to an eight year deal this off season. Not that
he'd come to Boston, anyway.
This change in business model is not
sustainable. Baseball is a business. The best players want to
security of long-term contracts. If the Red Sox don't offer those
types of deals, they won't get the best players. It's elementary,
really. Sure, the Red Sox will be able to good players in their model
of smaller deals, but not great players. Cody Ross seems poised to
return, and he has done well in Boston. But is he a bona fide star?
No.
Will the Red Sox make the playoffs in
the next decade? Maybe. Every team has the ability to make the
playoffs. Look at the Oakland Athletics. Or the Baltimore Orioles.
Will the A's and O's make the playoffs regularly? Probably not. The
Red Sox remain in one of the toughest divisions in baseball, one that
features the New York Yankees, a team never afraid to dump buckets of
money on stars.
Do the Red Sox have a core of
up-and-coming prospects who could turn out to be great, and become
bona fide stars? Perhaps. But it would be silly to have lofty
expectations like that. In fact, if the Orioles can keep even being
just a .500 team, the Red Sox could become perennial fourth place
finishers, at least for a few more years.
Saying the Red Sox are in the
rebuilding stage is putting it lightly. In the last 13 months, the
team has been about as gutted as a baseball organization can be that
is not the Florida Marlins following a World Series victory. A new
General Manager, three different managers (one not chosen yet), and
the dumping of two major contracts that were signed just before the
2011 season. There is no reason for optimism.
The Red Sox need to make a lot of
changes this off season. They need a manager who commands respect, is
effective and will be around for a while. They need a clearly defined
left fielder. They need a first baseman who can hit. They need
starting pitching. They need to decide whether they're okay with a
soft-hitting shortstop who is a defensive wizard, because, face it,
Jose Iglesias is never going to hit well. Plug him in or move on.
They also need to decide whether to lock up Jacoby Ellsbury, or trade
him for some quality pitching.
The Red Sox have made two good moves
since the season ended: Firing Bobby Valentine, and bringing Jason
Varitek back into the organization. These are good steps, but those
were obvious ones. Brad Pitt would have made those decisions, even
when not playing Billy Beane. Ben Cherington, it's time for you to
make your impact.
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