The Dombrowski Era Begins

*Here's another old one I never posted. Some of it holds up pretty well (predicting the need to trade 2 of 4 top prospects to get a stud pitcher in Sale because the roster as a whole wasn't good enough) and some doesn't (Kimbrel has been great still). But I do think it's a good evaluation of Dombrowski and while the team has won 2 division titles, the future looks super murky and I doubt Ditching Dave would stay through a rebuild. It is also probably an unfinished post, but oh well. Tupac and Biggie both put out plenty of unfinished shit.

Let's get this out of the way: Craig Kimbrel is really fucking good. Historically good. In Major League history, he has the second highest strikeout per nine inning rate (14.55) of any pitcher with at least 300 career innings (behind only Aroldis Chapman). 2015, his only season with the Padres, was his worst (more on this later) in his career. His numbers? 2.58 ERA, 39 saves, 87 strikeouts in just 59 and a third innings. That is just 4 fewer strikeouts than Mark Buehrle had in 139 and a third more innings. He is a 4 time All-Star in just 6 seasons and he has deserved each nomination.

He also fills a hole on this Red Sox team. The Red Sox in 2015 had the 13th best bullpen ERA in the American League. Beyond Koji Uehara (who will now pitch the 8th inning), the bullpen was an unreliable disaster for most of the year. Even the usually strong Junichi Tazawa struggled at the end of the year, with a 9.22 ERA from August until the end of his season. There is overwhelming evidence that all but the best starting pitchers shouldn't really pitch to a lineup for more than 2 times through the order, which means that bullpens these days really need to be ready to throw 4 innings a game quite often. The teams with the 3 best bullpen ERA last year were the Pirates, Royals and Cardinals and they all did prettay prettay good last year.

So in a vacuum, adding one of the best relief pitchers of all time to a crappy bullpen is a strong move that will make the team better in 2015. But anyone who has ever seen Total Recall knows, living in a vacuum can make your head explode when you poke hole in it. Unfortunately, in this case there are plenty of holes.

Dave Dombrowski was hired by the Red Sox to be bold and turn around a franchise that finished last in the AL East 3 out of the last 4 years (I can't remember what happened in that other year though, nobody really seems to ever talk about it). With a reputation for making big deals and using his farm system for trade bait rather than for growth, we all knew a handful of prospects would be shipped out this offseason. And back in the safe confines of our vacuum, this is a totally fine and actually smart strategy.

Over the last 5 years, Ben Cherington and the front office built up the best farm system in baseball. It had stars and depth. It had talent in the high and low minors. It had up the middle talent. It had pitching and hitting. There was power and speed and defense. Including players under 25 years old on the Major League roster who no longer qualify as prospects, there were 20 players with a strong chance to become Major League regulars or better or way better. There was never going to be enough room for all of them and some should definitely be used for a trade. One of the biggest knocks on Cherington was that he tended to hoard prospects to the point where they lost their value, and in players like Garin Cecchini, Matt Barnes, Allen Webster, Ryan Lavarnway and Anthony Ranaudo, you can see where people got this idea.

If you asked me what players from the farm would be great to use as trade trips this offseason I would have started with Manuel Margot and Javier Guerra. They play the same positions, center field and short stop, respectively, as the team's two best players. They are 2-3 years away from big league ready. They have short track records of success. Their prospect status is built mostly on their defense and athleticism, which I feel like can lead to more failure and variability in prospect evaluation. They are great prospects, but we also have 4 other prospects I like a lot more (Yoan Moncada, Andrew Benintendi, Rafael Devers, Anderson Espinoza). So the fact that they will be in another organization next year is not a problem to me. I have no emotional attachment to these teenage boys. I have even less attachment to Carlos Asuaje and Logan Allen (though I think he is a great lottery ticket and would have liked to have seen him in the system for just one more year).

What I am having a really hard time wrapping my head around is why Dombrowski felt the need to trade all 4 of these prospects for a 60 inning reliever. There seem to be 4 common arguments in support of the move, which I will address below.

The Sox bullpen sucked and they needed to add a great closer to it to make it better
I already agreed with the first part of this and I don't disagree with all of the second part. I think the team could have added any great reliever, closer or not, and it would make an impact on this bullpen. With teams like Kansas City and New York having dominant 8 and 9 inning guys, it seems like a great strategy. A recent article by Jeff Sullivan of FanGraphs (number heavy) determined that having a truly elite reliever at the back of the bullpen may be worth more than what we capture with Wins Above Replacement, and it makes sense. But his second to last paragraph is where I really have concern with this trade:

All of this is looking back. This is reflecting on relievers who were elite. When it comes to team-building, the tricky thing is trying to identify elite relief ahead of time. Of course, Aroldis Chapman looks amazing. Andrew Miller. Wade Davis. And so on. But we’ve long understood that relievers can be particularly volatile, and as an example, a qualifying elite 2014 reliever was Greg Holland. Also Jake McGee.Craig Kimbrel had his ups and downs. Koji Uehara was more vulnerable in 2014 than he was in 2013. Joe Nathan was a hell of a lot worse in 2014 than he was in 2013. Like with any player, when you acquire a good reliever, you’re acquiring present talent, but talent can fade, and injuries can happen at almost any moment. No one has ever been or will ever be a guarantee.

Kimbrel is even called out as an example. He has been un-fucking-believable in the past, but how do we know if that will continue? Relievers have short terms of dominance, typically, so even with recent histories of success it can be fleeting.

Just look at the Red Sox of recent years. Before 2012, they traded starting caliber short stop Jed Lowrie for Houston's closer, Mark Melancon. Melancon was terrible with the Sox, so they shipped him to Pittsburgh where he has revived his career. Volatile. Before 2013, they traded starting right fielder Josh Reddick to Oakland for All Star closer Andrew Bailey. Bailey was injured and ineffective most of the year and his career is on life support.

On the flip side, the Sox have found great bullpen pieces off the relative scrap heap from 2011-2014. Their best 3 relievers over that time were Uehara, Tazawa and Andrew Miller. Uehara was an older reliever signed for $9 million over two years and expected to be in the mix for the 7th inning. Tazawa was signed out of Japan as a young starting prospect, failed to develop in the minors, and converted to the bullpen before coming to Boston. Miller was a high draft pick of Dombrowski, traded to Miami, released, then after he came to Boston, was converted to relief.

What I am trying to show is that I do believe a dominant 8th and/or 9th inning guy is important. However, there are a lot of ways to acquire one and trading a buttload of prospects for one may not be the best option because of how volatile even the best relievers can be.

Dombrowski and the front office identified Kimbrel as the best available option and went out and got him
This is basically the "But I want it!" argument. I can appreciate that Dombrowski knows way more about baseball than I ever will, so if he thinks Kimbrel will continue to be great then I will give him some benefit of the doubt. I will also concede that it is great to have someone who can be decisive and execute their plan. But if I want an ice cold Budweiser after a long hard day in the internet and a bartender tries to charge me $100 for it, I will take my business elsewhere.

The free market dictates price. The Padres evidently set the price for Kimbrel at 2 top 50 prospects, a lottery ticket, and a depth piece. At this point, it is up to Dombrowski to say, no thank you, I will go sign Darren O'Day and see what happens when I convert Joe Kelly and maybe I will get similar results. Kimbrel was not the only solution to this problem, but Dombrowski acted as if he had to have him at pretty much all costs. This type of behavior almost always leads to buyers remorse.

The Sox have such a great, deep farm system, they can afford to overpay
I just don't understand this argument. Just because you have a lot of something doesn't mean you should just be comfortable giving it away because you can. Like, Donald Trump doesn't go to 7-11 to buy a Big Gulp for $6,000 just because he has all that hard earned (inherited) money. No, when Donald Trump goes to 7-11, he pays $1.99 for a Big Gulp like the rest of us.

Now, Craig Kimbrel is a more scarce resource than a Big Gulp, sure, but just because the Sox have a shit load of prospects that doesn't mean they should be comfortable giving away a lot of them to get him. Each prospect brings with him his own value. If you spend that value on Kimbrel, that is value you can't spend on another player.

Some people have made the argument that they should have traded these 4 prospects for an Ace like Sonny Gray or Chris Sale. I think it's very clear that Dombrowski explored this option and was told that at this time those pitchers are not available, at least for this package. But who knows if they would be 3 months from now once rosters have shaken out. Or maybe they would be at the 2016 trade deadline if either team decides to start a rebuild. Well, now that the Sox have traded these prospects, it would likely take more than one of their top 4 prospects to get the job done.

One of the great things Danny Ainge and the Celtics have done is to maintain their flexibility for when a superstar becomes available. Dombrowski just diminished his prospect bank account because he could and if a higher impact player becomes available, he may not have the assets to get in the running.

The bullpen is all set after this deal, now they can just go sign one of the 3 Ace pitchers
This is a really risky strategy. There is no guarantee any of the 3 Aces want to come to Boston. Zack Greinke has a really good situation in LA. David Price has gone on record as saying he doesn't like Boston because the way the fans treated him when he was with Tampa (nice work gang!). Johnny Cueto seems like he might be open to coming here, but he also carries the most risk of the 3. Unfortunately, by giving up so many good prospects this early in the offseason, they have really locked into this strategy. As we saw with Jon Lester last season, there are no sure things in Free Agency.

C2: The Mighty Celts

*This is a post I never finished last year but thought it was pretty solid so I'm throwing it up there. It is pretty unfinished still but who gives a shit.
I was watching highlights of Terry Rozier this morning (you don't watch Summer League highlights of your backup point guard at 8 AM?) and thinking to myself, "man this guy is so fast, it's amazing he's even able to stop himself. He's kind of like Luis Mend...holy shit! Let's do a D2: The Mighty Ducks column about the Celtics!"

What follows is an important comparison of the rosters of the 2016 Boston Celtics and 1994 Team USA Ducks, or as my wife might call it "the deranged rantings of the 90's obsessed lunatic I married". 

The 2016 Celtics are coming off a season in which they exceeded expectations as a rag tag group of NBA misfits and castoffs without a bona fide star on the back of their superstar coach. They picked up some help from around the country in the offseason and are now being talked as a potential threat to the big bad Cleveland Cavaliers. The core of the 1994 Team USA Ducks were the former District 5 team from the Minneapolis Pee Wee League who came together when their alcoholic coach grew a heart and turned these juvenile delinquents into juvenile champions. Despite their very brief run as a dominant team, the US Junior Hockey selection committee decided (quite legitimately) that they should represent their country in the World Junior Goodwill Games with the help of some new friends to take down mighty Iceland. EEEEEEEceland! As you will see, the roster comparison is uncanny. Also, SPOILER ALERT for those who have not seen D2 yet.

Adam Banks and Isaiah Thomas

Banks and Thomas are the best players on the Ducks/Celtics. They are offensive studs who put up goals/buckets in droves. I would personally never call Isaiah Thomas a cake eater (mostly because I still don't know what that means 24 years after hearing it for the first time), but I would also never tell Isaiah that he is not the Adam Banks of the Celtics. When Dwayne Robertson tries to show boat his puck skills before a careless turnover or Marcus Smart clangs another wide open 3, Banks and Thomas are there to settle down the offense and put the team on the board. They were also both originally acquired in mid-season trades, Banks from the Hawks and Thomas from the Suns.

Charlie Conway and Jae Crowder

The Celtics don't currently have a captain, but if I had to choose one it would definitely be Jae Crowder. Despite his age, the whole team seems to respond to him and respect him. He plays hard and he is a second coach on the floor. Charlie is another precocious leader. A key contributor in the first movie, using Gordon Bombay's patented Triple Deek to beat the Hawks in a shoot out, Charlie is faced with a really tough decision ahead of the final match with Iceland. Banks, the best player on the team, had been sidelined with a wrist injury from a vicious and illegal slash (2 minutes? Was worth it) in the first matchup with Iceland, but comes to the locker room ahead of the final game and shoes Bombay that his wrist is fine now by twirling the stick in his hand. But wait, the roster is full since they added knuckle-puck master Russ Tyler and there is no room for Banks. As Tyler goes to remove his jersey, Charlie stops him and volunteers to sit this one out. That is a fucking leader there and a great fit for Jae Crowder.

Jesse Hall and Amir Johnson
This is probably the weakest comparison I was able to make. For the most part it is based on the fact that they are their teams' starting centers, but that's pretty much where the comparison ends. Jesse was a really great character in the Mighty Ducks universe but he was constantly snubbed. He coined the mystery phrase "cake eater" and yet the writers kept dicking him over. In the first movie, he was one of the players to miss his penalty shot. In the second movie they killed off his brother (they never actually said this, but it's in the subtext, trust me) and hired Kenan Thompson to supplant him as the street wise comic relief. Then, in the third movie, Jesse didn't even get an invite to the private school! That's so racist, I don't even know where to begin (ok, Russ Tyler got in, but there was probably a quote the school had to fill). Sorry for the constant snubbing Jesse. I hope your brother is in heaven smiling down on you right now.

Julie "The Cat" Gaffney and Al Horford
This one was almost too easy. The biggest offseason addition to each team. Giving each team a legit star to build around and willing to do all the dirty work around the net. With The Cat's pads and Al's size, you wouldn't expect so much quickness, but they both dart around making stops few of their peers ever could. The only issue with the comparison is Al doesn't have a sweet nickname like "The Cat". Even his Twitter handle is @Al_Horford. I did find a Grantland article by Zach Lowe that said his Florida teammates in college called him "The Godfather", and since Zach Lowe is pretty much always right, I will go with that. Al "The Godfather" Horford.

Kenny Wu and Avery Bradley
Based on size and style, Wu, the Olympic figure skater*, is probably more of an Isaiah, but there is a scene in the movie that really sticks out to me and makes me think of Avery. When the Ducks need to remember what it's like to play for real pride, they go play street hockey in South Central (the scene is scored to "Whoomp! There it is" because, what else would it be scored to?). Russ Tyler's big brother James sees Kenny celebrate after scoring a very fancy goal and starts coming after him. As Kenny retreats in terror, James stops his assault and reveals that he was just messing with him (tell that to Kenny's sphincter). What he was trying to do is show Kenny how to get tough, how to stand up for himself, and how to stand up for his team. The lesson pays off in the final game as Kenny fights one of the Iceland players and becomes the unofficial 3rd bash brother. As I re-watched the scene, all I could think was "how many times did Kevin Garnett threaten Avery Bradley's life when he was a rookie?" I can't help but connect the dots here because Avery has become a certifiable bad ass and likely would not be this way without KG literally scaring the crap out of him on a nightly basis.
*There is a lot of Moneyball-esque roster building in D2. Whoever assembled this team found some great market inefficiencies by pulling in athletes from other sports and focusing on the players' strengths instead of dwelling on their weaknesses.

Fulton Reed/Dean Portman and Marcus Smart/Jaylen Brown
The Bash Brothers. The Enforcers. The Bad Motherfuckers. Whatever you want to call Marcus and Jaylen this year, they are going to be so much fun to watch. Athletic, strong, and great defensive instincts, they are easily the Fulton/Portman of this team, right down to Marcus's erratic long distance shots. Two quick asides. First, I love how ridiculous the newspaper coverage is in this movie. The team is on the front page of the sports section after every game. Think of how dumb that is: a teenage charity tournament for America's 4th most popular sport is being featured on the front page of a sports section...Second, after Kenny Wu becomes the 3rd Bash Bro, Fulton and Portman go nuts and slap the heads of all the Iceland players on the bench joining Kenny in the penalty box with game misconduct penalties. I know very little about hockey, but doesn't that leave the team with 2 players and a goalie to face the best teen team in the world for 2 minutes? How did Iceland not go on a 10-0 run at that point? Enforcers are apparently important in hockey, but you gotta pick your spots. I don't care how fired up the crowd is, if you are down 3 players for 2 minutes, no amount of cheering is going to prevent the other team from scoring a whole lot of goals.

Connie Moreau/Guy Germaine and Kelly Olynyk/Jonas Jerebko
With a girls name and long hair, Kelly has to be the Connie on this team. With a foreign name and blonde hair, Jonas has to be the Guy on this team. It also looks like Kelly and Jonas will be the big men first off the bench to start the year so they are something of a couple. Connie and Guy always seemed to play together through the trilogy so this holds up. Sorry for the boring write up, but Connie and Guy were pretty boring characters.

Luis Mendoza and Terry Rozier
The inspiration for this post, Mendoza was the speedster from Miami who did not know how to stop (nice music choice!). Rozier is one of the fastest players I've ever seen on the court. He has blossomed like crazy this summer and seems poised to be the backup point guard this year. His speed, like Mendoza's, can be erratic at times but it seems like Brad did the can drill with him this summer to teach him to stay in control. Fun fact: the actors who play Luis Mendoza and Jesse Hall also starred in Sandlot together. Less fun fact: the actor who played Mendoza, Mike Vitar, was recently charged with assault on a man handing out candy to kids on Halloween.

Dwayne Robertson and Gerald Green
Another one that was too easy. All flash and very little substance, I'm sure Dwayne Robertson could win whatever the NHL's version of a Dunk Contest is by knocking cupcakes off the goal post.


Goldberg and James Young
Both really have no business being on their respective teams and both think they are way better than they are. I don't know Young's eating or gas habits, but it was between him, Tyler Zeller, Demetrius Jackson and Jordan Mickey for the coveted Goldberg spot so cut me some slack. This is the real reason it was a shame to not re-sign Jared Sullinger's large behind.