A week in politics is a long time. A year in baseball can be an eternity. 84 wins and 19 games back of the Evil Empire might be ok in Baltimore, but in Boston it’s pretty much a catastrophe. This time last year, the Sox were about to cruise to our fourth World Series championship in 15 years. This year, everyone’s gone home. And I fear that the off-season will be as disappointing as the regular season.
The word is that John Henry started planning (or at least considering) the departure of Dombrowski even as the duck boats were parading through central Boston. Maybe he knew that Dombrowski was intending to do nothing at all during the winter. Just as he had done last winter.
Sure, Eovaldi and Pearce got new thank-you contracts before they went on the DL. And you can’t blame DD for the dreadful seasons from aces Sale and Price. But you can blame him for going into the season without a closer (Kimbrel) or a set-up man (Kelly).
You can blame him for not reading the runes when we went 3-9 for the first 12 games.
And you can blame him for Cashner, the one move he did make at the trade deadline.
You had one job …
Equally, he can take no credit for the season’s highlight, the break-outs of Rafael Devers and Xander Bogaerts, the latter being my vote for MVP. I predicted that from 3000 miles away.
But it won’t be Dombrowski putting together the squad that will bear our hopes in 2019. And it won’t be Theo, either.
There are noises coming out of Fenway which suggest that the entire role may be restructured, which implies that we may have someone out of left field. I don’t know.
I do know that it must be someone capable of working closely with Alex Cora.
I like Cora. I like his cockiness. I like that the players like him. I didn’t like his approach to the 2019 season, especially the regime (or lack of regime) in spring training. And did he really play Benintendi at lead-off? Jeez.
It’s going to be a long, hard winter and I’m scared. Scared of losing Mookie and JD. Scared of the implications of ownership’s instruction to stay under the luxury tax threshold. Scared of another season like this last, when we could never really engage with our team, when only Rafi and Xander excited us.
But come March 26, in Toronto, all this will change and I’ll be predicting the play-offs with a chance at the series.
Why? Because that’s what I always do. Go Sox!
Today from the everysmith vaults: 38 years ago yesterday, I schlepped to The Rainbow in North London to see the Dead play a great show. I’m listening now to an SBD (thanks to So Many Roads) and it’s a laid-back West Coast kind of show, with the band on top form. Just as I remember it.
P.S. I have been remiss in attending to these posts recently. I apologise. ‘Events, dear boy. Events.’
The word is that John Henry started planning (or at least considering) the departure of Dombrowski even as the duck boats were parading through central Boston. Maybe he knew that Dombrowski was intending to do nothing at all during the winter. Just as he had done last winter.
Sure, Eovaldi and Pearce got new thank-you contracts before they went on the DL. And you can’t blame DD for the dreadful seasons from aces Sale and Price. But you can blame him for going into the season without a closer (Kimbrel) or a set-up man (Kelly).
You can blame him for not reading the runes when we went 3-9 for the first 12 games.
And you can blame him for Cashner, the one move he did make at the trade deadline.
You had one job …
Equally, he can take no credit for the season’s highlight, the break-outs of Rafael Devers and Xander Bogaerts, the latter being my vote for MVP. I predicted that from 3000 miles away.
But it won’t be Dombrowski putting together the squad that will bear our hopes in 2019. And it won’t be Theo, either.
There are noises coming out of Fenway which suggest that the entire role may be restructured, which implies that we may have someone out of left field. I don’t know.
I do know that it must be someone capable of working closely with Alex Cora.
I like Cora. I like his cockiness. I like that the players like him. I didn’t like his approach to the 2019 season, especially the regime (or lack of regime) in spring training. And did he really play Benintendi at lead-off? Jeez.
It’s going to be a long, hard winter and I’m scared. Scared of losing Mookie and JD. Scared of the implications of ownership’s instruction to stay under the luxury tax threshold. Scared of another season like this last, when we could never really engage with our team, when only Rafi and Xander excited us.
But come March 26, in Toronto, all this will change and I’ll be predicting the play-offs with a chance at the series.
Why? Because that’s what I always do. Go Sox!
Today from the everysmith vaults: 38 years ago yesterday, I schlepped to The Rainbow in North London to see the Dead play a great show. I’m listening now to an SBD (thanks to So Many Roads) and it’s a laid-back West Coast kind of show, with the band on top form. Just as I remember it.
P.S. I have been remiss in attending to these posts recently. I apologise. ‘Events, dear boy. Events.’
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