Boston Red Sox should turn back to this winning formula
The Boston Red Sox is a team in discombobulation. They need a course change, so what would be the winning formula for the club going forward?
First, the Boston Red Sox have floundered the past three years since they kicked the tremendously successful President of Baseball Operations, Dave Dombrowski to the curb in 2019.
Disclosure: This space was and is a fan of the Dombro stewardship of the team. Why would that be? In four years at the helm of the Red Sox, Dombro won three successive AL East titles and a World Series. Since then, they have won nothing.
That’s not a bad resume item to have and it seemed so for the Philadelphia Phillies who hired Dombrowski to be their top baseball guy. He promptly took them to the World Series last season. The Boston Red Sox finished last.
In light of this fiasco, what should be the formula to establish the Red Sox once again as a powerhouse club in the MLB? Let’s explore this.
Boston Red Sox organization has lost its way
Current Boston Red Sox teams try to scratch together older and injury-risk players hoping to somehow slap together a team that might strike gold as the 2021 team did.
All of the disparate parts came together serendipitously in 2021. The underrated squad blazed to the ALCS before bowing out to the Houston Astros. It was a brilliant season when just about everything went right. And it was an anomaly.
The lineup was filled with question marks but signings like Kiké Hernandez, Hunter Renfroe, and trade-deadline gem Kyle Schwarber were added to a solid core and it worked. Unfortunately, that core was dismantled and it was back in the cellar in the AL East last season.
The so-called “sustainability” model is in place. The team now bottom-feeds in free agency for the most part and tries to bring up young players (largely unsuccessfully) to fill the gaps.
It’s great in theory but seldom works, at least not in winning the top prize, a championship. Championship teams are built not slapped together with older free agents and/or serious injury-risk players. It’s a flawed “strategy” and it’s not going to work often.
Boston Red Sox need a sea change
What’s the way ahead for the Boston Red Sox after what is expected here and elsewhere to be another floppy 2023 season and a trip back to the basement of the AL East? It’s simple. This team needs to turn back the clock.
Under Theo Epstein and Dave Dombrowski, the Boston Red Sox had the blessing of their now-absentee owners to spend the necessary money to win.
They acted like a big-market team and won, not only the AL East (which they have failed to do since Dombrowski was summarily shamefully fired) but a World Series in 2018.
The bottom line has taken control over the team’s finances and attitude. Go along to get along and hope the fanbase won’t stop buying overpriced tickets, hot dogs, beer, and souvenirs.
Staunch defenders of the “sustainability” hooey argue that the team is still a high spender in the MLB. That particular observation in light of recent results makes a whole other statement about how well they’ve spent that cash. The answer is not very well at all.
Rather, avoiding the dreaded luxury tax is the dominant objective of the club. The owners dally on Merseyside with their most recent darling, the Liverpool Reds football, aka soccer team. Meanwhile, the Boston Red Sox acts like a shell of its former self and they get booed.
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This team needs to turn back the clock, shed this “sustainability” foolishness, and act like a top-five Major League Baseball team. If that means spending over the luxury tax limit then they certainly have the resources to do it.
The ownership has a responsibility to the ever-loyal (maybe sometimes to a fault) fanbase to act as if they care about this once-feared now laughable franchise. If they can’t or won’t go in that direction, they should just sell the team. Sooner rather than later is preferred.