Fit the Bill
On the “Sports on Earth” site Joe Posnanski recently wrote about how Bill James will be re-integrated into the Red Sox organization. James will report directly to John Henry rather than to Ben Cherington.
In the article Posnanski listed all the free agent signings that James, in an alternate reality where he didn’t have a non-disclosure clause with the the team he advised, would have lambasted: John Lackey, Carl Crawford, Bobby Jenks. Perhaps in yet another alternate reality the baseball operations people would have listened to James and none of these signings would have been made.
Would James have recommended keeping Josh Reddick, who is a lynchpin in the outstanding playoff-bound Oakland Athletics? Would he have vetoed Daniel Bard’s starting pitcher experiment, a detour that not only made Boston suffer with a sub-par starter but may have permanently derailed the career of a highly effective reliever? While losing Victor Martinez to free agency allowed the Red Sox to draft Matt Barnes in 2011, was he an advocate for that trade?
So many questions, the answers to which are apparent in this season’s losing record. Ironically enough the Red Sox are battling the Blue Jays for last place, a fight they are winning when losing would benefit them in better draft position.
At one point when the Red Sox baseball development machine was manufacturing success it seemed we had the baseball savvy of Billy Beane but the bankroll of Brian Cashman. (Well, maybe three-quarters the budget of Cashman.) Perhaps the new organizational structure at 4 Yawkey Way will rebuild that engine.
| Game 145: September 14, 2012 | ||
 Boston Red Sox65-80 |
8 |
H: Clayton Mortensen (1), Junichi Tazawa (2) BS: Vicente Padilla (4) W: Chris Carpenter (1-0) S: Andrew Bailey (3) |
| 3B: Mauro Gomez (1) HR: Ryan Lavarnway (2) | ||
| Toronto Blue Jays 65-78 |
5 |
L: Darren Oliver (3-3) |
| 2B: Adam Lind (11), Brett Lawrie (22) 3B: Lind (1) | ||
