The Red Sox have reconstructed broken parts of the club - the starting rotation and the bullpen. It's not as though a two-year hiatus without a championship has wrought tar and feathers to Fenway Park.
Ownership has gotten solid reviews on their hire of Dave Dombrowsky and had no choice but to give cancer survivor John Farrell a chance to save his job. The question becomes, will the prior regime's coach killers, Ramirez and Sandoval be addition or addition by subtraction? Will the Sox need more than comic relief from the high-priced spread?
Competing for a title is certainly one thing. Competing to avoid humiliation as the employers of 'don't care' and 'care even less' is another matter. But wait, is the quality of mercy and forgiveness not strained?
In the language of Wall Street, the Red Sox and gazillionaire chief John Henry have suffered "style drift". Style drift means no consistent plan. Richard Dennis had his "Turtle Traders" and the Red Sox have simply turtled.
What's the overarching organizational philosophy? We have no idea. It's been "run prevention", bargain-basement free agency team building, avoiding aging pitchers, buying overpriced free agents, farm system development, trade the overvalued prospects, no Ace needed, Open the Checkbook for the Ace, analytics from Bill James, and the Eyeball Test from Dombrowski.
John Wooden remarked, "no progress occurs without change, but not all change is progress." Conversely, John Henry might borrow the words of John Maynard Keynes, When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind. What Do You Do, Sir?
That said, "Money can't play." You can't win the game on paper, in Vegas, or on a spreadsheet. The Red Sox have amply proven that.
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