We Were the Champions

Just under two years ago, “We are the Champions” by Queen was being pumped out of the speakers at Reading Memorial High School. The halls were filled with an unprecedented energy after a six year drought where the Red Sox never even came close to competing in a World Series. How times have changed. The Red Sox are now ace-less, heartless, winless, and above all on the edge of being fan less due to their dysfunction from top to bottom. But is it time to be hopeless?

When a fan enters Fenway Park there is a magical feeling that rushes through your body and at the same time there is a feeling of being overwhelmed when overpriced water, hot dogs, scorecards, foam fingers, etc. are shoved in your face. At that moment you are reminded that the Red Sox are a business and you are the customer. They are will do anything they can to take money from you. The philosophy for any business is to satisfy the customer by providing the best product possible and that’s how they will return. What makes the past few years of a mediocre product remarkable is that somehow the Red Sox continue to attract fans to the ballpark each and every game. This has hindered the initiative for the front office to make meaningful moves to give fans a good product because no matter how much or how little success they have they are making plenty of money. This is inexcusable for a team that has the means to go above the luxury tax, attract elite players, and most of all has the capabilities to provide a good product every game.

It is time for the Red Sox to be run like a baseball team and not like a business. The Red Sox get caught up on how much profit they will make and how marketable a player is such as Pablo Sandoval when signing them. Think about it, they didn’t sign Pablo Sandoval solely based on if he was talented or not, but instead how marketable he can be by selling panda this and panda that. I still have a promotional wristband that with a panda on it from an April Red Sox game. These business tactics may never change. John Henry, Tom Werner, and former owner Larry Lucchino are brilliant businessmen and have made billions of dollars in their lifetime using these tactics. However, the product on the field still needs to be better if they want to make even more money down the line.

With that being said there is hope. This starts with the top when ownership fired GM Ben Cherington and finally hired an established baseball mind to replace him as President of Baseball Operations; Dave Dombrowski. Dombrowski has a proven track record of successfully tearing down and rebuilding teams such as the Montreal Expos, Florida Marlins, and Detroit Tigers. He grew each and every one of those into championship caliber teams. However, Dombrowski also has a track record of completely unloading talented young prospects to acquire big names such as Miguel Cabrera in Detroit.

Time has shown that Red Sox fans have grown in love with prospects, but it can be argued that we have become so oriented clinging onto prospects it has hindered our success. There is no question that the Red Sox have one of the best farm systems in all of baseball and it is vital for Dave Dombrowski to be calculated in his decisions whether to hold on or trade young prospects. We have seen former top prospects such as Anthony Rizzo bloom into stars with other teams. The Red Sox could use Anthony Rizzo right now at first base. Just remember we need to give something to get something, it is a part of baseball.

It can be argued that Red Sox are in much better shape than most losing teams at this juncture due to their plethora of prospects like Yoan Moncada, Manuel Margot, Rafeal Devers, Brian Johnson, Anderson Espinoza, and Andrew Benintendi. As well as the emergence of young players called up to the big leagues such as Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Henry Owens and even Jackie Bradley Jr.

Above all the addition of Dave Dombrowski is like winning the lottery. The Red Sox will finally be ran like a baseball club, without ownership getting in the way. Ownership will finally have a guy who they have 100% trust in unlike Ben Cherington who they treated like a puppet, he never had full say due to his inexperience. With the front office revamped with true baseball minds like Dombrowski and the addition of Mike Hazen as GM, there should be a lot of optimism that the right decisions will be made.

Stay tuned for further installments about what steps the Red Sox need to take in order to return to their winning ways.

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