This entry was posted on 10/30/2009 8:34 AM and is filed under uncategorized.
It took seven years, but the Red Sox tree has finally begun to shed a couple of its valuable leaves.
After building up one of the best organizations in Major League Baseball and winning a pair of World Series titles together, Theo Epstein and Terry Francona have constructed quite the baseball machine with structure and success working in concert on the field and an impressive collection of baseball minds putting the pieces together off it.
It was only a matter of time before Boston finally began to lose some of their coaching and managerial pieces to other organizations hoping to catch a little bit of the baseball lightning in a bottle the Sox have enjoyed since 2003. First, after several interviews with different teams over the last two years, Sox assistant general manager Jed Hoyer was hired last week by the San Diego Padres to run their small market organization.
The challenge will be a change for a baseball executive reared amid a big market atmosphere capable of absorbing a misstep here or there, but it's also an organization with some past history of success. Only four years ago, the Padres qualified for the playoffs out of a weak NL West Division for the second straight season -- and San Diego won 89 games as recently as 2007.
But the Padres had fallen off the table in the last two seasons, and Hoyer replaces outgoing Pads general manager Kevin Towers, who has reportedly been offered a position in Boston’s front office under Epstein. In a concurrent move, Ben Cherington has been named assistant general manager of the Red Sox replacing Hoyer. Hoyer and Cherington will be forever linked to Sox lore after they replaced Epstein as co-GMs when the Sox executive bolted the Sox amid a contract squabble and left his two most trusted advisors. The move also gives Jason McLeod and Mike Hazen complete autonomy in their fields of scouting and player development after Cherington had enjoyed a strong voice in both departments.
“[Hoyer’s] combination of analytical ability, feel for the game, interpersonal skills and creativity helped make us tick, and he played a role in virtually every major decision we have made,” said Epstein. “His loyalty and friendship will be missed, and we know he will continue to make us proud.”
Just days later, the Houston Astros conducted a third interview with Sox bench coach Brad Mills and Francona’s right hand man since 2004 became the newest manager of a rebuilding Astros organization. Mills routinely carried out messages from Francona to the players, and it was also the Sox bench coach that called the famous Jonathan Papelbon pickoff play of Matt Holliday during the 2007 World Series against the Colorado Rockies.
"Whatever was supposed to get done got done,” said Francona during an interview on WEEI 850. “Millsy had a lot of responsibility here, and he earned that. And it was great. It was good for him and it was tremendous for me.”
Similar to a well-run New England Patriots squad that has watched a bevy of assistant coaches’ move on to head jobs of their own; the Sox are new enjoying the ultimate form of flattery. Bill Belichick's assistants were wooed away from Foxboro with opportunities to run their own programs, and now Epstein and Francona must simply watch with pride as some of their valued consensus-makers start building their organizations.
Opposing major league teams are now attempting to copy the kind of consistent success that Epstein and Co. have conjured up on Yawkey Way for seven years and counting -- and you can't really blame them given the Red Sox success story.
