The Boston Red Sox farm system depletion has no middle ground. You either welcome it or are aghast over the moves. The finger pointing will either begin or disappear when 2017 ends.
There is an old military axiom that says with rank comes privilege and that needs no real in-depth analysis. That can also apply to baseball where you’re positioned in the farm system assign you a special designation.
In the last two seasons in the Red Sox system, there has been a shuffling that would make any card shark envious. Being ranked anywhere among the top 10 in the system makes you a practical target of other teams or the Red Sox themselves to make a trade.
If you have a certain comfort zone within the system and assume your future is in Boston you look forward to that. Conversely, you could have an immense roadblock stationed in the Boston lineup, it prevents you from eventually making it do the team. Opportunity may exist elsewhere.
More from BoSox Injection
In another baseball age well before free agency and the draft players would often stay in the minors and languish. Both the Dodgers and the Cardinals were notorious with huge farm systems and sometimes a player would be trapped. Those days have thankfully disappeared.
Baseball operations in Boston have been very successful, especially the farm system. An abundance of talent has accumulated and this occasionally happens within a system. That talent has allowed the Red Sox to make strategic moves. Some of the talent was expendable simply because of the blockage that existed at the major league level.
I may tread cautiously on dealing prospects, but I can understand the direction they are going in since it is dictated by their own success at drafting, development and international signings.
What stands out for me is the return they have gotten it is exceptional. And that is the idea behind dealing the promise of the future for what is a noted quality in the present and quality it has certainly been.
I am painted in my view of prospects simply because I am a baseball child or at least a Red Sox baseball child of the 1950’s. Owner Tom Yawkey and his staff went out and paid enormous amounts of money for prospects. In that day and age, it was all money since there was no draft. Out of all the players that they signed you won’t see any that made it to the Baseball Hall of Fame. And quite possibly the best player that came out of that era was Frank Malzone and he didn’t get any bonus except possibly a bus ticket to spring training.
Since the 1950’s the Red Sox have had the proverbial mixed bag in dealing prospects and one needs to go no further than Jeff Bagwell who should be in the Hall of Fame. But Bagwell was also blocked in Boston so the trade then made sense. That is the risk you take when you trade a prospect when the short-term success/failure may be overwhelmed by the long-term success of the prospect you dealt.
I will make an analogy that is a lot like stocks when you trade prospects. There are stocks I have sold through the years and I have never looked back for the simple reason if I do, I will probably need an industrial strength bottle of Prozac. Conversely, there were others where I can say I got out just in time. Better not to look.
If the current moves the Red Sox have made resulted in a championship it is all worth it. In the great Broadway musical called Damn Yankees, Ray Walston plays the character known as Mr. Applegate who is the devil. Applegate promised a championship to a disgruntled Washington Senators fan in exchange for his soul.
I do believe if Mr. Applegate came to any Red Sox fan and said give me your top five prospects or maybe even your top seven and I will give you a world championship they would do it. Would I? Most certainly.
The key is the result and that is where the eventual analysis of all the resent farm system strip mining will take place. Dave Dombrowski historically has shown a willingness to trade the promise of the future for the proven performance of the present. The players Boston has received are not long in the baseball tooth, but in their baseball prime. DD is not looking back.
