Set to miss the playoffs for the first time since 2015, the Red Sox have already made a few changes to their front office. They let go of president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski on Sept. 8, and then followed his firing with the dismissals of senior VP of baseball ops Frank Wren and special assignment scout Eddie Bane on Thursday. VP/special assistant Tony La Russa won’t walk the plank with them, though, as Jon Heyman of MLB Network first reported the Red Sox planned to retain the former big league manager. He’ll indeed come back for at at least another year, according to Alex Speier of the Boston Globe. La Russa, soon to turn 75 years old, was a Dombrowski hire back in November 2017.
More from the East Coast…
- Don’t expect the Mets to trade outfielder Brandon Nimmo during the offseason, Mike Puma of the New York Post tweets. After looking like a breakout star in 2018, Nimmo got off to a rough start this season before sitting out from late May until the start of this month because of neck problems. However, his torrid numbers over the past couple weeks have allayed any concerns Mets brass had over him earlier in the campaign, according to Puma. The 26-year-old has posted a video game-like September 1.183 OPS that has helped him to a .222/.377/.407 line in 213 plate appearances this season.
- While Nimmo looks like a good bet to stick with the Mets in 2020, the same might not be true for oft-maligned manager Mickey Callaway. The Mets won’t decide on whether to keep Callaway until after their season ends, multiple organizational sources have suggested to Puma. The club has rallied from an awful start to log a respectable 79-73 record; however, the Mets are still 3 1/2 games back of a wild-card spot, and they’re likely to fall short of the expectations the front office placed on the roster entering the year, Puma notes. That could lead to the firing of Callaway, who’s in his second year on the job and whose teams have gone 156-158.
- Standout Blue Jays rookie Bo Bichette left the team’s game against Baltimore on Thursday after getting hit in the helmet with a pitch. The Blue Jays removed Bichette for precautionary concussion testing, per Sportsnet’s Arash Madani, who adds that the club will reevaluate the 21-year-old shortstop Friday. Bichette has burst on the scene since his late-July promotion, having slashed .311/.358/.571 with 11 home runs in his first 212 major league PA. The Jays are way out of contention, but Bichette’s among the reasons they could return to relevance soon, so they’re certain to proceed with caution in regards to his health.
I would think the Mets keep there manager. They sucked until they turned it on late in the year. Good for them.
If u watch them regularly like I do then you would know he makes some insane decisions and horrendously misuses and abuses the bullpen. For someone who was a successful pitching coach, he sure doesn’t know how to manage his pitchers
Sewald has to go. I will go nuts if I see him next year and they want to be “competitive”
Steals is your biggest problem in the pen?
Sorry, sewald
As a Braves fan I really REALLY hope Callaway is back for another season!
I’m sure you do!!
It’s amazing how many fans know more about managing a team than any MLB manager.
He is NO MANAGER & Apparently was NO PITCHING COACH …. He faked Met Owners into hiring him which wouldn’t be the first time …. Remember Art Howe?
No one here is trying to apply for the job. If you have a clue about baseball and have watched more than 20 Mets games its actually quite easy to see where he makes his mistakes and understand that he should not be a manager in any level of baseball.
Obviously can’t blame him for injuries, and slumps but his misuse of the bullpen and leaving pitchers to hit and run the bases and thing pulling them anyway is gross.
Not saying I should be the manager or that I would be better, but easy to say he is not the person for the job is obvious.
He probably came cheap for a manager
He looks in over his head. It’s time to go.
This Manager is CLUELESS …. Mets are winning in spite of him because Phil Regan straightened out the starting staff & Chilli Davis is an Excellent Hitting Coach.
Credit to Davis and Regan!!! Well done and I totally agree. Listen, at one point we had 4 infielders playing the outfield, so I have to give a little credit to him there. But letting the vastly underachieving Syndergaard disrupt the clubhouse and allowing that Ramos situation to fester is on him. The massive failures in the bullpen can be put on him, too. Batting Cano third for three months is on him. Leaving Rosario buried and making him think he was losing his shortstop job is on him. Vargas? Never defining the bullpen? Not hitting Conforto ahead of Cano?
Bottom line is that he may have the most talented starting 25 in baseball and they are going to miss the wild card by two games!! He really does give away way too many losses. Bad bullpen? Make the starters go 110 pitches instead of 100 once in awhile. Make them get three more outs then run your BEST relievers out there for more than 10 pitches instead of hoping your weakest three pitchers on the roster can get important outs in the 7th and 8th. Mets starters need to be pushed into the 7th to see if they can learn to finish what they start. 5 plus innings isn’t good enough when your bullpen is this unpredictable. When they have the lead, let them go back out there, I don’t care about pinch hitting. One more inning per start equals 20 innings a year, but just might be 10 fewer team losses because it might mean 40 fewer pitching changes.
Callaway needs to Goaway. The man is a train wreck of a manager.
There’s been a general assumption that since DD and Larussa go all the way back to their Bill Veck days in Chicago together, that Tony would leave. But Larussa has many fine qualities (along with being a very good manager), chief among them being the single most important ability ANY Manager or FO type has to have; the knowledge of EXACTLY where on his buttocks the owner prefers to be kissed.
Again, I have the greatest respect for him as a field manager; one of the very few who really makes a difference. But I wouldn’t be surprised one iota if he was being less than complimentary about DD behind his back.
Smart guy, Tony; he is a lawyer, after all. And he knows which side of the bread is buttered.
I was hoping that he’d get fired with the rest. Guess I lost out. He’s a dinosaur that shouldn’t have a place in anyone’s front office.
His retention is thoroughly mystifying.
my thoughts were posted in an earlier article. What exactly did or does he bring to Boston?
he screwed over the dbacks when he signed Greinke
Ken Kendrick and Derrick Hall (both still with the D-Backs) made the decision to sign Greinke. LaRussa had a very minor roll and just followed orders.
https://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/how-the-diamondbacks-landed-zack-greinke-in-330-minutes-121315
I think it is role.
It should have been. People make mistakes when rushing, as I was, believe it or not.
No he rolled right into that signing
Yeah, they said, “Let’s role”! Oops…
Not sure how DBacks got screwed with Greinke? He was an All star caliber pitcher for 3 out of the 4 years with the team and they just got a pretty decent haul back by trading him. The biggest mistake La Russa l/Stewart made was the Miller/Inciarte/Swanson deal.
I think the issue is that that the Dbacks vastly overpaid for Greinke. The prospect haul is more about how much salary they ate.
Tony is the genius that thought Harold Baines was a Hall of Famer. All ego.
You said it all.
Hey, if Harold can get in, maybe Dewey.
TLR doesnt need money or status. Last thing that guy can be accused of is a suck up.
I couldn’t disagree more. Larussa is old school and far behind the times in regards to analytics and team building. The biggest positive I saw from DD being let go was that Larussa would be gone too. Why would they keep him around? I just don’t get it. It seems like whatever new gm they get will have to contend with his ideas of trying to get scrappy guys, aka white players that lack flash. My hope is they hire Chaim bloom, but we’ll see
I’m with you. My hope was that there would be a lot of turnover, in scouting and the baseball ops. I ask myself, how can the Dodgers continue to build a first class farm system that is a feeder to their ballclub, while fielding a supremely deep team on the ML level, all while staying well under the cap, and somehow the Sox have to pay a premium on everyone, including the Moreland’s and Pearce’s of the world.
I’d help pack for Callaway
You and three million in Queens.
Just as an FYI, the pitch that hit Bichette hit his uber-padded hand first, then deflected to hit him in the helmet. Saying that he got hit in the head with a pitch is a bit misleading. Still sucks and I hope he’s ok, but it feels like there are way too many “let’s dump on Baltimore some more” stories and comments here.