The Boston Red Sox’s roster has undergone a complete and total revamp over the last two seasons. The results of those wholesale changes, Ben Cherington admitted Wednesday, have been far from desirable.
During a more than 20-minute-long meeting with reporters in Houston, the Red Sox general manager discussed how the tremendous amount of “transition” the team has undergone of late has contributed to Boston’s limited on-field success.
“One of the things we have been faced with the last two years — and I’m taking responsibility for this — we’ve had a lot of transition,” Cherington said, via The Providence Journal. “Young player to the big leagues, that’s one form of transition. Players in a new environment is another form of transition. Players in a new role or a new position is another form of transition. We’ve had a lot of that the last two years, and sometimes along with transition, it can affect performance. We’ve seen that over time historically.
“One of the things that we’d like to see is just get fully past some of those transitions and be able to have a better sense of where everything is. Hopefully we’re closer to getting past those transitions.”
Just 11 of the 25 players on Boston’s 2013 World Series roster remain with the team, and none of the Red Sox’s big-name additions — Hanley Ramirez, Pablo Sandoval, Rick Porcello, Allen Craig, etc. — have lived up to expectations thus far.
The Red Sox entered Wednesday’s matchup with the Houston Astros with a 42-52 record — tied with the Chicago White Sox for the fewest wins in the American League.
“The last two years, we just haven’t delivered,” Cherington told reporters, via WEEI.com. “That’s the bottom line. No one more responsible for me for that. Because of that, there has been a lot of self-review going on and internal analysis and so we have been trying to learn whatever we can about what’s happened, knowing that bottom line results haven’t been there, they haven’t been up to standard, there’s no way around that.
“… We know that our fans deserve a lot better than what we’ve delivered the last two years, our ownership deserves better and it’s up to us to find a way to get back.”
But while Cherington hopes to see more roster consistency moving forward, he agreed that the Red Sox must improve. One of the greatest areas of need is starting pitching, as Boston’s rotation ERA ranked third-to-last in the majors entering Wednesday.
“We know that one of the things we need to do is improve our pitching overall,” Cherington told reporters. There are all sorts of ways to do that and all sorts of different times to do that. I don’t think there’s a preference; we just need to find ways to get better in that area, and I think we will.”
The Major League Baseball trade deadline is July 31.
Thumbnail photo via Bob DeChiara/USA TODAY Sports Images
