re: The ATL Offseason Thread: New Manager Edition

I obviously am not inside the man's head to know exactly what he's thinking, but I do think that it is hubris that has driven much of his rationale. Everyone crowned him for the 2021 deadline which was, indeed, very lucky in a lot of ways. I give him credit for at least doing something as opposed to nothing that year, but it could have easily been a nothing-burger, that somehow turned to gold for a couple of months.

But anyway, that praise he received seems to have filled him with this sense that he is an outside the box thinker, who won't be held hostage by star players, because he somehow knows the right "fit" every time. Despite numerous failures since that deadline, something like what happened with the acquisition of Chris Sale, where the guy couldn't stay healthy and the Red Sox were just happy to offload only a little bit of his salary for one unproven prospect, made AA feel once again that he is smarter than everyone else. But that was just bad business by the Red Sox. If you are retaining the vast majority of the salary, and not getting a high level prospect in return, why not just keep him and hope he gets and stays healthy? Instead of asking that question, media pundits hailed the "genius" of Alex.

And the way he keeps bringing back players from that 2021 team, who are clearly not performing well, just proves how lucky he was the first time. He thinks he can do the same thing over and over again, and it does not work anymore. It shouldn't have worked the first time, but that was fine, because he was mainly just trying to find fill ins for injuries. But then to break up parts of your core with the same philosophy is, I agree, flirting with malpractice.