It's not quite an annual tradition, like the leaves turning color or Christmas decorations being put up, but the Red Sox changing their top baseball executive has happened far too often in the past decade.
From October 2011 through last week, the Sox have cycled through four general managers/presidents of baseball operations.
That's three more than the New York Yankees, who used to have an owner who would change GMs on a whim. And three more than the Houston Astros have had in that time span. And two more than the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Yes, the Red Sox have won two World Series since 2011, and that's one more than the Dodgers, Yankees and Astros have won combined. (That total will almost certainly change by November, as it seems a virtual certainty that one of the aforementioned clubs will be crowned champions for 2019. But we digress).
So, the Red Sox have enjoyed no shortage of success. In a market that has transformed into a "title ... or didn't happen,'' environment, the Sox have twice won it all. What's more, that's four championships since 2004, two years after the current ownership group took over.
That's an impressive legacy for any group of owners -- four titles in 17 years -- and particularly so for a franchise that had been wandering the desert in search of one championship for the previous 86 years.
John Henry, Tom Werner and their partners have overseen the golden age of Red Sox baseball. On their watch, the Red Sox have regularly been contenders with 10 postseason appearances. Add in the renovations made to Fenway Park and the team's philanthropy -- both in the continued support of the Jimmy Fund and the creation of the Red Sox Foundation -- and their stewardship has been a hugely successful one.
But if they're going to take bows for all that they've accomplished, they must also be held accountable for their missteps. And make no mistake: the revolving door on the executive suite is largely ownership's doing.
Theo Epstein, who won two World Series, left out of frustration over interference from ownership and upper management and the belief that the product on the field had been supplanted as the team's top priority.
But at least Epstein got to leave of his own volition, which is more than can be said of his successors, Ben Cherington and Dave Dombrowski, both of whom won a World Series only to be shown the door in less than two years.
Some change may be good for an organization, but firing two executives on the heels of delivering a title to which all teams aspire is borderline dysfunctional.
Henry, Werner and Co. have supplied the necessary resources to win these championships, but too often, they've also sent mixed messages.
And as they undertake the search for Dombrowski's replacement, it's worth asking: what is that they seek?
Because, based on recent history, that's not at all obvious.
There's been an impetuousness to the process.
For a time, winning on the field didn't seem to be enough. Remember when Werner mused about having stars and personalities that would help garner ratings for NESN?
Or when Henry bounced between advocating for a front office guided by analytics to suggesting that perhaps the Sox had erred in being too dependent on data, only to switch back again?
Even the level of public accountability has been lacking. If Henry and Werner can be on the makeshift stage set up on the Dodger Stadium infield last fall to accept the World Series trophy from Rob Manfred, then surely they can sit in the Fenway Park interview room and explain why they fired Dombrowski.
From a distance, even without any official communication from either, the answer seemed obvious: Dombrowski had done what had been asked of him (namely, make the Red Sox relevant again and contend annually), but with some free agent defections expected and a player development system in need of an overhaul, he wasn't the man to oversee the next phase of the organization.
(There. Was that so hard, guys?)
It's admirable that the Sox have won more championships than any other team in the game since the turn of the century, a feat unimaginable given the team's tortuous history in the previous century.
But this practice of churning through top executives has to stop.
Whomever the Sox hire in the coming weeks (months?), they should be someone who can lead the team for the next decade, and not just, as has been the practice of late, the next underperforming season. He needs to be someone who will anticipate changes in the game at every level, from roster building to scouting to player evaluation.
That's what this ownership had in Epstein and his integration of the entire Baseball Operations department, with every employee pulling in the same direction, resulted in two World Series wins, another season (2008) that fell a win shy of a chance to win another and a third title just two years after he left, accomplished with many of the players and prospects for whom he was responsible -- to say nothing of the fact that it was directed by Cherington, his protégé.
This recent habit of acting like an updated version of George Steinbrenner is not becoming for the franchise.
Ownership needs to make clear to Sam Kennedy, the man tasked with heading the search, exactly what is being prioritized in a new executive ... and then allow him to do his job.
More importantly, when that person is hired, he should be given the resources and the freedom to do the job.
Anything less will continue to be a blight on an otherwise successful legacy.
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