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Red Sox promote Mike Hazen to General Manager

The Red Sox have found their GM, and he's been here all along. Assistant GM Mike Hazen will take a step up to fill the position under President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowski.

By Ben Buchanan
Winslow Townson-USA TODAY Sports

The Red Sox will stay in-house for their next General Manager, appointing Assistant GM Mike Hazen to the role according to a tweet from John Heyman.

The move comes just one week after Hazen interviewed for the same position with the Angels.

It's been said before, and it bears mentioning again, that a GM under a President of Baseball Operations like Dave Dombrowski in not a GM in the traditional sense of the position. Hazen will take a backseat to Dombrowski, and really he'll have as much say in the signings and trades that are made as Dombrowski allows him. That could mean he'll be just a slightly lesser partner and Dombrowski's right-hand man, or it could mean that he'll do little more than handle the logistics as Dombrowski runs the show.

That being said, any and all GM choices would suggest something about the organization, and how Dombrowski plans to run this ship. Some of them--say, Frank Wren--would have been concerning. It would be doubling down on the Old Way of doing things, and likely provide little more than a yes man or, God forbid, an actual advocate for the sort of unfortunate decisions that someone like Wren has made in the past.

Hazen, on the other hand, is a product of the Epstein - Cherington years. He's been with the organization for around a decade now, starting in player development before moving up to Cherington's second in command. He should be able to provide a level of analytical balance to the team should Dombrowski choose to take advantage of that, and it wouldn't be surprising to see him act as an advocate for home-grown players given his history in player development.

In many ways, Hazen is the perfect complement to Dombrowski, and his appointment should go a long way to quell some of the greater concerns fans had with a Dombrowski regime, at least in theory. Only time will tell if that theory bears out, but for now, it's hard to view this as anything but a positive sign.

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