Homegrown: How the Red Sox Built a Champion from the Ground Up Hardcover – Illustrated, August 13, 2019

I'm fortunate that I live in the Boston area and can listen to Alex on most Red Sox broadcasts. I also read his daily e-mail during the baseball season. He's one of the most cerebral of all baseball writers.This book chronicles the Red Sox team journey from immediately after the 2011 draft until their popping champagne corks at Chavez Ravine in October 2018. Speier brings the reader to the bowels of Fenway Park, third-world baseball fields, Greenville, Salem, Portland, Pawtucket, and many points in between. Speier follows key homegrown players on the 2018 World Series champs - Betts, Bradley, Bogaerts, Benintendi, and, to a lesser extent, Devers). He introduces us to the largely anonymous people behind the scenes - area scouts and cross-checkers, baseball ops people, and minor-league coaches, instructors, and counselors - whom no one but the players know, but who often determine the success or failure of these prospects.But the book's not about just the minor leagues. Speier chronicles the big-league team's success and failure between 2012 and 2018, showing how these young players integrated into the team, experienced frustration, and refocused to become productive players on a championship team.One major oversight: Speier discusses the downfall of manager John Farrell, who won the World Series in his first year as Red Sox skipper in 2013, only to subsequently preside over consecutive last-place and then first-place finishes before his firing after the 2017 season. Speier fails to mention the manager's high-profile relationship with the Red Sox network's on-field television reporter. I don't care what the guy does in his personal time, but if I were a player and he were my manager, I'd be concerned that he's sharing a bed with a member of the press covering the team. What's he sharing besides the bedding? I would think this behavior would create a trust issue between the leader and his subordinates, especially in a high-profile profession.Overall, this is an excellent book. Maybe not quite as interesting if you're not a Red Sox fan and haven't lived the seven years covered in the book. But definitely insight into signing and developing draft picks that other books simply haven't covered.

This was a very interesting read for me. As a fan, I’ve always had favorite players. This book is pretty good at getting insight into many of the decisions previously made on draft selection, contracts, trades, and free agency. With the regular season now less than a week from ending, and the Red Sox eliminated from postseason play this year, I feel I better understand why they might trade Mookie Betts or J. D. Martinez. Emotionally, of course I hope not, but intellectually, I can see why they’re likely to need to do it, as well as why Dave Dombrowski got the boot. I also appreciated the insights into the players’ lives as they were starting out and progressing through the minor leagues.

a well, written analysis on the Boston Red Sox and their farm-system for upcoming, Major league players.

A Dodger fan, I hated the ending. But everything else was great. This has to be the seminal book about baseball today. Alex Speier gives us a detailed thoughtful look into how MLB clubs go about the business of building a team from beginning to the World Series. It's the detail you do not get from any of the excellent TV or radio analysts. Many of the young Sox players come alive here as we shadow them on their journey to the Majors. And we get some idea, too, of those who didn't make it. A book I'm thrilled to put on the baseball shelf!

This is a well written book which should help make the off-season more interesting for all of the Red Sox fans who face today's mathematical loss of postseason play. Sort of a "Moneyball"-type look at how the front office built a World Series winner, it offers a peek into the inner working of the decade's most successful franchise by a Boston writer with no underlying agenda. The juggernaut team of 2018 may never be equaled , but this 60+ year fan (Hoot Evers was my first favorite player) who would have died happily after 2004, knows this book will only enhance my expectancy for 2020.

What the 2018 Red Sox did was remarkable. Nothing in life or baseball happens in a vacuum. Homegrown gives the multi-years long backstory to the drafting, development, and trades of a core of players that made up the 2018 Red Sox. Alex Speier is a natural story teller who mixes in character development alongside statistical insight to create a seamless narrative. A fun book worth the read.

I'm a long time Red Sox fan, and expected to love this book.This held true for at least the first half of the book, but eventually I found the more recent events the book covered to be a bit of a dull read. Maybe it's just too recent to last season, but I found the parts about the players' backgrounds, and the 2013 title, to be much more interesting, than the parts that dealt with the 2018 championship season. It still is worth a read for any Sox fan, or baseball fan in general, but I would be prepared to get more enjoyment from the beginning than the end.

For Red Sox Nation and any baseball fan that wants to get an inside look at the process of building a baseball organization from top to bottom. Yes it still takes a lot of luck. This is a good well-written evenly paced book that I really enjoyed reading.

An excellent book, well written.