I've purposely not posted in this thread yet since I wanted to cool off from yesterday and try to take emotion out of it. Here are some thoughts.
1) There is no doubt that a manager can have both positive and negative effect on a team, but there is a lot of doubt over A) just how much it is, B) whether the effect is more pronounced in the on-field vs. off-field department, and C) how much year to year consistency there is for a manager (just because a manager was worth X wins one year, doesn't mean he won't be worth negative X wins the following year)
2) While the on-field decisions of a manager do matter, it seems like only a small handful of managers have a significant positive or negative effect, and the rest are somewhere around average. JF is probably somewhere in the lower-middle range from an on-field perspective.
3) While 80-90% of what we talk about with regard to the manager on SoSH is on-field related, I would imagine that the Red Sox front office sees it the exact opposite: 80-90% of his job is the off-field stuff, 10-20% is the on-field stuff; as long as he is somewhat competent in the on-field department, then they want him in that chair so long as the off-field stuff is good.
So that being said, as with others, there is a mix of positive and negative with JF:
Positive:
- Team bounced back from several challenging situations
- Team "overachieved" on a team level despite individual under-performance
- Extra-inning record
- Held off the Yankees despite a very hot September from them
Negative:
- Seems like there are communication issues. Unclear to what degree. Also seemed to exhibit poor leadership during the Price fiasco, but again the team bounced back
- Individual under-performance by hitters. Unclear how much to blame on JF.
- Baserunning. IMO the biggest black mark against JF. Benintendi is one of the worst baserunners I have ever seen, yet he continued to make awful outs. Most outs on the bases in the majors this year on a team level. See prior posts / quotes from Toronto regarding players making same mistakes over and over and not being disciplined.
- In-game strategy: always seems a step behind and a bit clueless. Again, this is likely viewed as a small part of the job, but I don't think even JF's biggest supporters would argue that he is anything better than average at best and probably below average in this department
All this being said, my personal conclusion is that JF isn't holding them back necessarily, but he isn't helping either. I do think a bad hire could have a negative influence on the clubhouse - a guy like Varitek or David Ross who has no managerial experience could go downhill in a hurry. So if DD is to make a move, it should be for someone with at least some experience. I have similar concerns as others over Martinez since he has never gotten a shot. While Cora is a bench coach, he also hasn't been a manager at the MLB level. But I would probably take a shot with one of them because of the potential upside of getting a better strategist while having similar off-field value.
Bottom line, if the rumors about poor communication are true, then it is a no-brainer to fire JF. Hard to know what the truth is there. I hate Farrell from a strategy perspective, which is why I tend to not even watch a lot of games, to be honest. The team frustrates me a lot. But I know that he is doing a decent job behind the scenes, given how resilient they were. I can't believe I am writing this, but while I would prefer a change, I think it is defensible if they bring him back.