Farrell out

Snodgrass'Muff

oppresses WARmongers
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Mar 11, 2008
27,644
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I dunno, man. I hear what you're saying, but I saw a lot of players puking on their own shoes too. This is the second elimination game were Gio Gonzalez suddenly had no control whatsoever.

What a glorious mess that game was. As rage-inducing as the last two Sox postseasons have been, I have to be thankful I'm not a Nats fan. Yikes.
Isn't that exactly what happened in games 1 and 2, and late in game 4 to the Red Sox?
 

Dewey'sCannon

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Jul 18, 2005
870
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I dunno, man. I hear what you're saying, but I saw a lot of players puking on their own shoes too. This is the second elimination game were Gio Gonzalez suddenly had no control whatsoever.

What a glorious mess that game was. As rage-inducing as the last two Sox postseasons have been, I have to be thankful I'm not a Nats fan. Yikes.
I work in DC, and live in MD, so I root for the Nats as well as the Sox. I was hoping they would make it past the first round this year but alas, ear wax. At least this year I was not there to witness it in person, as I was in '12 and '16. Yikes is right - I've had enough frustration in the last week to last me a year - and that's not even counting that the Yankees advanced, so I can't even turn on any of the remaining games.
 

Plympton91

bubble burster
SoSH Member
Oct 19, 2008
12,408
I dunno, man. I hear what you're saying, but I saw a lot of players puking on their own shoes too. This is the second elimination game were Gio Gonzalez suddenly had no control whatsoever.

What a glorious mess that game was. As rage-inducing as the last two Sox postseasons have been, I have to be thankful I'm not a Nats fan. Yikes.
I told my daughters to get back to me if the Nats still hadn't won by their 30th birthday or so. LOL.

As to Gio Gonzalez puking on his shoes, did this surprise anyone other than Dusty Baker? And why go to Scherzer on 2 days rest (and coming off a hamstring injury) when Albers had thrown 15 pitches and you had a completely rested and healthy Tanner Roark who was a reliever 2 years ago? Alex Solis in an elimination game for more than 1 left handed batter? Are you f'ing kidding me?

Just reinforced that the Red Sox had a nice little league average manager and they are looking for something better -- yet probably about as likely to find something worse as they are to improve.

I guess that's ok for a team with a two year window. If they get it wrong in 2018, they can try again for a last hurrah in 2019 before the 2020 return to last place.
 

dcmissle

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Watching last nights Nats and Cubs game made me appreciate John Farrell more.
Yup. Though the game also highlights the important question where manager accountability ends and player responsibility begins.

Let's just stipulate that Dusty contributed very significantly to the series loss.

He did it with a Kevin Kennedyesque addiction to veterans (though without the Kennedy contempt for young players): Werth should not have started; Kendrick should have.

He did it with his batting orders, which did not maximize the at bats of his best hitters.

He did it by relying on relievers like Solis, who should have seen no action given the people he had in the pen.

He did it via mind numbing decisions like allowing Wieters to bat with the bases loaded, and THEN pulling him.

HOWEVER, last night was a clusterfuck. The Nationals did not post; they did not play professional grade baseball. So although I'm pissed, I have no sympathy. Team Boras gave the game away. And Dusty has NO responsibility for these individual decrepit efforts.

You can and should safeguard your team against sub-par managerial performance. The RS may -- or may not -- be right in moving on from Farrell, but Farrell did not turn in sub-par managerial performance. I totally get that it's easier to fire a manager than the players, but let's keep the self delusion to a minimum. A new manager will not "fix" the things that ail the RS; at most, and it would be quite a lot, he may be more effective in helping the players fix those things.
 

Mighty Joe Young

The North remembers
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Sep 14, 2002
8,402
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Just a goofy question, but how did you know the pitcher was going to implode if Jimy pulled him two batters before he was going to collapse?
While your goofy question is, indeed unanswerable it still re-enforces OneM's outstanding managerial ability - namely running a pitching staff. He was pretty bad at a lot of things - lineup selection being top of the list - but running the staff was not one of them.
 

Hawk68

New Member
Feb 29, 2008
172
Massachusetts
"Have the players changed that much in 5 years or IS it the current culture in MLB?"



The behavior of Price and JBJ w/r/t Eckersley, compounded by both manager and apparent teammate support fails-to-meet my expectations for civil behavior, good order and discipline.

But based on what we see in NFL "take-a-knee", our self centered thin skinned Red Sox may be be a sign of the times and bigger than our fail-to-meet Red Sox players.
 

cannonball 1729

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I had to look it up to see that Williams did in fact have a better W-L record than John Farrell - but just barely. Their Red Sox managerial winning percentages are .540 to .533 both over the course of 5 seasons, give or take. And Farrell has the WS title and the 2 AL East titles, whereas Williams' teams always finished behind the Jeter-led Yankees, even losing to them in ALCS in 1999.
Farrell also has two last place finishes. Williams never came close to that. Even in Williams' "everything goes to hell" year of 2001, the team was 65-53 when he was fired. Postseason success is great, but when a manager manages hundreds of games, I think it's fair to look at all of them to judge his competence.

I would agree with Mr Ripley's comment about the Boston market, but there were a whole lot of terrible teams in those past 50 years - with 1967 being exactly 50 years ago. The Red Sox only made the playoffs 3 times the first 20 years (1967, 1975, 1986), and then when the leagues expanded, they still only made the playoffs 8 times in the next 20 years, with 2004 the one shining example of ultimate success. It's really only been these last 15 years which the Sox have been what we might call consistent contenders, reaching the playoffs 9 out of 15 years. The managers through those good years were Little, Francona, and Farrell - the latter two at or near the top of the SOSH list.
The playoffs expanded halfway through the time frame that you're talking about in the bolded. They had three postseason appearances in those seven years before the leagues expanded and then three in the first five years after. That 1986-1990 run was a pretty good run of success given the constraint of only having two AL teams in the playoffs.

But if we're measuring by postseason success, it's really not at all fair to compare now to pre-1994, anyway. If we'd had the old division system, you know how many postseason appearances would the Sox have had since 1994? Two (2007 and 2013). If the 2017 Red Sox were playing in the old 7-team AL East, they would have finished a distant 2nd this year, nine games behind the division-leading Indians. Last year, they would have finished a game behind the Indians. In both cases, they would have missed the playoffs, which would make Farrell a manager with one great year and four playoff misses. Does he then become known as the second-greatest manager in the last 50 years? Because to me that just sounds like the next Darrell Johnson or Don Zimmer.

Farrell strikes me as a much less idiosyncratic, more middle-of-the-road figure. Higher floor, lower ceiling. If I had to hire one or the other (er, assuming Williams was suspended in time for the past 20 years), I would go with Farrell simply as the less volatile option, given the way volatile situations tend to fall completely apart under the Boston sports media glare.
I would agree, although if we're talking in terms of results, Jimy's results were much less high-variance than Farrell's. I would certainly rather have the less idiosyncratic manager as well because he's way less maddening to watch and much less likely to screw up media things. But if we're just asking who the better manager was, I'm not convinced that that should be the determinative criterion.


Just a goofy question, but how did you know the pitcher was going to implode if Jimy pulled him two batters before he was going to collapse?
Ha! It's that sixth baseball sense. I mean, we all knew that Pedro was going to collapse before Grady let it happen, right?
 
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soxeast

New Member
Aug 12, 2017
206
How should Sale have been handled differently?

Sale is nearing 30. His issue, as Farrell mentioned only last week, is how he prepares for the season. Maybe since he was acquired more than halfway through the winter he didn't get fully involved in whatever strength and conditioning the Sox use for their pitchers. Since he does fade at the end, a large part of this is up to Sale.

Betts slumped in July and August (the whole team sucked in July) and had a 944OPS in September.
You can blame players sure. But the manager has responsibilities too. IMO your comment of blame sidesteps that JF has blame too. It's not only up to Sale. I expect a manager to be more pro-active. If Sale fades then I want the manager to try much better in giving the player rest. For example, if Pedroia were to come back next year - you aren't going to play him every day, are you? Because he is more apt to breakdown if you play him too much.

Next year I expect the manager to give Sale more rest than Farrell did. I expect the manager to be more aware when his pitchers are fading such as what happened in the playoffs with Sale.
 

Deathofthebambino

Drive Carefully
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Apr 12, 2005
41,949
Farrell does deserve to take some big time blame for how he handled Sale and Xander this year. And maybe even Betts injury. Farrell grinds his players. Didn't last year the sox position players break some record for most games started/played? Then we saw Betts hit 3 home runs in his last 43 games, yet Farell still played him even the last two games. He had a knee injury we found out later. We found out recently that Xander finally admitted that he should have taken some time off after the wrist injury from July. And what we saw of Tazawa. There is a pattern here that I think sometimes gets washed away.

It's not the last 2 games that mattered for Mookie. It's the Farrell mind-set of grinding his players. IMO there was no excuse this year for what he did to Sale and Xander. And what if you don't like his base-running philosophy? What if you hated his decision the second he put in Wright to pinch run instead of Pomeranz? The second he brought out Sale to pitch the 8th - anyone listening to the radio like I was- Lou Merloni speaking in the 7th that Sale lost his location. What if you felt the stats of Sale were more important to go by rather than the name? How would you feel about who to blame then, Farrell or DD?

Hey I'm not in love with DD either. I give him a c+ these last two years and an outlook for next year. But imo John's moves have cost this team. And I'm bias - I don't appreciate his philosophy of grinding the players and running into many dumb outs and being okay with it, etc.

Let me be clear. I'm not defending Farrell. I'm just arguing that DD is skating, and shouldn't be. Farrell had to go, and nobody on Earth railed against the baserunning bullshit more than I did this year. I help coach one of my 9 year old's little league teams, and they wouldn't run into the outs the Sox ran into all season. I simply do not understand how Butterball was still coaching 3rd at the end of the season. I'm ok with statistical arguments, but I simply refuse to believe that the number of outs they ran into was offset by the extra bases they took. I just didn't see it. But I digress...

Farrell went into the playoffs against a 100 win team with Doug freaking Fister as his 3rd starter. He had a lineup with two guys who had an .800+ OPS and one of them was a rookie (Devers, who was the highest at .819). Only Betts (108), Benintendi (103), Pedroia (101) and Devers (112) had an OPS+ higher than 99.

We can say that Farrell grinded his players, and should have given them time off, etc., but they only won the division by one game. If he gives Mookie or Xander or whoever time off, whose to say they even make the playoffs? I think the Sox won the East via smoke and mirrors, and the Yankees going through a couple of prolonged slumps as a team, but when the lights were on, and the Sox had to play a team like Houston, those flaws were clear to anyone watching, and I just have a hard time pinning all of that on Farrell. Like I said, he had to go. I was certainly not a fan, but I'm also not very optimistic about this team's future with DD at the helm. Hopefully, I'm proven wrong, but I don't think his track record is nearly as positive as some others do. The gutting of the farm system, which most of us certainly expected when he came in, is something we haven't felt yet, and I'll just never forgive him for allowing an entire season to play out with a Red Sox team in which not one guy hit 25 homers. It's 2017. Everyone hits 25 homers, and he couldn't find one to pick up the slack when Papi retired?

He's got one more year as far as I'm concerned. And then he can follow Farrell off into the sunset.
 

dhappy42

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Oct 27, 2013
15,725
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Agree with most of the above. Not a Farrell fan, but it was DD who failed to find a bat to replace Papi’s and traded a guy who ended up hitting 31 HRs for a reliever who didn’t pitch an inning.
 

Plympton91

bubble burster
SoSH Member
Oct 19, 2008
12,408
I was going to say something about this really being the beginning of the "Travel
Ball" era in MLB. All these player have been getting the star treatment since age 7, and it shows. In the days of little league, you played with the town, and if the town had a better player at your position, you sucked it up. Now, its the opposite, you pick your team based on who promises you what you want. So, no surprise that some of these guys don't want a manager like Farrell.

Still I'm agnostic and awaiting the replacement before beginning to form a judgment. He was average. They certainly can do better.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

Found no thrill on Blueberry Hill
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Sep 9, 2008
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You can blame players sure. But the manager has responsibilities too. IMO your comment of blame sidesteps that JF has blame too. It's not only up to Sale. I expect a manager to be more pro-active. If Sale fades then I want the manager to try much better in giving the player rest. For example, if Pedroia were to come back next year - you aren't going to play him every day, are you? Because he is more apt to breakdown if you play him too much.

Next year I expect the manager to give Sale more rest than Farrell did. I expect the manager to be more aware when his pitchers are fading such as what happened in the playoffs with Sale.
I have come to the conclusion it is impossible to watch any team play 162 plus games a year and not be left with the firm conviction that your manager screws up a lot. I believe we all would feel that way about anyone, and many more significantly. I think this is a relatively new phenomenon -- there has always been second guessing in sports but not to anything close to its present vitriolic degree.

My opinion on John Farrell is that the thing that made him a lightning rod is his face. I'm not kidding. He looks dopey. He gives off the appearance when things are going poorly that things are happening to him, not that he is making them happen. To use football coaches, if Norv Turner is one end of the spectrum and Jack Del Rio the other, John had Norv face. A good MLB team can still lose 70 games and in most of them there will be at least two or three decisions you can question. Baseball is a sport, unlike the others, where fans have a sophisticated understanding that not doing something is actually making a choice.

When you have Farrell face, it catches up to you eventually.
 

JimBoSox9

will you be my friend?
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Nov 1, 2005
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I was going to say something about this really being the beginning of the "Travel
Ball" era in MLB. All these player have been getting the star treatment since age 7, and it shows. In the days of little league, you played with the town, and if the town had a better player at your position, you sucked it up. Now, its the opposite, you pick your team based on who promises you what you want. So, no surprise that some of these guys don't want a manager like Farrell.

Still I'm agnostic and awaiting the replacement before beginning to form a judgment. He was average. They certainly can do better.
This is the flat-out stupidest post regarding baseball you've made across a minimim of two handles, and that's saying quite a bit.
 

streeter88

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We can say that Farrell grinded his players, and should have given them time off, etc., but they only won the division by one game. If he gives Mookie or Xander or whoever time off, whose to say they even make the playoffs? I think the Sox won the East via smoke and mirrors, and the Yankees going through a couple of prolonged slumps as a team, but when the lights were on, and the Sox had to play a team like Houston, those flaws were clear to anyone watching, and I just have a hard time pinning all of that on Farrell. Like I said, he had to go. I was certainly not a fan, but I'm also not very optimistic about this team's future with DD at the helm. Hopefully, I'm proven wrong, but I don't think his track record is nearly as positive as some others do. The gutting of the farm system, which most of us certainly expected when he came in, is something we haven't felt yet, and I'll just never forgive him for allowing an entire season to play out with a Red Sox team in which not one guy hit 25 homers. It's 2017. Everyone hits 25 homers, and he couldn't find one to pick up the slack when Papi retired?.
While I agree with this point in general, the Red Sox literally death-marched to a 13-14 record in July with both Moreland and X injured but "showing leadership by playing through it". Moreland had a bone broken in his foot / toe on June 13th, and OPS'd .435 in July, and X was hit on the wrist on July 6th, and again played through it with an OPS of .452 in July.

Holt was covering the suck at 3B throughout this period, and Lin was up and assisting at 3B as well, as was Marrero. As far as I can tell, X and Moreland pretty much played solidly through their injuries with very few if any days off. I am struggling to believe there wasn't a way to play Hanley or someone from the farm at 1B, put one of the Lin/Marrero's at SS and give X and Moreland time to heal. This is where I think targeted time off would not have hurt the Red Sox record in the month any more than it was already mediocre, and may have led to them coming back better and sooner.
 

lexrageorge

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18,101
Agree with most of the above. Not a Farrell fan, but it was DD who failed to find a bat to replace Papi’s and traded a guy who ended up hitting 31 HRs for a reliever who didn’t pitch an inning.
The trade was unfortunate, but Shaw wasn't particularly good for last half of 2016. And DD was under ownership-imposed payroll constraints to avoid the luxury tax at all costs, which gave him little room to maneuver. DD wasn't the guy that signed Hanley and Sandoval, which really hurt them this year.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

Throw Momma From the Train
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I was going to say something about this really being the beginning of the "Travel
Ball" era in MLB. All these player have been getting the star treatment since age 7, and it shows. In the days of little league, you played with the town, and if the town had a better player at your position, you sucked it up. Now, its the opposite, you pick your team based on who promises you what you want. So, no surprise that some of these guys don't want a manager like Farrell.

Still I'm agnostic and awaiting the replacement before beginning to form a judgment. He was average. They certainly can do better.
Have you ever read the New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract? If not, get a copy right away and read it (hell, I'll be happy to lend you mine); he has chapters dedicated to each decade of baseball, and in every single one starting in the 1890s he has quotes from old-time ballplayers decrying the dedication and attitude of the "modern" player. It's a hoot reading the same things an old-time player was saying in the 1910s about how players from the 1890s were so much tougher.

The quotes never, ever change throughout the years, and they sound a lot like your complaint above. In fact the very same complaint in your post was applied to Dick Williams...back in 1969, when the players got tired of his constant riding of their asses every single day. Or to any of Billy Martin's teams, which usually got a boost when he took over and declined afterwards because they got sick of his bullshit.

Spoiled then, spoiled now, nothing's changed except the numbers in the paycheck.
 

twibnotes

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Jul 16, 2005
20,232
This is the flat-out stupidest post regarding baseball you've made across a minimim of two handles, and that's saying quite a bit.

Overreact much?

Maybe you disagree with the post, but attitudes changing from generation to generation is a good topic as it relates to managing a bunch of well paid young people.
 

twibnotes

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The trade was unfortunate, but Shaw wasn't particularly good for last half of 2016. And DD was under ownership-imposed payroll constraints to avoid the luxury tax at all costs, which gave him little room to maneuver. DD wasn't the guy that signed Hanley and Sandoval, which really hurt them this year.
This is a key point. I too have some doubts about DD, but I think context matters. He inherited a team with a young core and some terrible contracts. He's here to build a winner while the young core is in their prime.

The biggest thing I'd second guess is whether he could have gotten another useful pitcher instead of Price and used the savings to fund a guy like Encarnacion. Still, it's not his fault that he's saddled with some deals (Hanley, Panda, Porcello) that made it difficult to round out the lineup.
 

patoaflac

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May 6, 2016
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I agree totally with the post. I have milennials training with me and most of them are not interested in their work, think the world owes them everything and think they are big stars in what they do. If this is translated to an overpaid profession, with guys with not a big cultural background, they do not like what some managers do or say.
Regarding this I don't know if Cora (my candidate) will sink a la Peña.
 

dcmissle

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I have come to the conclusion it is impossible to watch any team play 162 plus games a year and not be left with the firm conviction that your manager screws up a lot. I believe we all would feel that way about anyone, and many more significantly. I think this is a relatively new phenomenon -- there has always been second guessing in sports but not to anything close to its present vitriolic degree.

My opinion on John Farrell is that the thing that made him a lightning rod is his face. I'm not kidding. He looks dopey. He gives off the appearance when things are going poorly that things are happening to him, not that he is making them happen. To use football coaches, if Norv Turner is one end of the spectrum and Jack Del Rio the other, John had Norv face. A good MLB team can still lose 70 games and in most of them there will be at least two or three decisions you can question. Baseball is a sport, unlike the others, where fans have a sophisticated understanding that not doing something is actually making a choice.

When you have Farrell face, it catches up to you eventually.
I agree with your conclusion. I'm not sure how new this blame game is.

I do know that for decades general managers conveniently scapegoated managers. It happened in the NFL as well with GMs and HCs. You'd have horrific performance in the executive suite, and the field generals shielded almost all of the blame with the GMs playing to the fans' conceit that "I could manage these nine" or 53 or whatever. The field generals were re-cycled again and again, with the GMs escaping blame while keepin-on.

That has changed, a lot.

If your point is that 24/7/180 coverage has left managers even more vulnerable, that's probably right.

In general, on both levels, it is probably wise to have patience. Churning is a dangerous game.
 

AbbyNoho

broke her neck in costa rica
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Jan 20, 2006
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I agree totally with the post. I have milennials training with me and most of them are not interested in their work, think the world owes them everything and think they are big stars in what they do. If this is translated to an overpaid profession, with guys with not a big cultural background, they do not like what some managers do or say.
Regarding this I don't know if Cora (my candidate) will sink a la Peña.
What the hell is this shit? You forgot to scream about them being on your lawn too.

And what exactly do you mean “not a big cultural background”? Because that phrasing has red lights flashing all over it.

Why did this thread turn into a generational culture war?
 

pk1627

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Agree with most of the above. Not a Farrell fan, but it was DD who failed to find a bat to replace Papi’s and traded a guy who ended up hitting 31 HRs for a reliever who didn’t pitch an inning.
Let’s go a step further. DD just followed Henry’s edict that the team not exceed the cap. Thus they decided to see where they could go with what they had.

John Henry did a great job taking the team to the next level when he bought it, and revitalized Fenway and Kenmore. He’s now got shinier toys to play with. I say it’s time to spruce up the team and sell.
 

Kielty's Last Pitch

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Oct 6, 2017
118
Agree with most of the above. Not a Farrell fan, but it was DD who failed to find a bat to replace Papi’s and traded a guy who ended up hitting 31 HRs for a reliever who didn’t pitch an inning.
I'm not a Dombrowski fan, but I don't fault him for Thornburg getting hurt. Panda was slimmer and healthier, there was every reason to give him one more year to prove himself, so keeping Shaw would have meant playing him at 1B and having Hanley DH. Sure it would have been great to sign Encarnacion and play Hanley at 1B, but all the bad contracts prevented Dombrowski from being able to do that. And as it turns out, Hanley wouldn't have been able to physically handle the workload at 1B.

I think we've just got to accept the fact that injuries to arguably five of our six best hitters (Mookie, Moreland, Xander, Pedroia, Hanley) significantly impacted the offense, and that's what cost the team the most. I'm not even including Nunez because he was here due to all the other injuries.
 

DanoooME

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Mar 16, 2008
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This is a key point. I too have some doubts about DD, but I think context matters. He inherited a team with a young core and some terrible contracts. He's here to build a winner while the young core is in their prime.

The biggest thing I'd second guess is whether he could have gotten another useful pitcher instead of Price and used the savings to fund a guy like Encarnacion. Still, it's not his fault that he's saddled with some deals (Hanley, Panda, Porcello) that made it difficult to round out the lineup.
Really? First of all, Price was signed in 2016 and Encarnacion was signed in 2017. Did DD have a giant crystal ball at that point to know that he would have been available?

In the 2015-16 offseason, the consensus on this board and elsewhere was that the weak point of the team was not having an ace to anchor the rotation. So he went out and spent a lot of money to solve that problem. Who would you wanted to have gotten instead of Price? Greinke? He went for more money. Cueto? Zimmermann? They both had red flags.

Love the revisionist history that goes on around here sometimes.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

Found no thrill on Blueberry Hill
SoSH Member
Sep 9, 2008
42,297
AZ
I agree with your conclusion. I'm not sure how new this blame game is.

I do know that for decades general managers conveniently scapegoated managers. It happened in the NFL as well with GMs and HCs. You'd have horrific performance in the executive suite, and the field generals shielded almost all of the blame with the GMs playing to the fans' conceit that "I could manage these nine" or 53 or whatever. The field generals were re-cycled again and again, with the GMs escaping blame while keepin-on.

That has changed, a lot.

If your point is that 24/7/180 coverage has left managers even more vulnerable, that's probably right.

In general, on both levels, it is probably wise to have patience. Churning is a dangerous game.
Yeah, that's probably a more thoughtful way to analyze it. I still have a nagging feeling we're more critical. I think there was a time when the 48/52 decisions would be viewed as exactly that and when they didn't work out, unless Grady level, would blame bad luck. But maybe I'm pining for a time that didn't exist.
 

Harry Hooper

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The trade was unfortunate, but Shaw wasn't particularly good for last half of 2016. And DD was under ownership-imposed payroll constraints to avoid the luxury tax at all costs, which gave him little room to maneuver. DD wasn't the guy that signed Hanley and Sandoval, which really hurt them this year.
It's Gammons, so it's a bit like divining entrails, but he did have this tidbit on Shaw:

But Dombrowski has long viewed his role not as trades and acquisitions, but organizational-building. His right hand man is Frank Wren. Familiarity and first hand experience with young players far outweighs two look judgments, and instead of having the longterm connection with a Travis Shaw or listening to the coaches who saw Shaw developing from his benching and predicted last September that he was their 2017 breakout player.
 

dcmissle

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Yeah, that's probably a more thoughtful way to analyze it. I still have a nagging feeling we're more critical. I think there was a time when the 48/52 decisions would be viewed as exactly that and when they didn't work out, unless Grady level, would blame bad luck. But maybe I'm pining for a time that didn't exist.
We are more critical, of everyone in a management or executive roles. And it's not close.

We have a confluence of 24/7 coverage and an instant replay mindset. Everything is clear in retrospect.
 

Auger34

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It's Gammons, so it's a bit like divining entrails, but he did have this tidbit on Shaw:
I can’t parse what Gammons is even attempting to say there. The grammar is atrocious and I think there are multiple typos.
Is he trying to say that Dombrowski doesn’t believe in organizational building?
 

Detts

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I can’t parse what Gammons is even attempting to say there. The grammar is atrocious and I think there are multiple typos.
Is he trying to say that Dombrowski doesn’t believe in organizational building?
Translation;

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wade boggs chicken dinner

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Mar 26, 2005
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I agree totally with the post. I have milennials training with me and most of them are not interested in their work, think the world owes them everything and think they are big stars in what they do. If this is translated to an overpaid profession, with guys with not a big cultural background, they do not like what some managers do or say.
Not to be snarky, but are you really comparing major league baseball players with people at your work?

Virtually every professional athlete has always been the best of the best at every developmental level. They are the ones who have always been picked first in any pick-up game, get to pick their position on any team, get recruited by multiple coaches at every level, and have things thrown at them to get them. In fact, what often separates the successful professional athlete from the unsuccessful professional athlete is how they deal with the fact that they are now competing against a league full of people who have the same or more talent as they do.

It has always been like this and always will. It's not a new thing.
 

m0ckduck

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Jul 20, 2005
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My opinion on John Farrell is that the thing that made him a lightning rod is his face. I'm not kidding. He looks dopey. He gives off the appearance when things are going poorly that things are happening to him, not that he is making them happen. To use football coaches, if Norv Turner is one end of the spectrum and Jack Del Rio the other, John had Norv face. A good MLB team can still lose 70 games and in most of them there will be at least two or three decisions you can question. Baseball is a sport, unlike the others, where fans have a sophisticated understanding that not doing something is actually making a choice.

When you have Farrell face, it catches up to you eventually.
This is a great point, as silly as it sounds at first blush. I wonder if you just gave Farrell Joe Maddon's nerd glasses, how much that would aid the public perception of him as manager. To say nothing of if you body-swapped him with, say, 1990s Tony LaRussa.
 

patoaflac

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May 6, 2016
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Not to be snarky, but are you really comparing major league baseball players with people at your work?

Virtually every professional athlete has always been the best of the best at every developmental level. They are the ones who have always been picked first in any pick-up game, get to pick their position on any team, get recruited by multiple coaches at every level, and have things thrown at them to get them. In fact, what often separates the successful professional athlete from the unsuccessful professional athlete is how they deal with the fact that they are now competing against a league full of people who have the same or more talent as they do.

It has always been like this and always will. It's not a new thing.
No, I'm not comparing them, I'm talking about people in this generation compared to the ones 30 years ago. It doesn't matter what they do, their attitude is not the best.
Regarding the cultural background, no one can deny the level of schools is not very good in some rural American communities, and around 25% of players are from Latin America; you should look at educational statistics from UNESCO, where Trump pulled the US out this week, south of the border.
 
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AbbyNoho

broke her neck in costa rica
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No, I'm not comparing them, I'm talking about people in this generation compared to the ones 30 years ago. It doesn't matter what they do, their attitude is not the best.
Regarding the cultural background, no one can deny the level of schools is not very good in some rural American communities, and around 25% of players are from Latin America; you should look at educational statistics from UNESCO, where Trump pulled the US out this week, south of the border.
Young people and brown people are inferior. Gotcha.
 

Marceline

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No, I'm not comparing them, I'm talking about people in this generation compared to the ones 30 years ago. It doesn't matter what they do, their attitude is not the best.
Regarding the cultural background, no one can deny the level of schools is not very good in some rural American communities, and around 25% of players are from Latin America; you should look at educational statistics from UNESCO, where Trump pulled the US out this week, south of the border.
Every generation in human history has said this about the generation that follows them.
 

patoaflac

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Young people and brown people are inferior. Gotcha.
No you didn't get me. And you didn't get me because I'm Mexican and I live in Mexico, and I work in education. You really don't know what are the conditions of poverty and lack of proper education we have in Latin America. What I originally said is that these overpaid guys, that haven't had a proper education, can not manage adequately (of course not in all cases) what they get, and there we have the Corderos, Lugos, Chapmans, etc. It's Almost impossible to see a European professor or researcher having a domestic violence incident.

Yes, every generation says that about the preceding generation, but it's not conceivable that students are chating at class and patients are answering their cell phones when with a doctor.
 
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twibnotes

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Jul 16, 2005
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Really? First of all, Price was signed in 2016 and Encarnacion was signed in 2017. Did DD have a giant crystal ball at that point to know that he would have been available?

In the 2015-16 offseason, the consensus on this board and elsewhere was that the weak point of the team was not having an ace to anchor the rotation. So he went out and spent a lot of money to solve that problem. Who would you wanted to have gotten instead of Price? Greinke? He went for more money. Cueto? Zimmermann? They both had red flags.

Love the revisionist history that goes on around here sometimes.

They needed an arm in the rotation. I get that. But it's arguable that DD overpaid Price and/or could have found a more cost effective solution.

That's not revisionist by the way. Even those of us excited about the signing acknowledged that the cost was super high.
 

soxhop411

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Dec 4, 2009
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They needed an arm in the rotation. I get that. But it's arguable that DD overpaid Price and/or could have found a more cost effective solution.

That's not revisionist by the way. Even those of us excited about the signing acknowledged that the cost was super high.
But again that’s the going rate for an ace in FA. and that going rate gets higher each offseason as the previous ace sets the Market standard
 

Snodgrass'Muff

oppresses WARmongers
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Mar 11, 2008
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Every generation in human history has said this about the generation that follows them.
This time it counts.

No you didn't get me. And you didn't get me because I'm Mexican and I live in Mexico, and I work in education. You really don't know what are the conditions of poverty and lack of proper education we have in Latin America. What I originally said is that these overpaid guys, that haven't had a proper education, can not manage adequately (of course not in all cases) what they get, and there we have the Corderos, Lugos, Chapmans, etc. It's Almost impossible to see a European professor or researcher having a domestic violence incident.

Yes, every generation says that about the preceding generation, but it's not conceivable that students are chating at class and patients are answering their cell phones when with a doctor.
No, it's really not that hard to see it.
 

BroodsSexton

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No you didn't get me. And you didn't get me because I'm Mexican and I live in Mexico, and I work in education. You really don't know what are the conditions of poverty and lack of proper education we have in Latin America. What I originally said is that these overpaid guys, that haven't had a proper education, can not manage adequately (of course not in all cases) what they get, and there we have the Corderos, Lugos, Chapmans, etc. It's Almost impossible to see a European professor or researcher having a domestic violence incident.

Yes, every generation says that about the preceding generation, but it's not conceivable that students are chating at class and patients are answering their cell phones when with a doctor.
How do we feel about Hollywood movie moguls?
 

charlieoscar

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Sep 28, 2014
1,339
Still, it's not his fault that he's saddled with some deals (Hanley, Panda, Porcello) that made it difficult to round out the lineup.
Well, Dombrowski didn't have to take the job.

One would suspect that he had some plan (injuries aside) to deal with a team that was on the verge of losing its best offensive player and relying on three others who were beginning to show their age (Ramirez averaged 106 games per season from 2013-15; Pedroia averaged 114 games per season from 2014-15; Sandoval averaged 133 games per season from 2012-15 but his production went down each season). He didn't have a regular left fielder and a bullpen that needed rebuilding.