I would have paid money to see DD's reaction if someone asked him why he's bringing back a manager who has two last-place finishes in three years and whose World Series win three years ago was obviously an outlier.
John Farrell & Dave Dombrowski Press Conference (10/11/16)
- Thread starter rembrat
- Start date
Bonus tip for "which was only possible because of yours failures building a bullpen for their alcs opponent".
Thinking about this comment a bit, Honestly, its refreshing to see a GM/President be a straight shooter, rather then beat around the bush. Though I don't think this will go over well with some people....
Because he knows the Padres will be taking over Panda's contract as compensation /wishcasting
I found that interesting, as the bad luck angle has been discussed in the Price thread, I also found JF's comment that Price would probably like to have the 2-1 fastball to Chisenhall back interesting. Price said after the game it was a good pitch and Chisenhall's heat map shows the pitch was definitely in his cold zone. Is JF alluding to the fact that Price (or Price and Leon) made a mistake there? Judging by Price's reaction after the game and the heat map I'm not so sure that pitch was a mistake.
For those that frequent the game threads I've been saying I wanted both DD and JF gone after this season. Having said that, I don't dislike either guy, I just don't feel they're moving the team forward. Regarding DD though, he seems incredibly straight forward in what he says publicly. Take last off season for example he said he wanted a front line starter, front line closer and right handed outfielder.
Man, wanting to see DD sacked after this year moves you right to the front of the line for mayor of LOLtown.
This was expected. Personally I don't agree Farrell is the guy for this team. However, you really can't fire him since the team went from last the previous 2 years to AL East champs. The playoffs is always such a small sample size for the most part. Time will tell if this is the real Porcello or if his true value is somewhere in between his 2015 and 2016 seasons.
Going forward I would like to see this team use the money earmarked for Ortiz and give it to Betts and X. Those are your two franchise players right now. Pedroia is still a really good player and is probably considered the captain but Mookie and X are your franchise that will take the organization into the next decade provided the team is smart and extends them now.
Going forward I would like to see this team use the money earmarked for Ortiz and give it to Betts and X. Those are your two franchise players right now. Pedroia is still a really good player and is probably considered the captain but Mookie and X are your franchise that will take the organization into the next decade provided the team is smart and extends them now.
[QUOTE="HangingW/ScottCooper, post: 1956899, member: 27911"Having said that, I don't dislike either guy, I just don't feel they're moving the team forward. Regarding DD though, he seems incredibly straight forward in what he says publicly. Take last off season for example he said he wanted a front line starter, front line closer and right handed outfielder.[/QUOTE]
In terms of DD - first to last in one year with nothing but upside for the foreseeable future isn't moving forward? Does not compute.
Price was an absolute slam dunk of a move for any GM with money to burn needing an ace. Young worked out. Kimbrel was good. Getting Ziegler for nothing was great. Pomeranz was a mixed bag, but so so much better than the Sean O'Sullivan types being trotted out. Hill and Abad were low risk.
He didn't cough up the farm in a reactionary trade. The bullpen was shored up in time and was lights out. What else could he have done?
In terms of DD - first to last in one year with nothing but upside for the foreseeable future isn't moving forward? Does not compute.
Price was an absolute slam dunk of a move for any GM with money to burn needing an ace. Young worked out. Kimbrel was good. Getting Ziegler for nothing was great. Pomeranz was a mixed bag, but so so much better than the Sean O'Sullivan types being trotted out. Hill and Abad were low risk.
He didn't cough up the farm in a reactionary trade. The bullpen was shored up in time and was lights out. What else could he have done?
Did this Red Sox team play to its potential?
That is an honest question and I have an opinion but am not too confident in what the answer is.
I would have thought that with an offense like they had and the $ spent on pitching they would have won a playoff game.
Also, the talent on this roster for JF's entire tenure should never have led to a last place finish, let alone multiple.
I always thought the most important quality for a manger is for the ox and lamb to keep time
I agree locking up the young guys is important, BUT I have a small nitpick, and it needs to end. There is Mookie and then.......Xander & JBJ. You can't put those two in the same class with Mookie Betts. Xander and JBJ are more comparable.
If you want to lump players with Mookie, you need to mention guys like Trout, Donaldson, Machado and Altuve.
Sorry Xander fanboys.
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Only in Boston would a division title be referred to as a "pretty good" year. I agree about the "ended very badly" part--but until that ending, it was a very good year.
Simply look back at the pre-season expectations. How many called for a 93-win season and an AL East title? Maybe there were a few scattered about but I'm guessing that 90+% of predictions on this board were for <90 wins.
I'm sure he meant that as a compliment to Farrell, but this team had the potential to win 100 games. It won 93.
Was that early season expectation based on the bitter taste of two straight last place finishes or based on talent on the roster?
I don't know the answer.
I think it is the right move to keep JF for 2017; I just am not sure if he is the great of a manager. To be fair, there aren't that many great managers. He is definitely above average.
Agreed. Not sure on the 100, but the team definitely could have won HFA for the AL.
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In the past 30 years, they have been 29 teams who have won 100 games. Three, thus far, won the World Series
Nope. That number I pulled out of Baseball Prospectus.
http://www.baseballprospectus.com/standings/
1st order win/loss: 99-63 (based on runs scored and runs against)
2nd order: 103-59 (based on "projected" runs scored)
3rd order: 103-59 (adjusted for quality of opponents)
Well I was going to go with a show your work comment but I opted to go snarkier, I should have gone with what I was planning.
You have now shown a basis for the number, I think most of that delta is due to the crappy bullpen and an abnormal amount of blowouts with little to none of the difference being Farrell but YMMV.
You have now shown a basis for the number, I think most of that delta is due to the crappy bullpen and an abnormal amount of blowouts with little to none of the difference being Farrell but YMMV.
I didn't say the team needs a third baseman. I said 3B is one of the two positions where there are holes, DH, obviously, being the other one, with Ortiz's retirement. Shaw and Holt are below average. Shaw ranked 21st in OPS (.726) among third basemen. Holt was worse. (.705). Moncada's not ready and probably won't be for another year or two. Sandoval remains a question mark.
Justin Turner at 3B solves that problem. If Panda resurrects, then he can share 1B/DH duty with Hanley. (Edit: ) That solves the other problem.
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Okay. I think the delta is due to a number of things. My point is the same: the Red Sox underperformed and part of the reason was Farrell, IMO.
As for the Sox "crappy bullpen," the team had the 8th or 9th best bullpen ERA in baseball, depending on what you measure. Did the bullpen blow some games? Yes, obviously, but isn't bullpen deployment one of the few, key measures of a manager's tactical skill?
Look, I'm not on the "Fire Farrell" bandwagon, but the 2016 Red Sox underperformed expectations even though Ortiz and a couple of other players over-performed expectations. Ortiz's offensive output was astounding. Who thought Steven Wright would be on pace to win 20 games (before his injury as a pinch runner)? Who expected that JBJ would be the third most valuable player on the team (in WAR terms) or that Sandy Leon would hit like Ted Williams for half a season? The Red Sox had nine players with OPS over .800 (counting Benintendi) and three potential 20-game winners as starters (until one of them was injured pinch running.) 93 wins wasn't a letdown, but it was underperformance.
Over the last 30 years, how many teams have won 93 games and gone on to win the World Series?
Not to mention, it appears that Farrell was about 5 months late, and at least 1 month late, in turning to Joe Kelly as a bullpen option. The Red Sox crappy bullpen was in part due to the pitchers that the manager wanted in the bullpen.
Sorry to get off topic but thanks for the link... And maybe bad news for the Cubs?
Anyone else getting a choppy feed on the press conference? Having trouble even finding audio that's clean.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski announced that manager John Farrell will return in 2017. “John Farrell will be our manager for 2017. He is all set, and his whole staff will be invited back,”declared Dombrowski (via the Associated Press). Farrell, whom Dombrowski called “our leader going forward,” was at the helm of a 93-69 team in 2016 that bounced back from two straight last-place finishes to win the AL East. Entering the year, the Red Sox’s most recent division title came in 2013, when the Farrell-led club also won the World Series. The Red Sox won’t reach that goal this year, of course, as the Indians swept them out of the ALDS on Monday. Nevertheless, having gone 339-309 with two playoff berths and a championship in four years, Farrell has done enough to justify a fifth season in Boston, according to Dombrowski. - per MLBTR more http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/10/dombrowski-on-farrell-dh-sandoval-pomeranz-uehara.html
Sorry Mookie fanboy... but you need more than one season to lump Mookie in with players like Trout, Donaldson, Machado and Altuve. There's been far too many "one great outlier season" amongst a careers worth of good but not transcendental season players throughout history. At the mid point of this season, X and Mookie and JBJ were all standing toe to toe in overall value to the team (possibly X and JBJ having more value only due to what positions they were playing), but X's and JBJ's second halves were what seperated them.
I'm in agreement that X and Mookie should both be prioritized for long term contracts... along with JBJ... .but out of the three if one of them has to either play out their contract or be send in a trade... it's JBJ... and I'd hate to see that happen.
EDIT- I'm also a Mookie fanboy and think he will be in that league... but I'm just saying that it's too soon still to put him there. I'll need a close-to-a-repeat of '16 next season to start putting him in that elite company
I doubt the player really loves it either, but it sells a ton of tickets, home and away, in a season where going into the year the Red Sox weren't exactly selling them on their own. That's why they did it and it's probably going to happen with every franchise player who retires from now on (though the three mentioned are definitely more popular than almost everyone).
How much of the "underperformance" in wins was due to the "overperformance" of individual players which may be attributed to the manager and his coaching staff? You can't blame the manager for all that goes wrong without giving him credit for the things that go right. My point was that this board wasn't lit up with posters predicting 93 wins and an AL East title......there were very few and I can't imagine any Red Sox fan in the spring being disappointed or even utter the word "underperformance" had they been told this would be the end result of the season.
Mookie's not Mike Trout, maybe 5-10 guys in the history of baseball are in Mike Trout's class, but benhogan is right. X and JBJ were very valuable young players this year that are either key cogs of the team's future or valuable trade chips. Mookie is a guy whose first two years are HOF track caliber and that has the potential to be the cornerstone of the franchise for the next decade. Their value is very different.
Whoah whoah whoah whoah. Slow down with the HoF caliber stuff. Far too early to judge the shape of his career, even now. Hell, it's too early to judge Trout's career; either could get hurt tomorrow and fall off of that incline. Just enjoy it for what it is today.
I stand by everything I said. Its factually correct. I didnt say Betts was a surefire Hall of Famer or anything. I said Betts first two years are the first two years of a HOF caliber/franchise cornerstone player and that Betts and Xander are in different value tiers right now. Both things are true.
Yeah, we'll see. I hate this deification of young players even after a couple of great years. The kid's a good player, let's try to enjoy it instead of carving out a plaque so soon. I'm just going to enjoy watching him play, he's a pleasure out there.
Maybe he can add to his HoF case by actually doing something of note in the postseason the next time he's in it, assuming he gets the chance.
Maybe he can add to his HoF case by actually doing something of note in the postseason the next time he's in it, assuming he gets the chance.
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Five teams with 92 wins have won the World Series in last 30 years. So I guess that's better than winning 100.
Fire Farrell for winning that one extra game.
Carving out a plaque would be silly, not sure who is doing that though.
He wasnt great this postseason, but he wasnt a disaster by any stretch.
This fits as response to both of these posts:
You can't move the goalposts and say that because they were better, the expectations should have been higher. They weren't. The team played better than expected. Further, pointing to expected wins misses a bunch of nuance that exists in the numbers in the first place.
The team played a big chunk of the season without a bullpen. That has a huge impact on actual results versus expected results. They also took the foot off the pedal down the stretch to rest up, which also has a negative impact on win totals. (Take a look at the Cubs' expected wins)
Here's what we know... expectations were pretty low going into the season. Very few had the Sox winning 93, and absolutely no one thought they were a 100 win team. That they played well enough that people are now arguing that we SHOULD have expected more proves conclusively that they did exceed expectations. That's a boon to Farrell's case and it's hilarious to see people twisting themselves into knots trying to turn it into a negative.
But this supposes the pre-season predictions were accurate. There was a lot of uncertainty as to which players would contribute and how - some players performed poorly or were injured, and some players were better than expected. The measure of a manager's effectiveness is how well they did with what was at hand.
Not really. Unless you think that it's OK to hold a season ravaged by injuries against the manager (judging final standings by pre-season polls of what everyone expects will happen.) Conversely, if all the players had break out career years, it shouldn't be believed that the manager somehow was responsible for the massive increase over pre-season polls - i.e., as if the manager had guided a team with a 85 win talent level to 100 wins, solely because of their managerial acumen. Or, to put it another way, pre-season message board expectations mean squat.
So that leaves us with valuing the manager on the impact of in-game decisions, and the "long term" management of the team over the course of a season, while acknowledging that the team with Kimbrel and Koji on the DL is not the same as the team-on-paper that started the season.
(FWIW, I view Farrell as negative on in-game decision making, and somewhat unknowable regarding his long term handling of players this season. His coaching staff seemed better this year than last, but there were a lot of inconsistent performances from players. I don't know how much those performances deviate from average, or whether Farrell had control over any of them - but it's hard to ignore the hot/cold streaks of players. Ultimately, the team won the division, which is a huge plus. However, they seemed, as a group, woefully unprepared to take on sub-standard Cleveland starters.)
The hilarious thing about all of this is that it is all literally unknowable.
Maybe the offense that looked like it was the best in MLB history in May got that way because of the presence of our stoic prominently-jawed hero. Maybe Hanley got on a ridiculous hot streak in September (which hid a lot of suckage from other players) because John Farrell set the appropriate tone at dinner one night in late August. Maybe every single one of JF's many head-scratching moves led to absolutely zero negative impact on any outcomes. Because luck, or something.
Or, maybe Farrell is a tightly wound guy, and that persona carries over to his team in tight spots. Or John Farrell farted once at dinner in early August and JBJ and X forgot how to hit baseballs because they couldn't wash the stench out of their nosehairs. Or maybe any other manager would have handled matchups and starting pitchers better and won 3 more games, giving us homefield advantage, causing us to go on an 11-game undefeated run for our 4th WS win in the last 12 years. Because luck, or something.
We don't know, and we'll never know. Ever.
I personally (as anyone who has encountered me in a game thread knows) think Farrell is a pretty mediocre-to-bad manager. But I won't claim any certainty in that regard (the occasional game thread excursions notwithstanding). I would like to see him go, because I'd be excited to see what Lovullo's tenure would look like, and because JF drives me nuts with his in-game management. Also, because I'm curious to see how vigorously Rembrat would defend Lovullo cocking up a game with bullpen management or platoon screwups. I'm into social experiments like that.
Maybe the offense that looked like it was the best in MLB history in May got that way because of the presence of our stoic prominently-jawed hero. Maybe Hanley got on a ridiculous hot streak in September (which hid a lot of suckage from other players) because John Farrell set the appropriate tone at dinner one night in late August. Maybe every single one of JF's many head-scratching moves led to absolutely zero negative impact on any outcomes. Because luck, or something.
Or, maybe Farrell is a tightly wound guy, and that persona carries over to his team in tight spots. Or John Farrell farted once at dinner in early August and JBJ and X forgot how to hit baseballs because they couldn't wash the stench out of their nosehairs. Or maybe any other manager would have handled matchups and starting pitchers better and won 3 more games, giving us homefield advantage, causing us to go on an 11-game undefeated run for our 4th WS win in the last 12 years. Because luck, or something.
We don't know, and we'll never know. Ever.
I personally (as anyone who has encountered me in a game thread knows) think Farrell is a pretty mediocre-to-bad manager. But I won't claim any certainty in that regard (the occasional game thread excursions notwithstanding). I would like to see him go, because I'd be excited to see what Lovullo's tenure would look like, and because JF drives me nuts with his in-game management. Also, because I'm curious to see how vigorously Rembrat would defend Lovullo cocking up a game with bullpen management or platoon screwups. I'm into social experiments like that.
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Kluber is one of the best pitchers in the AL. The Game 1 cleveland starter gave up 3 runs/6 hits (5xbh) in less than 5 innings.
Do you really think Porcello and Price were "unprepared?" Or Pedroia? Ortiz? You dont. You're just making up an excuse that goes beyond (the admittedly unsatisfying) "Shit. The team's top two starting pitchers and several of their best hitters really sucked."
What does "unprepared" mean?