What irony it would be to hire the guy who suppressed Papi’s development and non-tendered him 15 years ago.
Potential Red Sox manager candidates
- Thread starter The Gray Eagle
- Start date
Gardenhire isn't intriguing to me at all. For me, Cora is very much at the top of my list and there's a big gap before anyone else.
Most likely just doing due diligence but If they are contemplating hiring a first time manager (who embraces analytics) could they simultaneously be looking for a baseball guy who could serve as his bench coach? ......That would be a parallel move for Gardenhire so I'm not sure why he would be interested.
Maybe they're talking to Gardenhire with the idea that he might become the bench coach. It's also an opportunity to pick the brain of a guy who has been a close observer of the AL and the Sox.
On the other hand, if you subscribe to Omar Vizquel's criticism of Farrell failing to teach the young players not to keep making the same mistakes, then Gardenhire might be your guy. Gardenhire is very big on fundamentals, and was notable among MLB managers in having his club do full infield drills in the workouts right before games.
Well he could teach everyone how to be terrified of playing at the Toilet. That will work nicely.
It was fun reading this with high-school Spanish. I suppose that "temporada muerta" means the off-season, not a season in hell?
Dave is quite well connected, particularly among analytics folks in FOs.
It's also worth noting that Fangraphs is not the only place where we've heard rumblings that the Red Sox are high on the "analytics" front as they used to be.
Playoff Dombrowski.
I'm very curious if that's a post-interview leak or the mindset going in to the interview.
I'm very curious if that's a post-interview leak or the mindset going in to the interview.
I almost never get what I want in these cases, so I can't believe I'll get Alex Cora, but I can dream, can't I?
Possibly pointless question, but has anything ever been written about what goes on in an interview for a manager? Do they show them video of specific situations and ask them what they would do? Do they just get their thoughts on the team? I am just curious what kind of information Gm/Presidents like to get when making a decision on whom to hire.
ehhh that’s more Tom Kelly than him. He had nothing to do with Papi getting non tendered.
Rosenthal’s the guy that nailed Farrell being let go the morning of the event, Guess I hope he’s right again.
Who’s the guy that told Papi to be more of a singles hitter, or go to left more, or both?
It's probably been noted elsewhere, but if they do hire Cora, wouldn't he be the first minority manager in Redsox history?
Assuming you only have to interview one. He counts against the quota, whatever the quota is.
You'd hope that wouldn't really play a factor but add in the Adam Jones incident earlier this year, and maybe it does. Even if it is small.
And for all his mediocrity, Farrell was the second best manager we've had in thirty years.
If this is indeed the case, I rescind my earlier demand that they get this done by the end of the world series and Grant them four days past the conclusion of the series.
Mind you, I think none of us are in a position to have an informed opinion on whether any of these guys would make good managers. There's so much of the job that we simply cannot see--it's why the nattering knights of the negaboard* are so terrible--and even if we could see it, leadership is a hard enough thing to define when the leader can pick his team. When he can't it's even harder.
Still, what we hear about Cora sounds good so I'm for it.
Just for God's sake, not Gardenhire. My memory is that he's only slightly less Scioscia than Scioscia.
*They got away from me a bit didn't it? I guess snide insults of assholes mix less well than metaphors. I shall, in the future, refer to them as the nattering knights of assholery.
I guess in all fairness there there you also have the amount of success he saw with a small market team factor. I mean it's not like Gardy was ever sitting pretty with the keys to a decked out Ferrari while filling out those alternative lineup cards and dropping games to the Yankees.
That's about as much as I can come up with on the half full front.
There last time we went through this, I seem to recall reading something to the effect that they spent several hours talking basic baseball philosophy then Management presented several situations--not necessarily game situations--and talked through how the prospective manager would respond.
IIRC, in Tito’s interview they peppered him with lots of detailed scenarios (fresh off the Grady debacle), and he blew them out of the water with his forward thinking. I think going into the interview round Glenn Hoffman was the presumed favorite.
Maybe that was before they talked to Joe Maddon but I thought that decision came down to Tito or Maddon.
That is more typical, yes, though a first-time MLB manager may not have as much negotiating leverage on coaches as a more seasoned MLB skipper would.
Not sure they can hire Gardenhire as bench coach since that's his role in Arizona. If they had to ask permission to interview him, I imagine that means he's not a free agent coach who can go where he pleases. The D-Backs probably only let him go if he's hired as a manager somewhere.
Dombrowski wants to interview him because he views him as a serious candidate for the manager's job. Those that don't want to see Gardenhire hired can only hope that someone else has a more impressive interview.
Dombrowski wants to interview him because he views him as a serious candidate for the manager's job. Those that don't want to see Gardenhire hired can only hope that someone else has a more impressive interview.
If they hire Cora, I hope Castiglione has his depends on, cuz he's gonna pee himself with glee. Every time that dude's name comes up on radio, Joe waxes poetic for an inning and a half about Cora being the bestest smartest nicest coolest most geniusy genius ever.
Wasn't there some kind of special circumstances with the contract that Louvullo had with the Red Sox, paying him as a manager and limiting his ability to interview elsewhere (or something along those lines)? Was that contract expired prior to signing with the DBacks, or could there be some kind of professional courtesy being returned?
I really question how involved John Henry is with overseeing the Red Sox these days. I find it hard to fathom that he of all people is Ok with letting his team's analytics capabilities wither and fall behind the curve.
How did the Sox go from being one of the most saber minded teams in the early Theo era to one of the least? Was there some skepticism that won out or was it a funding issue that deemed that dept. relatively unimportant to gaining a slight edge? Was simply reading the available statistical work that we're all privvy to considered enough?
There's not a slight edge when a team becomes over-reliant on advanced statistics, then it becomes a hindrance. See Athletics, Oakland.
"not as high as they used to be" isn't the same as "one of the least."
The gap has probably narrowed significantly since teams started investing in more advanced analytics.
I dont think reality bears this out. The A's have been relatively successful over the last 20 years. The last 3 years, not so much, but that followed 3 straight years in the playoffs. Given their payroll limitations, a boom-bust cycle is probably the optimal outcome.
Not sure what Lovullo's contract was or what it has to do with Gardenhire. My only point was that generally speaking, teams will allow coaches to leave for another team when it involves a promotion from their current position. So if the Sox hire Gardenhire as manager, the DBacks won't stand in his way. But if they want to hire him for the same position he holds in Arizona, the DBacks likely won't let him out of his contract to do so. At least not without compensation.
It's the same principle that had the Red Sox sending Mike Aviles to Toronto as compensation for Farrell. Since it was a lateral move, they were under no obligation to let him go.
2013. Yes, it's more complicated than that, but the success of the 2013 team helped convince upper management that some "standard deviation" from a strict reliance on CARMINE was OK.
I mean:
I'm sure the Red Sox have data that we don't (Field & Hit Fx for two) and I'm sure data is still mined and used. Fewer staff (more scouts?) makes sense, when combined with Dombrowski's historical preferences.
But really, it is 2013. Had they not won the World Series using "guys you want to go to WAR with" they might not have charted a new course.
They have had quite the brain drain also. The lion share of their vaunted baseball ops department is gone.
2016: "John Henry says Red Sox will rely less on analytics"
The best part of that article is that it features a picture of Panda, with the caption "John Henry says Pablo Sandoval is down to 17 percent body fat."
So let's dispel once and for all with this fiction that John Henry doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
Yes, understand your point and agree with it. I was just speculating/hoping that the Sox were more interested for a bench coach role.
I recall Lovullo had something in his contract that would have prevented him from leaving for a managers position but he was allowed to anyway. Perhaps that deal expired or the Sox made and exception in which case the DBacks are reciprocating now.
My office hours had no takers today, so I did a little romance philology:
Looks like a bunch of stuff we knew, but with an unnamed source who thinks it's a fait accompli.