I'm "bitching and whining" because the quality of discussion on the main board of "the best sports forum on the internet" has gone into the toilet because of the manager stuff. It doesn't add anything, it's never backed up and it invades literally every thread.
And how do his mistakes compare to the mistakes of other managers? This isn't a decathlon, where points are awarded not compared to an athletes' competition, but against some pre-set standard.
It's a double whammy too, because it's actually an opportunity for the kind of discussion that we like around here. For example, part of the objection to Farrell last night in game threads was that Barnes sucks on the road. This is the kind of thing we usually dissect to pieces here in a valuable way. Is it a SSS thing? Is it superstition. Do we really want managers making decisions based on these squishy kinds of factors. The problem is that emotion takes over with Farrell, and the discussion goes to crap.
This is garbage. You're wasting my time on a board I care about with this crap. Try harder.
Totally, totally agreed. There's a few posters here that if they spent half the time doing research into it than they do complaining about JF might actually have something interesting to say. It's embarrassing that so many are putting in wonderful effort on the dotcom just to point outsiders to this garbage.
Oh, but you forgot the flip side too. Poster criticizes move, it works and success is "in spite of" the manager! If said move had failed it would be because "everyone knew" it was wrong.
I would point to the baserunning thread as well, which (for the most part) went beyond "they just get a lot of guys thrown out" to trying to dig for some context.
I think you're missing the point. I think most fans understand that Farrell is not an abject fool and that many of his moves work fine. I think some of us appreciate that we only have some of the available information and that Farrell is likely seeing a bigger picture than us. I think some of us appreciate that managing a baseball team is a very hard job. And there's the obvious fact that the 2013 Sox taught us that John Farrell can manage a World Champion.
That thread turned a turd into something good for sure. Of course the folks who stepped in to make valuable posts weren't the same folks stamping their feet. The main one of the latter ghosted the thread when his baseless assertions were challenged and that's what I take issue with.
I didn't say unfairly. I said whiny posts with no substance. I don't understand the last sentence...the team looks like they enjoy and support each other quite a bit. Are we referring to the media-created Price nonsense that he deftly squashed by taking all of the heat publicly and letting his players go on a winning tear?
Have you even been paying attention this year? After the Price/Eck incident (clubhouse vs media, right?) the team was the worst in baseball for about a month. How is that a point in his favor for keeping the team focused on their jobs, exactly?
This is unfair. I've been banging this drum all year (and the year before that, and the year before that). If I was only making points against when they were a last place team and losing regularly your point would have merit, but it's just not true.
The worst stretch I could find was 6-12 starting with TX and TB just before the all-star game. That's the stretch that included the 16 inning loss, a doubleheader, and the 15 inning game. And after a rough 18 games, they became the hottest team in the league. I dont know or care if or how the winning part reflects on the manager. But the "after Eck.......for about a month...." construct seems not to support the premise.
I don't agree with how JF handled the Price nonsense. I am not going to go into detail here (it's been beaten to death elsewhere) but will leave it at my view that a better leader would have contributed to the story dying faster. That the team has gone on a tear doesn't mean that JF handled things the right way. As Bill Lee essentially observed about Darrell Johnston, sometimes folks can fall out of a tree and land on their feet.
For the bolded part, Pedroia's interview where he bascially says: "I am the leader" is also telling about something amiss in the clubhouse. Maybe Farrell is losing his touch, or maybe he's losing the players, we don't know but little things have happened to make us things it's not going too well.
So correlation === causation now on SOSH? When it hit the media for real a month later they responded with excellent baseball despite much effort to drag them down into a media pissing match and the manger kept the clubhouse tight and quiet and it disappeared. Nope, not buying this garbage, thanks. The pitching staff had it's best month of the season in July by ERA. The controversy black hole must be localized right around home plate.
I looked at your linked post at the time. I moved past it after you executed the classic double standard where the good things are attributed to the players and the bad to the manager. That's just not how this works. And you close with the old "light a fire under their asses," which sounds great but is meaningless. How long does that fire last? Who's bringing it? How is the bringer at tactical decisions, dealing with the media and clubhouse personalities? We had one of those guys and he sucked at everything but lighting fires. Actually he sucked at lighting fires too, unless they were burning his own team. Forgive me for not being moved by this hand wavey analysis.
What happened in Toronto I could not care less about. Tito came here with a pretty shitty record too and, for all the revisionist history, only had a +4 net in his 8 year Boston tenure.
This is nonsense and exactly what I'm talking about; you have no idea the dynamics inside the clubhouse. None.
Whose consensus was this? Half the team had the flu to start the season, they lost their #2 pitcher to injury, the Yankees and Rays are much better than anticipated and Baltimore was doing their usual 1st half thing. We're really surprised they weren't living up to "expectations" that were based around those things not being true? And yet, they're in 1st place in a tough division with the 4th best winning % in baseball, on pace to win in the mid-90s. WILDLY underachieving.
No it isn't. I'm not advocating for keeping nor firing the manager. You can own your own posts, TYVM.
I'm also inclined to give the Jaw credit for resting Devers against a few slop-throwing lefties so that when he did face Chapman, his timing wasn't thrown off. I might even give the Jaw credit for pushing Pedroia onto the DL and resting Bogaerts from time to time, but that would probably be projection.
Can you point us to some of your posts with research as examples to give us a better sense of what makes for good mainboard material? I was trying to look through but all I saw was some emoji reactions and a bunch of sarcastic one-liners about how bad the manager is.
The Reed thing baffles me but then I remember how he used Ziegler and this is playing out the exact same way. Maybe he just doesn't like messing with his bullpen structure in season? That's the only reason I can think of that he's misusing Reed as bad as he has. Team is playing great right now. Last night was in spite of him and while I give him all the credit in the world for knowing when to sit Benetendi it's mystifying to me why he'll stick with someone like Barnes in a key situation when he's obviously throwing up all over himself. While giving Reed the short hook at the first sign of trouble.
Like good managing, you'll know it when you see it. If you want to discuss my posting history and not a specific post, take it to PM.
My mistake, I thought this had become the thread where we discussed garbage posting.
Coming to the thread very late - sorry.
I would be on team Fire Farrell, but for the bolded above. JF does not seem to get much credit for good decisions he makes, as opposed to the obvious bad decisions he has. I don't like the controversy and the leadership void; but again we have no idea whether the void is real or not - just that it looks like a void from how the media portray it.
Give me a goddamn break from this motherfucking sanctimonious bullshit.
Meanwhile, quality posters such as yourself shrug off every recent mistake Farrell makes while throwing their arms up in the air in exasperation screaming for anyone who disagrees with their take to do their "fucking homework" and show...well, you haven't exactly outlined what you want people to show, other than a completely unrealistic and juvenile demand for a statistic that outlines the strengths and weaknesses of every manager in MLB compared directly to Farrell.
I think *this* is the cop out. Even if we agree that the games you think he "boned away" were truly "boned away," (a subject where there is usually some room for disagreement) it absolutely matters if he is "boning away" fewer games than other managers are "boning away." The discussions about the former ("he cost us last night's game") often get conflated with the latter ("he sucks and should be gone.")
*That* isn't the cop-out. Saying we won two out of three from the Yankees and are in first place is a cop-out when realistically they should've easily swept the Yankees and been up by even more games if not for Farrell's mismanagement. He completely blew one game and nearly another if not for some completely improbable heroics on Devers' part. Saying "well we won two out of three" is completely ignoring circumstance.
I'm not saying you're wrong. But what would you have them do? Fire Farrell and hire whom? The same arguments will be made against that guy when he inevitably mismanages situations. The same arguments were made against every manager the Sox have had. Without being able to quantify these things, how can you be so sure that Farrell is so much worse than any other that he should be fired?
Assuming this is true (and I'm not at all sure it is), then it does not support your position.
But we needed data to prove it. Lacking data, if you said "Nick Punto is a crappy player," and I said "no he isn't," we'd just have two opinions, and that would be that.
Maybe you don't need data to know if a guy whose games you watch 150 times a year is any good, but can you tell me without data if Jose Osuna is a better utility player than Punto was?
Well I agree.
1 World Series win, one Division Title, one "August" Division Title, and 2 last place finishes. Not sure it's clear whether he is or is not very good.
Toronto fans were also warning us that he was a disappointing manager before he arrived.
I think he's average overall-
It's no guarantee Reed or anyone else would've gotten out of the jam, but bringing in Kelly to face a lefty in a high-leverage spot is about the biggest example of a manager producing negative value with his decision-making that you can find.
Your counterpoint is entirely fair, though they did also give Sveum a ring which is kind of odd. He doesn't have a huge track record. I actually thought he had been managing longer.
And Cleveland fans about Belichick.
This is an apt comparison when Farrell has the two best starters in the league, a good back end to the bullpen, a team second in the league in runs scored, third in runs allowed, and finishes with the sixth best record. I can't imagine the Grinning Jackass ever leading a team with a middling offense such as this to anywhere close to first place.
Last year's team had the Cy Young winner, an elite hitter, a MVP candidate, three other very good position players, a guy who led the league in innings and pitched reasonably well, a catcher and starter who came out of nowhere to have what will all but certainly be career years and a pretty decent bullpen. They finished first in the league in runs scored (by 101) and third in runs allowed. They won the same number of games (and playoff games) as Gump's '02 team you described.
