I have a bad feeling about this. Farrell was a pretty mediocre manager but that still makes him the second best manager in my thirty-odd years old watching this team.
Farrell out
- Thread starter jsinger121
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Sadly, I think this take is spot on. Dombrowski is apt to go with a politically defensible hire rather than a transformational one. The Sox aren't turning this roster over to a first timer or an unproven guy (I know they did that with Francona but that was also a function of Schilling). Some people are likely going to end up missing Farrell.
The idea that DD will wait around until January is ludicrous. Where are you getting this theory?
Did not fade at all this September. Floundered in October when it mattered most, but the team hang tough in September and held off a surging Yankees.
Whatever. I think it was just time.... he did a fine job but I think they need an Alex Cora with Tek as bench coach.
can't win in the play-offs when your #1 and #2 pitchers get lit up...and your lights out closer all year gives it up when it mattered the most
5 LCS in 20 years ain't that bad, especially considering he went through an owner-mandated fire sale with the Marlins and a massive rebuild when he joined the Tigers.
Well, DD did hire an unproven guy with Ausmus in Detroit, so it's not out of the question (although the results of that hire may have soured him on that approach).
I think people are way overplaying the "Red Sox connection" aspect of the next Manager. I don't think Dombrowski gives two fucks about that.
I'm ambivalent about the firing. Whatever. I suppose he was better than some and worse than others. But neither I nor anyone else knows that because we don't see the other managers enough.
But as for "the list that everyone seems to be using.": When the team trades for a shortstop, we can say, "well, they needed a shortstop and this one has these characteristics, etc." What is it about those guys that makes anyone think they'd be a good manager of this team, other than they get talked about by writers?
I don't have any particular opinions for or against either of them or most other candidates.
didn't butter (it's butterfield, right?) work with the outfielders extensively as well? i remember a NESN segment about how he worked with beni and the other guys about getting their feet in the right position when fielding balls off the well, etc, which helped to make their throws to the infield quicker and more accurate. from that point onward, i made a specific point to watch their feet on plays to the outfield as well as those of visiting teams and they always seemed to have themselves set in a much better position to make a quick, accurate throw than other teams did.
in short, keeping butter: +1
The Mets are apparently salivating over him. I have zero interest in getting into a bidding war over Joe Girardi. He's not worth it.
There was no theory. The January reference was in regards to the coaching staff not the manager, and was hyperbolic.
But you knew that.
It means he has a large physique, a rugged jawline, isn't afraid to throw at opposing players, and curses well at umpires. Pay attention.
Keep in mind that Farrell's leave due to illness also happened around the same time that Dombrowski was hired and Lucchino was mercifully put out to pasture. I can easily why Dombrowski decided to give Farrell a chance to manage again; it wasn't like Farrell was given a great roster in 2015 by Cherington. Who knows, they may have hit it off quite well at the beginning.
There were only a handful of local managers/coaches that I was truly glad to see get shown the door: Valentine, Kerrigan, Pitino, Steve Kasper (who always will be #1 on my list), Rod Rust. Farrell is not deserving of being in that Hall of Shame by any means; that's what winning a World Series earns him, no matter how "fluky" people want to believe that title was. Like every manager, Farrell had his good moments and bad. I don't think he was nearly as bad as some here seem to believe; his tactical moves truly do not seem all that much different than the moves other managers around the league make on a regular basis. But, this season there were some issues that may or may not be related to Farrell's management style (underperformance of almost the entire lineup, running into outs, the Machado/Pedroia fiasco, etc.). And, if Farrell was no longer on the same page as Hazen/Dombrowski, then it was time for him to go.
No problem with the timing of the move. Gives Farrell plenty of time to land elsewhere (which he almost certainly will), and gives the team plenty of time to find a replacement. The next move is critical. Some names I've heard make sense; others worry me.
JD Martinez scares the shit out of me. Maybe it’s the injuries. Maybe it’s the fact he’s probably going to command north of 160 and has 2 30 homer seasons under his belt. I don’t know. I just see him as a risk. As opposed to giving up talent to go get the sure thing in Stanton.
Molitor too, since making the wild card game is making the playoffs, I guess.
I thought of this too, but what's in it for Girardi? You see him doing press conferences now and he seems beat. Why go to Boston when you could take a year off, do some TV, and then come back into the game with a club that isn't playing in a goldfish bowl with media piranhas?
Cleveland had an elite manager fall into their laps who grew up an Indians fan. They aren't going to run him out of town on a rail because TV ratings declined.
In addition to the Mets, the Phillies have been mentioned as a destination for him as well.
Not a lot of chatter on Tek... anyone know what his day to day roles were as DD's Special Assistant? And would they translate to coaching?
150, 123, 116, 145, 74, 119, 159. That's what scares me about Stanton.
(It's his games played by year)
Are we talking about the same Joe Girardi that completely butchered the non-challenge in game 2, and whose team underperformed their pythag by like 9 games this year or whatever despite one of the best pens in the league? Hard pass.
TBH, this scares me way more:
Of course, the "it's not my money!" people are the same ones that rip on Cherington for Sandoval, Crawford, Castillo, Craig, etc. so what do I know.
TBH, if we are going to use pythag-type stats, Farrell hit his pythag right on the nose this year and way outperformed 2nd/3rd order wins.
... so clearly DD isn't going to base decisions off pythag.
Re: the challenge, speculation in NY media (not the frothy part) is that Girardi was covering for the replay attendant who said "not conclusive enough to bother." I mean, the buck stops with the manager, yes, but I am tending to give him a pass on that one since the challenge system is this broken "give me 30 seconds while I call some intern kid in the clubhouse!" crap.
I'd have fired Chili Davis over this past season. I thought this year was an improvement over last season except for the hitting, and September was damn good. The "fade" was after an amazing road trip. This young team did better in the playoffs this year than last, 5 game series crapshoot that it was.
Neither did he.
Not sure how I forgot Lovullo. And I had thought Roberts managed in San Deigo, but he was just a 1st base coach there. So I rescind that point.
Yeah, this. I'm just not seeing a great option out there so at best, I think they'll have a similar guy with a new face and half of SoSH will be calling for his head for leaving a starter in one batter too long in early July.
As has been proven pretty conclusively the last 24 hours, the case for this claim is extremely weak. The stats we can look at to try and pin down some of his value grade him out, at worst, as average. In some cases, they grade him out as pretty damned good. And most of the anecdotal evidence for him being bad is full of presumptions and projection.
Not overreact and drive the best Red Sox manager of our lifetimes (and arguably the best manager in the game today) out the door. The "change for the shaking things up" approach is almost always the wrong one, at least in baseball.
If he becomes available he is my immediate top choice. He's smart, statistically inclined, firm, well spoken, can command respect from players given his playing career and managing experience, and he's managed in a big market. In fact, he's a pretty good approximation of what John Farrell is right now, right down to driving his fans nuts with bullpen usage, substitutions, and being focused on the established plan (for whatever... base running, how to approach ABs, shifts, etc) enough that people think he's a slave to it. They're actually really similar managers, now that I think about it.
So, he'd be hated by all the same people who hate Farrell and he'd provide a solid floor which means the team would be unlikely to take a significant step back.
Farrell isn’t even close to that pantheon of suck. Kasper was just awful. Dave Lewis probably has a special place in Bruins lore too. Those two were beyond awful. Pitino was an asshat but he was undermined by Pitino the GM. Never should have given him both. Kerrigan never should have been a major league manager. Farrell was a manager who “wasn’t bad” but “wasn’t great” either. He was the right guy for the job in 2013 when the clubhouse needed a drastically different voice than Bobby Valentine. In 2018? A new voice is needed. But if it’s Brad Ausmus people like myself who wanted Farrell gone might be regretting it. Or maybe pleasantly surprised. Who knows.
I hope it’s Hale. The guy has been waiting forever.
You're hoping that Dombrowski suddenly bucks his 30 year trend in choosing managers? I'll believe it when I see it. Ausmus has to be the obvious replacement, and I'd be shocked otherwise (and that's a bad, awful thing). I could see someone like Mike Redmond being considered as well. The front office has shed 95% of the brain trust that leaned sabermetric since Theo's departure, and it has accelerated since Cherington left. Who would be a champion for a more modern manager in that front office?
Yeah, if they're competent they did this with a candidate (or several candidates) in mind and this shouldnt be a long search process.
Otherwise, we'll probably be sitting here in 2019 talking about GM candidates.
OK, let me rephrase that.
There are a lot of Red Sox fans who say "it's not my money, spend it all, who cares." Let's say 50%.
There are a lot of Red Sox fans who, if you asked them today, "do you support the Red Sox signing free agents like Carl Crawford and Pablo Sandoval?" would say no. Regardless of how honest they are being, that number is more than 50%.
There is most certainly overlap. People would definitely say "BRING ME STANTON" and then would be like "ugh, Stanton is such an albatross" in 5 years. 100% lock it down. Just like there will be supporters of the Price deal who are going to whimper when he does not opt out.
The world is a hypocritical place, especially when it comes to presidents and golfing.
I saw this in the other Farrell thread. Check the record, we played a lot of shitty teams down the stretch and beat up on them, and went 2-6 against the only two playoff teams we played (MFYs and Astros). Our great September was due in a large part to schedule luck.
Whether it was the right move depends largely on what the replacement is. A new manager may well mean new members to the coaching staff, which is a good reason to name the new manager soon.
Aren't good teams supposed to beat bad teams?
If DD and co. fired Farrell because he was 2-6 versus HOU/NYY this year in Sept/Oct, then this team is utterly screwed.
Are you talking about SoSHers or the general public? Because that 50% estimate is way, way too high if you're talking about people who would post on the main board. And the dum dums that would say "it's not my money", almost by default, would be ignorant of the affect a bad contract has on future rosters. I really don't think there's as much overlap as you'd think. Those things are pretty mutually exclusive.
His last 4 rWC+'s are 154, 136, 141 and 166. He's a phenomenal hitter. If he's a primary DH some of the injury concerns are abated. If they can afford him (I don't think they can) he's a great fit long term even if it means a year of Hanley trying to survive at 1st for half his games.
The thing about Stanton's money is that it's not going to look that crazy after Harper signs his new deal. The Sox can't afford the cost in chips, of course, so he's not coming to Boston no matter what, but a team looking at Harper after next season would have to be very tempted at preempting that market by locking Stanton in at 10M less per year this winter. (I'm looking at the Yankees here)
That's damning with faint praise. Francona isn't even the best manager in the game today that the Red Sox considered prior to the 2004 season, though most Sox fans can't stomach the guy who is (and admit to how good he is) due to his stint in Tampa Bay. There's very little of substance that differentiates Farrell and Francona, but recency bias (and weird nostalgia) vaults Francona way above him. It's the old "why can't we get (managers) like that?" tendency of Boston fans, and it's kind of annoying. Francona missed the playoffs with much better teams than the 2017 Red Sox (see 2010 and 2011).
I don't think it's an inherent contradiction to not care about salary for a superstar player, but still want them to spend the money fairly wisely.
For one thing, I'd say Carl Crawford and Pablo Sandoval were never superstars. David Price was, and that contract might still come good.
For one thing, I'd say Carl Crawford and Pablo Sandoval were never superstars. David Price was, and that contract might still come good.
Go back and re-read any thread from SoSH's archives re: big signings.
Some fans lurved the Crawford signing. "He'll age well!" "Speed is undervalued!" "Who cares about the 5-6-7th years, the first 4 will pay for themselves!" I had to try and argue Sandoval against "he's clutch in the playoffs!" "the Sox needed a 3B and got the best one!" "we can keep his weight under control!" I don't know if it was 50% but there was definite discussion, it was not a few lurkers popping in to be like "spend all the $$$!" Someone (Fangraphs? THT?) did on a piece on this where they asked fans to estimate WAR curves given contracts and like 90% of people overestimated the back end of deals.
Maybe it's just because I post far, far less than I used to but the highly analytic bent of SoSH has tilted significantly since the mid-2000s.
I said "arguably" for a reason. Maddon is certainly in that discussion. Dave Roberts might be as well. But Tito is in the discussion.
I agree that the separation between Tito and Farrell isn't as huge as some might suggest, which is why it's amusing that there is such a strong "Farrell is a bad manager" contingent here. I think Tito is clearly better, and I'm still miffed he was driven out of town, but what can you do? That's baseball.
The Jaw is gone.
Long live the new Jaw, but please no Cora, Tek or other Red Sox retread. Do a proper interview process and find the new Maddon in the rough, preferably one who remembers platoon splits and understands a run expectancy matrix.
Long live the new Jaw, but please no Cora, Tek or other Red Sox retread. Do a proper interview process and find the new Maddon in the rough, preferably one who remembers platoon splits and understands a run expectancy matrix.
