Of course it's impossible to answer, but how he's handling the clubhouse and how the players react is as salient a question as any when contemplating a mid-season firing of the manager of a first-place team.
EDIT: With a .593 winning percentage.
FIRE JOHN FARRELL (v.2)
- Thread starter Buzzkill Pauley
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EDIT: With a .593 winning percentage.
Indeed!
2013 CLE - 3.73 FIP (3rd in AL)
2014 CLE - 3.42 FIP (1st in AL)
2015 CLE - 3.62 FIP (1st in AL)
I suspect that Farrell will zoom up this list in future surveys if the youngsters continue to play at high levels.
Last time we had this thread, he was accused of playing Young too much, so I guess he deserves credit for his 144 RC+ now. He's directly responsible for Shaw playing third. I don't know how much he has to do with the development of the other youngsters, but I do know he would be getting blamed if they sucked.
I'll start by saying that I don't think it makes any sense at all to fire Farrell at this point. I don't think it would be deserved and I don't think it would be a good baseball decision. But to address your valid point, I do think that managers can more easily lose a game than win a game, at least if you only focus on the strategic role of his job. If the offense scores some runs and the starter pitches well and the pen is rested enough to get the right guys in at the right time, a manager is pretty much on auto-pilot. But it's the tough games when a pitcher can't go deep and the offense doesn't put up five or six runs that better show how effective an in-game manager someone is. I think it's fair to say that Farrell may be lacking when it comes to making adjustments on the fly.
He absolutely should get credit for the offense performing well. He also should get credit for the team's record to date. But as others have said, it's entirely possible for a team to be winning games even though the manager isn't doing a great job. We'll never know how many more games, if any, they could've won under a different manager. But this criticism of Farrell didn't come out of thin air. There are valid reasons, all very much debatable, to question Farrell's competence as a manager. And their current position in the standings doesn't mean that all of the criticisms people have discussed over the last three years are automatically invalid.
So, if it pleases the court (and BK), I'd like to dig into this 2013 pitching performance a bit deeper. I'll start by disclosing that I'm coming from the perspective that Farrell is not at fault for the team's pitching performances over the past few years.
First, the Sox were not simply middle of the pack in 2013. They were 4th in the AL in ERA+, and 7th in FIP. However, their FIP was only a meaningless 0.01 behind Oakland and KC, who were tied for 5th. In any event, they were far closer to 5th in FIP than to the league average FIP of 3.97. Also, both KC and Oakland play half their games in very pitcher friendly parks (full disclosure: I should have done a road/home split analysis here to see if the park factors were at play; my bad).
Now it appears that the theory is that the Sox pitching stats should have even been better given that they had Lester, Lackey, and Buchholz as their top 3 starters. But upon closer look, we see the following:
Lester: Jon came off a terrible 2012 (Farrell had nothing to do with that). After a strong start, he went through a difficult stretch over 6 or starts in May/June, a period in which his BABIP exploded to 0.394. However, he quickly recovered, and had a strong end of season and finished a respectable 17th in FIP. He then dominated that postseason, which is relevant if we are to attribute Lester's performance to Farrell's presence in the dugout.
Lackey: Lackey was coming off TJ surgery, and only pitched twice in April, both times being on a fairly stringent pitch count limit. But starting in May he was very consistent throughout the rest of the season and finished an unexpected 23rd in the AL in FIP. He never had a difficult stretch after April aside perhaps from one game against the Yankees in September where he gave up 7 runs after being BABIP'ed aorund.
Buchholz: He was very good if not dominant. However, he missed most of the month of June and did not pitch at all in July or August. Which means his production was replaced by the #6 starter during that period.
Felix Doubront: His FIP of 3.78 was right around the team's FIP of 3.84. Good for 20th in the league. This was by far his best season.
Ryan Dempster: Originally the #5 starter, he became the #4 when Buchholz went on the shelf. His 4.68 FIP pretty closely matched his performance; while below league average, he was probably better than average as a 5th starter. Dempster was at the end of his career and retired the following season.
Jake Peavy: His 3.79 FIP with Boston closely matched the team's FIP.
Remaining starters: Allan Webster, Alfredo Aceves, Brandon Workman, Franklin Morales, and one Steven Wright combined for 18 starts, 84 innings pitched, 53 earned runs, 5.68 ERA, 5.55 FIP. Workman was by far the best of this bunch, but he was moved to the pen where he performed admirably that season.
Starters overall: 985 IP, 420 ER, 3.84 ERA, 3.96 FIP
Bottom line is that the starting pitching performed about as well as could be expected given the situations. Lester's stats were hit by his subpar stretch in June of that year. Losing Buchholz for nearly 3 months hurt the team's overall numbers. But I see nothing to pin on Farrell here, unless we also want to give him credit for Doubront, Peavy, Workman's 3.43 FIP, and Lester's playoff run.
First, the Sox were not simply middle of the pack in 2013. They were 4th in the AL in ERA+, and 7th in FIP. However, their FIP was only a meaningless 0.01 behind Oakland and KC, who were tied for 5th. In any event, they were far closer to 5th in FIP than to the league average FIP of 3.97. Also, both KC and Oakland play half their games in very pitcher friendly parks (full disclosure: I should have done a road/home split analysis here to see if the park factors were at play; my bad).
Now it appears that the theory is that the Sox pitching stats should have even been better given that they had Lester, Lackey, and Buchholz as their top 3 starters. But upon closer look, we see the following:
Lester: Jon came off a terrible 2012 (Farrell had nothing to do with that). After a strong start, he went through a difficult stretch over 6 or starts in May/June, a period in which his BABIP exploded to 0.394. However, he quickly recovered, and had a strong end of season and finished a respectable 17th in FIP. He then dominated that postseason, which is relevant if we are to attribute Lester's performance to Farrell's presence in the dugout.
Lackey: Lackey was coming off TJ surgery, and only pitched twice in April, both times being on a fairly stringent pitch count limit. But starting in May he was very consistent throughout the rest of the season and finished an unexpected 23rd in the AL in FIP. He never had a difficult stretch after April aside perhaps from one game against the Yankees in September where he gave up 7 runs after being BABIP'ed aorund.
Buchholz: He was very good if not dominant. However, he missed most of the month of June and did not pitch at all in July or August. Which means his production was replaced by the #6 starter during that period.
Felix Doubront: His FIP of 3.78 was right around the team's FIP of 3.84. Good for 20th in the league. This was by far his best season.
Ryan Dempster: Originally the #5 starter, he became the #4 when Buchholz went on the shelf. His 4.68 FIP pretty closely matched his performance; while below league average, he was probably better than average as a 5th starter. Dempster was at the end of his career and retired the following season.
Jake Peavy: His 3.79 FIP with Boston closely matched the team's FIP.
Remaining starters: Allan Webster, Alfredo Aceves, Brandon Workman, Franklin Morales, and one Steven Wright combined for 18 starts, 84 innings pitched, 53 earned runs, 5.68 ERA, 5.55 FIP. Workman was by far the best of this bunch, but he was moved to the pen where he performed admirably that season.
Starters overall: 985 IP, 420 ER, 3.84 ERA, 3.96 FIP
Bottom line is that the starting pitching performed about as well as could be expected given the situations. Lester's stats were hit by his subpar stretch in June of that year. Losing Buchholz for nearly 3 months hurt the team's overall numbers. But I see nothing to pin on Farrell here, unless we also want to give him credit for Doubront, Peavy, Workman's 3.43 FIP, and Lester's playoff run.
What reason do you guys have for crediting team FIP to the manager and not the pitching staff?
If Girardi finishes last the next two years he will be gone. Farrell has had the benefit of a patient front office. That being said, Farrell has to make the playoffs to keep his job.
I am not a fan of Farrell, but I certainly wish him well in this effort.
The manager decides which catcher plays, and the catcher determines how well the pitchers perform.
/joke
No?
But I'm of the opinion that his in-game tactical decisions cost us more winnable games than win us losing efforts. When the team comes back from a deficit, it's likely because the offense bailed out a bad starting effort which the manager has little effect on (unless there happens to be a heroic PH effort, which rarely happens in the AL.) Losing a game that you were ahead in, however, puts the manager on point as every single decision made in an attempt to preserve that lead (nearly all of which is gauging the starter and bullpen management) is on his shoulders. I'd be a lot more lenient on it if the bullpen was bad, but it isn't. Even without Smith, Barnes/Taz/Koji/Kimbrel with an acceptable multi-inning guy in Ross and a good LOOGY is not a pen you should have a lot of issues with.
Is it fair? Probably not. Most things aren't. Still is what it is.
I'm not reacting to the recent road losses, either. They happen, especially against tough divisional opponents, and not having JBJ hurt.
I used it because BMHH used it first to back up how Tito's years having Farrell as pitching coach were terrific.
Except Tito's years having Mickey Callaway as pitching coach have been just as terrific.
So if FIP made his point, it also made mine.
No, I used it simply because you used it in your opening post, leaving out the years when he was actually directly responsible for the pitching staff.
Lester was on Lucky's ridiculous negotiations. If DD was in place at that time he would have signed him to a market value contract.
This stuff continually makes me laugh and shake my head at the same time. This is the best team in the American League. And there are people talking about firing the manager????? Guess what, Tito is not walking through that door.
Or maybe a team's record in a third of a season is meaningless, when we pretty much know the effect of a manager over the long haul is within +\- 3. So in a third of a season, you're taking about at most a 2 game swing.
But 6 games over a full season is worth caring about. That's why teams pay millions of dollars for managers.
The pitching is underperforming almost 1 through 12 or sometimes 13. The conclusion to draw from that is that the manager Iis blameless? That's what the pushback has been so far in this thread. It's almost like a V&N debate again. The folks who see Farrell as a net positive are unwilling to acknowledge any flaw at all---that the net is all benefit and no cost.
For people harping on the team's record I think the Grady Little comparison is apt. So would be a Don Zimmer comparison. The 1978 Red Sox won more games than any Red Sox team since. By the arguments of Farrell's defenders, I guess that makes Don Zimmer the best manager the Red Sox have had in my lifetime.
Lester is likely not an ace anymore in the AL East. He gets to face several poor lineups in the NL.
And if he came here Farrell would only cause him to serve meatballs to the likes of Machado, because guys throwing shit pitches is the managers fault.
Well, that's obviously not true, not what was claimed by anyone ever, and quite the strawman itself.
Plus, Machado has a reverse split.
There could be a pretty good discussion about Farrell's impact on his teams' pitching performance, but because of the title, this thread won't be that, it has already been totally derailed by everyone reacting to the thread title.
Farrell obviously won't be getting fired anytime soon and everyone knows that. The only way he would get fired is if the Red Sox fall out of the playoff hunt. So this whole thread is a waste of time. Just pointing that out to those of you who haven't figured that out yet.
Have fun ranting and raving at each other, arguing feverishly about nothing that will happen anytime soon.
Hey maybe we should move this thread to V&N, where it will fit right in.
Farrell obviously won't be getting fired anytime soon and everyone knows that. The only way he would get fired is if the Red Sox fall out of the playoff hunt. So this whole thread is a waste of time. Just pointing that out to those of you who haven't figured that out yet.
Have fun ranting and raving at each other, arguing feverishly about nothing that will happen anytime soon.
Hey maybe we should move this thread to V&N, where it will fit right in.
The thread is mute? Can you take just a second of reflection before posting please. It's really hard to take any point seriously when you can't even use words right.
How about Instead of complaining about the thread title you actually contribute to making the thread better by posting some of those stats or making a case pro or nay. Instead you just sit on the sidelines like Norway trying to be neutral. Don't complain if you do not want to contribute anything substantive.
This thread no longer holds any interest for me. We can all do better. It might start with substantive analysis without a click bait title.
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