Pine tar & Pitches or Pitchforks & torches: The John Farrell Poll

Do you rehire or fire John Farrell?

  • Rehire John as manager

  • Fire Farrell

  • Other-you tell me


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bankshot1

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Feb 12, 2003
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where I was last at
We need a poll

This issue has been hanging over our collective heads since 2015

Its time to quantify the community pulse.

Is time to cast your vote.

Are you a member of the Farrell Defense Brigade or Free Fenway from Farrell Coalition?

Would you fire or rehire John Farrell as manager of your Boston Red Sox.
 
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Seels

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Jul 20, 2005
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Depends. I prefer him gone but only if there is an actual replacement and not just a theoretical one. Last year it was 100%. But TL isn't available anymore.

I dislike Farrell and don't really care for Davis either.
 

Tharkin

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I voted rehire because I think he's overall more OK than terrible. But if the club hires someone they believe to be a legitimate upgrade, as opposed to change for the sake of change, that's cool too. I do wish things had worked out where Lovullo got the job back then or stuck around to get it now.
 

Idabomb333

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I voted other. I don't particularly care, unlike with the last 2 managers when they left. I couldn't believe the stupidity of firing Tito, and couldn't wait for them to fire Valentine (duh). Farrell seems fine to me, but if they find a solid replacement, meh.
 

streeter88

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There is a ton of pro-and anti- Farrell writing in the Epitaph and Rebuild threads. The most thoughtful of it seems to be that he changed his bullpen usage this year, and it reaped rewards. Some people also pointed to the incredible adversity he faced. My feeling is they should bring in some new voices. Not sure if that is Farrell, or just new Hitting and Pitching Coaches, and Medical Staff.

Anyway, for those who missed them, these posters pretty much nailed what I think.

II keep Chile, fire Victor "Launch Angle" Rodriguez and probably dump Carl too.

And I probably dump Farrell even tho I said this in a game thread the other day when everyone was pissed he wasn't Tito:

I'm not sure Tito (who was a legitimately great manager for this team) could have handled this season in Boston. Major leader on and off the field gone with literally no one to fill the gap. Other leader embroiled in controversies and injuries all year. Massive underperformance by the highest paid players on the team. Ace pitcher meltdown against a beloved figure in the media. Cy Young winner losing 17 games. Racist taunts of opposing players. The list goes on.

That is a ton of shit to endure -- very little of it was Farrell's fault. And even still, this team ground this fucking season out. Anyone who thinks that this was just underperformance of a team that "should have been better" is completely ignoring that this team had multiple "worst losses of the year" and always turned it around. Every single time. That extra innings record wasn't a factor of SSS.

Those things are not coincidences. They speak to the "character" of the team -- which absolutely starts with the manager.

So to be clear, no one is saying that Farrell is better at playoff strategy than Tito. But I think there's a pretty good argument to be made that they don't *make* the playoffs with Tito coaching this team. And if you doubt that argument, I would point you to 2011: the year Farrell left.
Drbretto was also on point:
There's a boatload of talent on this team. They played with a lot of heart and won some really exciting games. I haven't had too many objective reasons to have doubted this team, but something has just felt "off" all year. Consistently, all season long, I never really thought they had a chance - and my default predisposition is almost always optimistic.

Now, how a team "feels" to me is useless. That's not the point. The point is that I wasn't alone with this, and it was a lot of people that are usually pretty perceptive. And I'm betting those same people felt the opposite about 2013 from spring training on. The stuff some people call luck between the numbers isn't necessarily blind chance. Philosophy, preparedness, attitude, luck, health, confidence, whatever else, are all part of what make up the numbers.

But even if we can't possibly know how much of an effect they have, it's really hard to see the underwhelming offense across the board as random chance. It could of be, but I think it's more likely that this is an issue with non-playing personnel. Maybe that's Farrell. Maybe it's Chili. Maybe it's someone in a cubical somewhere whose name we don't know.

Luckily, I don't have to figure that out. That's DD's job. A lot of times that means hiring a new manager, even if it doesn't seem fair. At the least, it's a new roll of the dice. Maybe they just need a new voice. Maybe they need a better in-game manager (my personal pick). Maybe they still like Farrell, but they need a new bench coach with some ideas. I honestly don't know.

There were a lot of avoidable errors this season. I'm totally on board with being aggressive on the basepaths, but I had a real problem with their lack of situational awareness. That is a lack of preparation and planning. If I had a horse to bet on for what correctable factor has the biggest effect on a player's "luck", it'd be preparation. That's squarely on management. That *is* management.

These are some exciting young players, but they're young. Farrell's management style seems to work better with veterans. I think they should look for someone who will get the most out of our still developing young core while they're still young. I also wouldn't mind if he knew when it is and isn't prudent to be reckless on the basepaths, or when you just should let your star closer only start fresh innings like he's comfortable with when you have a stacked bullpen full of arms capable of making 1 clutch out. But, I'm not greedy.
Edited to quote whole drbretto post
 
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JimBoSox9

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Fire Farrell, and either hire Alex Cora or throw a Godfather offer at Torey, altho the latter seems unrealistic.

Following on the prior post, I'd add that preparation is a combination of organization and imagination. I think Farrell is a good organizer - despite the few data points that suggest he might not be the best personal communicator, everyone on this young team seems to know what the plan is and what their focus is, and he's clearly a solid outward public communicator. If he were as bad as the worst detractors would have it, I do think it's unlikely this squad could have exhibited as much resiliency as they did - no one can deny they played to the final out and more, no matter the score. Lastly, any retro of the 2017 Red Sox regular season needs to take a peek through the lens of average luck in extra-innings games. It's quite possible we should all be thanking our stars that we even made the playoffs, let alone held off the Yankees. Hardly the sign of a manager who's killing his team with bullpen mismangent or tactical ineptitude.

But. For all his positives in keeping the train rolling down the tracks of Plan A, Farrell regularly provides small data points that indicate he doesn't have the imagination or rigor to have scenarios B through Z at ready command when Plan A goes to shit. Doesn't take steps to mitigate the risks of his approach's downsides or plans' failures. Reactive managing, in the heat of the moment. The top-tier managers make you feel like they scripted a whole series of events - they did, along with the million other combinations they didn't happen to get to use that day. Farrell doesn't give that feeling, and fair or not, quantifiable or not, that's the core of the 'off' feeling going around these parts.
 

gedman211

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It seems pretty obvious he's not going anywhere. I think people are in denial about this.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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Keep him but lose the hitting and pitching coaches.

We missed the Lovullo opportunity, you can't "throw a Godfather" offer at him. I have been hearing that Alex Cora is the next genius manager out there . . . the last guy I heard that about was Brad Ausmus. And Butch Hobson, way back? So I'm not really sure there's a great alternative out there.


Remember the alternatives to Bobby V a few years ago? Yeah, neither do I. None of them were OMG WE NEED THIS GUY kinds of guys.
 

Apisith

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Why is Lovullo highly rated? His team underperformed their pythag, they just got swept and he made the same mistake today that Farrell routinely gets killed for on here: slow hook. Lovullo left Greinke in after already having thrown 100 pitches and struggled to make it to the 5th. First batter of the 6th hits a HR.

I don’t think Farrell is a huge negative or positive. If the players are happy with him and progressing as they seem to be, we won’t do much better. Underperformance because of injury - Xander, Price, Pedroia to name a few - isn’t his fault. He’s managing a $200m ball club that essentially fielded a $140m team this year because of the injuries and dead money.
 

Plympton91

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Whatever his faults, you don't fire someone who has guided the team to consecutive division titles.

Bring in some better helpers, spend some money on better analytics and scouting.
 

Buzzkill Pauley

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Why is Lovullo highly rated? His team underperformed their pythag, they just got swept and he made the same mistake today that Farrell routinely gets killed for on here: slow hook. Lovullo left Greinke in after already having thrown 100 pitches and struggled to make it to the 5th. First batter of the 6th hits a HR.

I don’t think Farrell is a huge negative or positive. If the players are happy with him and progressing as they seem to be, we won’t do much better. Underperformance because of injury - Xander, Price, Pedroia to name a few - isn’t his fault. He’s managing a $200m ball club that essentially fielded a $140m team this year because of the injuries and dead money.
Lovullo is highly rated because he enjoyed tremendous success in Boston at the end of 2015’s lost season, seemed to get along famously with Mookie and the other young position players during his time here, and because he’s spoken of well among folks in the industry. Oh, and he also took on a team that had 93 losses in 2016 and led them to 94 wins in 2017.

Your point about the injuries and the dead-money roster is valid, but it doesn’t address to what extent Farrell — who has been the team’s manager during the acquisition or call-up of each and every player on payroll except Dustin Pedroia — may have been involved in the roster-building strategies of the off-seasons since 2013. Of course, that sort of inside information is, and should be, privately held.

Hopefully, this information will not be released to the public as a “hit job” in the media. And since Lucchino isn’t active with the MLB club any more, it actually might not. However, if Farrell is fired, I believe one of the crucial points held against him will be the organizational decision last off-season, that building the best 2017 team involved trading Travis Shaw for a bullpen arm.
 

drbretto

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Whatever his faults, you don't fire someone who has guided the team to consecutive division titles.
This is dumb, no offense. It's one of those truthy things that's just smoke and mirrors to deflect the argument. If I had a team that was expected to dominate the division, I might be able to barely squeek a couple of division wins as a manager. It doesn't say anything about whether it was because of me or in spite of me.
 

grimshaw

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I think it's time to move on. Regardless of what weight someone places on his in game strategy and its bottom line win/loss impact, there were some bigger cracks this season with the Machado and Eck situation as well as questions about a leadership void.

The Heyman article, while a bit of a hatchet job, shows me that there are at least a few guys that want him gone, and that's hard to get back.
 

Al Zarilla

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Fire. So, the team improved in 2017 in one area: bullpen performance. The hitting fell way off. How much of these or other things can be attributed to Farrell, who knows? What I don't like about the guy is that he's boring. So, he gives a good account of the game after it's over on NESN. An announcer can do that. I want a guy the players will go to war with, for which every other manager in the post season seems to qualify more (Girardi, Baker, I don't know). I listen to these guys like Hinch, Roberts, Lovullo, Tito of course, and wish we had one with personality, and what sounds like excellent leadership quality like them.

After they clinched, Dombrowski and Henry had pretty glowing words about Farrell, so I don't have high hopes.
 

Mike F

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I voted other. IF an Alex Cora is available he'd be my choice. Seems like not that long ago the shortlisted two were Tito and Joe Maddon.
 

Idabomb333

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A random point to make here - I wonder how many of the people who want to fire Farrell have conflicting reasons with each other, or would pick wildly different types of replacements. Wish there were an easy way to add that into the poll, e.g. if the potential replacement pool were small and known. Oh well...
 

redsoxstiff

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When I read about/heard about the Price waylaying of 60ish Eck ,a HOFer over some comments made by Eck and the silence of the team(?) I was livid and it still rots...
Farrell coolly stepped over the incident when questioned with ."we,re professionals ".put Price and the team lesded(?) Pedey below acceptability and in charge of the zoo.

I don't give managers much importance...pinky Higgins,Hobson,dear Bobby and Farrell get and got heaps of negatives from me...

In the clubhouse we went from Papi the Great to Price the Petulent who gave us a poor season with press sensitivity...

The clubhouse needs a strong leader who can re-focus the players and clean up the pissy fits with the press...

I would love see Varitek in charge despite a lack of experience...
 
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