No, it shouldn't. This was a strange organizational year and he played with a ton of moving parts. He's still one of the savviest managers in baseball and I can't think of who I'd have in his place. I wouldn't swap him for Maddon.
Should Farrell's Seat Start To Be Getting A Little Warm?
- Thread starter Papo The Snow Tiger
- Start date
Am I the only one that questions the premise that the players aren't trying hard. I see frustration, but I've also seen what appears to be a lot of life and determined effort from the players despite being out of contention. Pedroia for starters, continues to be a machine. Holt continues to hustle. Vazquez is animated. Victorino is hanging out in the clubhouse even though he's out for the rest of the season.
I think some people are conflating frustration with a lack of passion and effort. the latter would be unacceptable, but the former is very understandable.
Also, failure doesn't mean none of the rookies are developing; developmental progress is not linear.
I think some people are conflating frustration with a lack of passion and effort. the latter would be unacceptable, but the former is very understandable.
Also, failure doesn't mean none of the rookies are developing; developmental progress is not linear.
Paradigm said:
How exactly is he savvy?
I don't necessarily think he should be fired because the issues this season weren't directly his fault (can we fire Buchholz?), but tactically, he's below-average. He consistently makes questionable in-game moves and it's frustrating seeing his approach toward what should be very simple decisions (Gomes v Nava, usage of AJP/Ross or Salty/Ross before that, pinch-hitting situations, etc.) I don't necessarily think he goes by the Francona school of keeping an eye to the long term, either. As annoying as Tito's Sunday lineups were or his tendency to leave starters in a bit too long, the reasoning behind them was fair. How many times has Farrell made an awful move and nobody knows why?
A big complaint about him in Toronto was unnecessary aggressiveness (hit and runs, bunting, etc) and sloppy baserunning and we've seen a fair bit of that as well.
Also, our beloved owner (I'm sincere in that characterization), who is a master of markets, is now at the mercy of a bursting of the "prospect" bubble, which a couple of our own prospects helped prick this season by their performance. It will be very interesting to see what our prospects fetch in trades this offseason.glennhoffmania said:
This is relevant to Farrell because a chef ultimately is constrained by his groceries. You can be a great manager capable of turning chicken crap into chicken salad, but in the end it's still only chicken salad.
I'm sure our ownership and FO, out of fairness and with intelligence, well understand this and that the manager's seat remains comfortable.
There should be a stat along the lines of FIP for manager's, something like Performance Independent Managing...that takes out all of the things a manager has no control over (injury, schedule, bad bounces, roster construction - and most important, poor performance on the field) and then tries to compare them.
Statement's like "team doesn't look enthusiastic", or "he left pitcher X in too long" (when there's no predicting the outcome of pitcher Y) are maddening.
In game moves can be statistically judged (although that's not always perfect, considering the personnel that are playing and the game situation) but at least there's something objective to view. My gripe about that is that these in-game choices need to be carried across every game, not just the ones the Red Sox lose...and there must be a relationship between good decisions and bad decisions.
I don't discount the subjective discussion of managers (mostly because it's a very subjective position), but I do discount discussions that never mention other managers in similar situations or never highlight the good moves a manager can make.
I suspect Win-Loss is a very poor way of assessing management.
Statement's like "team doesn't look enthusiastic", or "he left pitcher X in too long" (when there's no predicting the outcome of pitcher Y) are maddening.
In game moves can be statistically judged (although that's not always perfect, considering the personnel that are playing and the game situation) but at least there's something objective to view. My gripe about that is that these in-game choices need to be carried across every game, not just the ones the Red Sox lose...and there must be a relationship between good decisions and bad decisions.
I don't discount the subjective discussion of managers (mostly because it's a very subjective position), but I do discount discussions that never mention other managers in similar situations or never highlight the good moves a manager can make.
I suspect Win-Loss is a very poor way of assessing management.
I would say he's close to the polar opposite of this. From my untrained eye, it appears that he relies on hunches far too often and it just hasn't worked out this year. Sure, he's a great manager of people, which can't be completely discounted, but I think he's one of the worst tacticians in the league.. I've long held the opinion that the 2013 Red Sox won despite having John Farrell as their manager.Paradigm said:
adam42381 said:
This is what I'm talking about. Shouldn't a statement like this be backed up by facts and data?
geoduck no quahog said:
So what sort of metrics are you looking for? Propose some. A manager presumably is valuable because he adds value to the existing talent on the team (tautological). This can be judged quantitatively or qualitatively. Value added could be at the level of the individual player, the individual game/event, or overall team performance.
-For individual players: how often do players for X manager outperform their pre-season PECOTA (or some other system) projections? Do players have prolonged slumps playing for X manager more often than average? Are players injured more often playing for X manager than average?
-For individual games/events: How often does the manager make a decision that is supported by LI/WE (or some other system)? Did the team score or prevent the number of runs that would have been expected given the number of hits/strikeouts/etc.? How often are favorable/unfavorable match-ups acted on? How often are challenges overturned/upheld? How many dictated plays (bunts, hit-and-runs) turn out positively?
-For overall team performance: How good is the team at converting basic offense (hits/walks) into runs? How good is the team at preventing runs, given their overall level of BB/K/H? How well do players run the bases (e.g. going first to third, scoring from 2nd on a single, getting thrown out trying to stretch a single)? Do the number of runs scored/prevented match expected wins? How often does a team blow a lead, or come back to win? Does the team perform better or worse in high leverage situations?
Qualitatively, the team last year seemed to have much greater overall value than the underlying talent would suggest. This year, the exact opposite. I don't know if you can answer how much of that is the manager's responsibility without testing each of these metrics (or others you might propose) against actual data before/after individual managers take over different teams to determine which are actually correlated with manager presence.
I think there are two levels of responses to your question. First, at the end of the day, the owners are the ones who have their money at risk (usually) and I don't think any of us question the right of ownership to set organizational philosophy. While fans would generally rather have hands-off owners like Kraft and Biscotti (although look how well that worked for the Lions), as long as an owner sets a reasonable philosophy that is dedicated to winning - like in terms of budgets, contracts, free agents, etc. - I think most fans are fine.
So if Henry asks his baseball ops staff to do research on long-term FA contracts - or if he comes up with that research on his own - people might agree or disagree but it's certainly within Henry's purview to say that the team isn't giving out long-term contracts to pitchers over 30. Just like some management won't give out no-trade clauses; just like some teams won't renegotiate during the season.
What Angelos did went far beyond that. Pat Gillick had set up multiple trades for Bonilla and Wells - and then Angelos vetoed them. If Angelos had told Gillick before he started the process he wanted the Os to compete until they were basically eliminated, that would have understandable, but he didn't do that.
Also, after the Gillick incident(s), Angelos actually became the sole decision-maker. There are lots of stories about this, but the basic problem is that the GM had to set up the trade and then go to Angelos for a decision; after a certain point, people didn't want to deal with the Os anymore.
If people really think that Henry is anything like Angelos, they need to read up more on AAngelos.
I love the idea you presented earlier. Surely there's someone out there who is smart enough to get this going.geoduck no quahog said:
To amplify, there were a dozen years during which two of the worst owners in professional sports in this country were located in Baltimore and Washington.wade boggs chicken dinner said:
Common thread -- contempt for professional sports people who dedicate their lives to this stuff.
The Orioles made the playoffs after Angelos vetoed Gillick's trades. Broken clock, 15 years of hell.
I don't think Farrell's seat should be warm at all, but at the same time I think he needs to re-adjust the way he is managing this year. There is no reason to be running out Junichi Tazawa every night. This team is a dumpster fire that is going nowhere. Take this time to throw your young guys in high-lev situations.
For example, tonight. Why the fuck throw Breslow in the 10th? The guy might not even be on the team next year. Does this win mean anything at all in the long run? Throw Heath Hembree. Give him the chance to get a save and get his feet wet in the majors. If he wins, that's great. If he loses, it's a learning experience that helpfully helps him become better in the long run.
Farrell is a very good manager who won the World Series last year, but I think his managing this year has been incredibly tone deaf and not aware of the situation the team is in
For example, tonight. Why the fuck throw Breslow in the 10th? The guy might not even be on the team next year. Does this win mean anything at all in the long run? Throw Heath Hembree. Give him the chance to get a save and get his feet wet in the majors. If he wins, that's great. If he loses, it's a learning experience that helpfully helps him become better in the long run.
Farrell is a very good manager who won the World Series last year, but I think his managing this year has been incredibly tone deaf and not aware of the situation the team is in
I'd certainly prefer seeing Hembree in Taz's spot for the rest of this year. get Taz some resttbb345 said:
Agree with the sentiment, but it's possible Farrell fears that Hembree isn't ready and wants to ease him in for his own sake.tbb345 said:
Of course, that thinking is at odds with the fact that he arguably ran JBJ and X out there indiscriminately when they could have used days off etc
Because Hembree pitched yesterday, Breslow didn't, the Jays had a few lefties coming up, and he's trying to break an 8-game losing streak?
They have been using Breslow and Mujica a lot this month. One reason to do so is if you think a hot streak from either or both might induce a team to give up something of value to acquire a veteran reliever for September. Breslow was balls last October until the World Series, they might be able to swindle a desperate GM out of something useful.
Two diametrically opposed thoughts:
(1) Using Uehara tonight ticked me off. Given the scenario, there was no reason not to go lefty-righty starting with Bautista and trying to get the save without using Taz or Koji. Farrell's refusal to show any kind of imagination or an understanding that Koji might need a few days in a row off is very frustrating. His ongoing refusal to give Holt a day off, even as his numbers plummet, is similarly frustrating.
(2) That said, we really have no idea what Ben and Farrell are aiming to do right now. As DH3 suggests, they may be trying to showcase certain guys for trade. They may also just be trying to figure out what's wrong with certain guys, and thus are giving them more opportunities to fix what ails them by "working through it." And with X down, Farrell probably sees this week as a great opportunity to see if Holt is playable at SS. So to what extent Farrell can really be judged by the rest of the year is at best unclear.
FWIW, as of tonight's win, Farrell is one game below .500 in his managerial career.
(1) Using Uehara tonight ticked me off. Given the scenario, there was no reason not to go lefty-righty starting with Bautista and trying to get the save without using Taz or Koji. Farrell's refusal to show any kind of imagination or an understanding that Koji might need a few days in a row off is very frustrating. His ongoing refusal to give Holt a day off, even as his numbers plummet, is similarly frustrating.
(2) That said, we really have no idea what Ben and Farrell are aiming to do right now. As DH3 suggests, they may be trying to showcase certain guys for trade. They may also just be trying to figure out what's wrong with certain guys, and thus are giving them more opportunities to fix what ails them by "working through it." And with X down, Farrell probably sees this week as a great opportunity to see if Holt is playable at SS. So to what extent Farrell can really be judged by the rest of the year is at best unclear.
FWIW, as of tonight's win, Farrell is one game below .500 in his managerial career.
nattysez said:
I don't think this is accurate at all. At the Saberseminar Farrell spoke about Koji's usage in a way that said that he is way in tune to usage patterns of Koji. He was crucified for not sending Koji out for a second inning after a 7 pitch initial inning a week ago, and now he's getting trashed for using him too much. He understands his players, but is constrained by factors that aren't public knowledge or he plays the odds and loses. Koji will be bad until he is good again. We just don't have the foresight to know which outing will be the one that turns it around.
twibnotes said:
The point at which giving Bogaerts and Bradley a breather may have made a difference was also around the same time they were forced to start Holt in the outfield because of a severe lack of options. Farrell didn't really have the opportunity to sit either guy until recently. At least, not without putting a much less talented player out there in Xander's spot and I don't think the outfield had enough options to give Bradley a break until Craig got off the DL.
They've been hit really hard with injuries. A lot of shit went wrong this year and to some extent, Farrell has had his hands tied. That's not to say he's blameless, but suggesting his chair should be getting warm is preposterous. This time last year we were arguing that he should be the manager of the year. This idea that Farrell managing a losing team in a year where the team has been missing one of their best overall players from last year in Victorino, he has been forced to deal with a severe downgrade at centerfield because Bradley has been completely unable to transition to the major league level at the plate, has had a similar situation with Bogaerts (and later Drew) at short, has had to deal with Clay Buchholz being one of the worst pitchers in baseball, has had Middlebrooks out most of the year and playing like shit when he is around, and was forced to work a useless A.J. Pierzynski into the lineup for about half the season is somehow unacceptable is absolutely Yankee fan levels of entitlement.
The organization deserves plenty of scorn for the 2014 season falling apart, but focusing down on Farrell is akin to a witch hunt. It reeks of wanting a scapegoat. The front office made a lot of bets and too many of them failed to pay off. That sucks, and it's a data point (or several) that we should keep in mind when evaluating the performance of the organization as a whole. Less than a year from a World Series title, however, no one should be in danger of being fired. If they are a last place team next year, you start talking about making changes. This thread is an overreaction.
adam42381 said:
I will freely admit that 95% of the game I watch are Sox games, so it's hard to compare him to managers who I dont see every day. And since the team -- and by extension, the manager -- is competing against other teams and managers (and not some idealized version of a "great manager",), the real question is "how does he compare to other managers." Is 50 head-scratching moves average? 30? 20? 5?
Last season, I would guess that 75% of the team performed in the highest range of whatever could reasonably be projected for them. This year, 75% were probably in the lowest possible range.
Last night's game implosion against the Yankees: top of the ninth, Boston up by one, runners on first and second, no outs, and Farrell sends up Nava to the plate swinging. The NY announcers (I could only get their broadcast due to blackout) were shocked (as well as I) Boston was not attempting to bunt over the runners and add another run. When the sox failed to score, I knew then the inevitable was going to happen. What is Farrell thinking? This is as basic as baseball gets.
And if Farrell had sent someone up there to bunt and it didn't work everybody would be bitching about that. Dude can't win.
No in that case he made the right move. There was already a guy in scoring position, no outs, up a run- bunting would've been dumb. It didn't work out but that's not on him.
