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John Farrell: To fire or not to fire...
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Post by Guidas on Oct 4, 2016 9:14:39 GMT -5
All good points. It sounds like you are leaning to the fire Farrell side? If that is true who do you want as the manager? If JF can manage like this all year, he can stay. I wanted him gone in June. If he screws up in the playoffs, I want him gone. (In both cases, I think Lovullo deserves a shot.) If he leads us to a WS win, then I'm crossing my fingers that he's been educated about doing a better job with the pen, and that he's not as bad with it during next year's regular season. I'd hate to be saddled with a guy who cost you 4 wins every season, even if he changes his style every year and is much better in September and the post-season. I was in the June camp. Agree with all of this.
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 4, 2016 12:12:47 GMT -5
The case for manager of the year is basically the manager of whichever team has the most improved record from the year before. EDIT: and is also in the playoff race
People seem to have no ability to recognize that a super elite team can perform worse than they should and still be as good as the Red Sox and maybe even win the WS despite the manager.
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Post by James Dunne on Oct 4, 2016 12:17:01 GMT -5
Matt Williams won a Manager of the Year award.
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Post by Don Caballero on Oct 4, 2016 21:11:47 GMT -5
People seem to have no ability to recognize that a super elite team can perform worse than they should and still be as good as the Red Sox and maybe even win the WS despite the manager. Sorry, can't agree there. Were this any other sport where the strategy is clearly the biggest part of coaching I'd agree with you, but baseball is more nuanced in that aspect and I don't think a manager being bad at few strategy related areas necessarily make him a bad manager overall. And while it is possible a team could win a title with an awful manager, I find that to be counter intuitive because the journey there is so long, so hard, so random. It's just how I view this, I think the managing of egos and other motivational related skills are also big for a MLB manager. When you get too enamorated with theoretically objective metrics to estimate who is and who isn't a good manager, you have to find abstract reasons to explain why Ned Yost is a WS champion and one insane year by Madbum away from being a 2-peater. It's possible a team could win despite the manager, but it's more likely IMO they won because he did at least something very right. I'm also evidently biased here so yeah there's that.
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Post by telson13 on Oct 4, 2016 22:48:04 GMT -5
If JF can manage like this all year, he can stay. I wanted him gone in June. If he screws up in the playoffs, I want him gone. (In both cases, I think Lovullo deserves a shot.) If he leads us to a WS win, then I'm crossing my fingers that he's been educated about doing a better job with the pen, and that he's not as bad with it during next year's regular season. I'd hate to be saddled with a guy who cost you 4 wins every season, even if he changes his style every year and is much better in September and the post-season. I was in the June camp. Agree with all of this. Yup, me too. I do believe that Farrell has some under-appreciated talents in terms of personality/team management. But I also see clear strategic deficiencies. I'm hoping that, with a more solid/less unsettled bullpen, those may be mitigated. But the reality is that they've underperformed their first- and second- order predictions every year he's been at the helm. It gets harder and harder to chalk it up to bad luck when it's so consistent. If he's not showing improvement, just like a player who doesn't make adjustments, it's time to get someone who can.
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Post by gregblossersbelly on Oct 4, 2016 23:17:48 GMT -5
Foxy Farrell not as dumb as Buck!
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Post by soxjim on Oct 5, 2016 0:52:42 GMT -5
I think you look back on the thread you can see sprayed opinions of if JF gets into the playoffs - and better yet we won the division- it's not entirely a fireable offense. I just can't see him getting canned though imo all the facts we've brought up ad-nauseum on this thread point that he is pretty incompetent. I just can't see DD pulling the trigger and canning him. I'm with redsox040713champs earlier on this thread. Despite his incompetence DD will keep him because they won the division. He'd have to do something really really really really dumb and badly mess up the series to get canned.
Be interesting to see how he handles Kimbrel or Koji if they struggle mightily and we're still hanging on.
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pd
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Post by pd on Oct 5, 2016 7:43:03 GMT -5
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Post by James Dunne on Oct 5, 2016 7:54:42 GMT -5
One thing that I think last night shows is that the things we criticize Farrell for a lot are the same things that almost all managers do. Farrell's bullpen management problem is basically an issue all around baseball of a sub-optimal, risk-avoidant strategy.
What Farrell does worse than other managers is giving them too long of a hook when they start an inning. He seems to consider an inning something that is for the pitcher to lose, rather than entering the inning with a defined strategy, which puts him in a position of managing reactively based on pitcher performance rather than proactively based on matchups and the opposing team's lineup. That's how you get things like Rick Porcello facing Miguel Cabrera in the 8th inning.
There's also the difference between managing in the regular season and the playoffs. I think a lot of managers, including Farrell, don't use Britton in a tie game on the road in the middle of July. To be clear I believe that to be the wrong strategy - but it's the strategy. However, I do think a majority would use him in an elimination game when the alternative was Ubaldo Jimenez.
Buck Showalter has been fired three times and each of those times the team has gone on to greater success immediately after firing him. He is a fraud who gets the genius treatment by the media because he was on the other side of the camera each time he was in between jobs and they all know him personally. He is, at best, baseball's answer to Doc Rivers.
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 5, 2016 8:40:22 GMT -5
People seem to have no ability to recognize that a super elite team can perform worse than they should and still be as good as the Red Sox and maybe even win the WS despite the manager. Sorry, can't agree there. Were this any other sport where the strategy is clearly the biggest part of coaching I'd agree with you, but baseball is more nuanced in that aspect and I don't think a manager being bad at few strategy related areas necessarily make him a bad manager overall. And while it is possible a team could win a title with an awful manager, I find that to be counter intuitive because the journey there is so long, so hard, so random. It's just how I view this, I think the managing of egos and other motivational related skills are also big for a MLB manager. When you get too enamorated with theoretically objective metrics to estimate who is and who isn't a good manager, you have to find abstract reasons to explain why Ned Yost is a WS champion and one insane year by Madbum away from being a 2-peater. It's possible a team could win despite the manager, but it's more likely IMO they won because he did at least something very right. I'm also evidently biased here so yeah there's that. So if Farrell had a lineup full of Babe Ruth/Ted Williams types and a rotation full of Pedro/Kershaw types with no injuries, he did a great job managing the team to a 92 win season and a WS victory? No, they underachieved. Just like this year's team, even if they win the WS.
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Post by sibbysisti on Oct 5, 2016 8:54:14 GMT -5
Sorry, can't agree there. Were this any other sport where the strategy is clearly the biggest part of coaching I'd agree with you, but baseball is more nuanced in that aspect and I don't think a manager being bad at few strategy related areas necessarily make him a bad manager overall. And while it is possible a team could win a title with an awful manager, I find that to be counter intuitive because the journey there is so long, so hard, so random. It's just how I view this, I think the managing of egos and other motivational related skills are also big for a MLB manager. When you get too enamorated with theoretically objective metrics to estimate who is and who isn't a good manager, you have to find abstract reasons to explain why Ned Yost is a WS champion and one insane year by Madbum away from being a 2-peater. It's possible a team could win despite the manager, but it's more likely IMO they won because he did at least something very right. I'm also evidently biased here so yeah there's that. So if Farrell had a lineup full of Babe Ruth/Ted Williams types and a rotation full of Pedro/Kershaw types with no injuries, he did a great job managing the team to a 92 win season and a WS victory? No, they underachieved. Just like this year's team, even if they win the WS. If that be the case I'll take lots more seasons of underachieving.
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 5, 2016 9:02:23 GMT -5
So if Farrell had a lineup full of Babe Ruth/Ted Williams types and a rotation full of Pedro/Kershaw types with no injuries, he did a great job managing the team to a 92 win season and a WS victory? No, they underachieved. Just like this year's team, even if they win the WS. If that be the case I'll take lots more seasons of underachieving. Unfortunately, I had to go to an extreme example to show how a manager can be bad on a team which wins the division or WS. But a team like I described is about impossible to screw up with so the quality of the manager is pretty much meaningless. And in fact, that is the case for the vast majority of games throughout the season. It's the close games where Farrell is putting Tazawa in for the 3rd game in a row in high leverage when he's been terrible for a few weeks that cost the team wins. The main point I'm making is that this team easily had enough talent to win 100 games and should not have been hovering about 10-15 games over .500 until the ridiculously hot September when Farrell started managing like it was the playoffs. If he had some sense of urgency throughout the season, he'd be a good manager. He should not be taking a month to re-shuffle the bullpen when pitchers are struggling or pitching great. He should not take 2/3rds of the season to move Mookie to the middle of the lineup. He should not have been rushing Wright back when he had been bad before he was hurt while Buchholz was on a great run. I'll definitely take the results of the season so far, but I'm definitely not going to agree that Farrell should win Manager of the Year.
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Post by Don Caballero on Oct 5, 2016 12:02:34 GMT -5
So if Farrell had a lineup full of Babe Ruth/Ted Williams types and a rotation full of Pedro/Kershaw types with no injuries, he did a great job managing the team to a 92 win season and a WS victory? No, they underachieved. Just like this year's team, even if they win the WS. That team doesn't exist. This year he managed a team filled with very young players that had to deal with an underachieving rotation and then an underachieving bullpen, both of which are close to being a non issue at this point. The talent on the team is very good, but he did a great job at keeping guys steady and level and kept his team close for the final run despite legit issues they faced during the season.
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Post by jimed14 on Oct 5, 2016 12:16:36 GMT -5
So if Farrell had a lineup full of Babe Ruth/Ted Williams types and a rotation full of Pedro/Kershaw types with no injuries, he did a great job managing the team to a 92 win season and a WS victory? No, they underachieved. Just like this year's team, even if they win the WS. That team doesn't exist. This year he managed a team filled with very young players that had to deal with an underachieving rotation and then an underachieving bullpen, both of which are close to being a non issue at this point. The talent on the team is very good, but he did a great job at keeping guys steady and level and kept his team close for the final run despite legit issues they faced during the season. And he made a ton of mistakes as even you have admitted. I don't expect perfection. I expect the ability to adjust quickly to changing circumstances all throughout the season. He ignored the fact that Ross was one of the best relievers for a good chunk of the season when the bullpen was a complete mess and continued to warm or pitch Tazawa way too often for way too long after he wore him out and he was pitching terribly. I could probably come up with a list of 20 things he did wrong that I pointed out as it was happening. I get that everyone likes to be comfortable, but it's not comfortable for badly performing players to continue to flounder for too long without temporarily changing their role instead of waiting weeks or months to make a change. I don't blame him for everything. Only the boneheaded decisions that likely affected several game outcomes.
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Post by Don Caballero on Oct 5, 2016 12:20:20 GMT -5
And he made a ton of mistakes as even you have admitted. I don't expect perfection. I expect the ability to adjust quickly to changing circumstances all throughout the season. He ignored the fact that Ross was one of the best relievers for a good chunk of the season when the bullpen was a complete mess and continued to warm or pitch Tazawa way too often for way too long after he wore him out and he was pitching terribly. I could probably come up with a list of 20 things he did wrong that I pointed out as it was happening. I get that everyone likes to be comfortable, but it's not comfortable for badly performing players to continue to flounder for too long without temporarily changing their role instead of waiting weeks or months to make a change. Yeah, no denying that there were some mistakes by Farrell this year and he still has some managerial shortcomings. I think he's good in those harder to gauge areas of his job and I really don't think the Red Sox won the division despite of him, they won with him.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Oct 5, 2016 12:35:08 GMT -5
And he made a ton of mistakes as even you have admitted. I don't expect perfection. I expect the ability to adjust quickly to changing circumstances all throughout the season. He ignored the fact that Ross was one of the best relievers for a good chunk of the season when the bullpen was a complete mess and continued to warm or pitch Tazawa way too often for way too long after he wore him out and he was pitching terribly. I could probably come up with a list of 20 things he did wrong that I pointed out as it was happening. I get that everyone likes to be comfortable, but it's not comfortable for badly performing players to continue to flounder for too long without temporarily changing their role instead of waiting weeks or months to make a change. Yeah, no denying that there were some mistakes by Farrell this year and he still has some managerial shortcomings. I think he's good in those harder to gauge areas of his job and I really don't think the Red Sox won the division despite of him, they won with him. I'm willing to buy the idea that JF is Bobby Cox Lite (very lite). The qualities he brings to the team are real and important. But there's a reason why Cox won 1 WS in 16 trips to the playoffs. When a guy sitting in his chair at home with nothing but Stats' Inc. Blue Book of splits can yell at the screen "I cannot believe he is bringing in Charlie Leibrandt to pitch to Kirby Puckett!" and be all too correct, that's kind of a shameful situation given all the extra data Cox should have had at hand. You can find guys who are good with players and who can manage a bullpen and other tactics. The opposing team in this upcoming series has one. Gee, why can't we get guys like that?
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Post by soxjim on Oct 5, 2016 19:43:07 GMT -5
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Post by Don Caballero on Oct 6, 2016 0:11:31 GMT -5
You can find guys who are good with players and who can manage a bullpen and other tactics. The opposing team in this upcoming series has one. Gee, why can't we get guys like that? I miss Francona and he's a better manager than Farrell. However, it's really not that hard to see why he was fired. Not that it was the right move, but there's absolutely zero chance it wouldn't have happened. It's funny that we can look at the guy that was hired between them to see how much being good with the team is important. It's a pretty extreme example, but it's a valid one nonetheless.
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Post by scarr0214 on Oct 6, 2016 1:32:53 GMT -5
Farrell is an average manager. He's nothing special. This Sox team has the best lineup in the AL hands down, and if you make the argument for the entire league I'm not going to argue. Looking at our run differential and remembering some of his decisions this should have been a 100+ win team.
That being said, I think many fans, myself included, have been way too hard on him. He did get us into the playoffs, and some of his "mistakes" were just bad luck called mistakes due to his track record. I remember that day where Joe Maddon put a pitcher in left field and he made an amazing catch and the cubs had a comeback win. I thought if Farrell did the same thing the pitcher would've run into the wall and hurt himself. That basically sums it up.
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Post by soxjim on Oct 6, 2016 7:51:11 GMT -5
Farrell is an average manager. He's nothing special. This Sox team has the best lineup in the AL hands down, and if you make the argument for the entire league I'm not going to argue. Looking at our run differential and remembering some of his decisions this should have been a 100+ win team. That being said, I think many fans, myself included, have been way too hard on him. He did get us into the playoffs, and some of his "mistakes" were just bad luck called mistakes due to his track record. I remember that day where Joe Maddon put a pitcher in left field and he made an amazing catch and the cubs had a comeback win. I thought if Farrell did the same thing the pitcher would've run into the wall and hurt himself. That basically sums it up. I think you miss the point just like the writer from the article and all the people that illogically try to protect him. One mistake that is made is with the comment "he got us into the playoffs" as if all the other mistakes prior to September don't count. It's not "a wash" like some pretend it to be. Those mistakes are "what he is" / "his style of managing." It has nothing to do with "luck." He put his team in bad positions a lot prior to Septemeber. Which si why one poll had him 20th ranked and the pythag has him -5. All the reasons cited imo just the poor pythag.
Anyways- when you say "bad luck" I wonder if you are speaking of the Wright injury. IMO the mistake you are making is looking only at the injury but not "the decision." There is no logical reason to not have used Pomeranz unless you make up alice in wonderland type of excuses. It's like leading your family to walk through an extremely dangerous area when you could have easily taken an alternate path. Your decision making becomes the questionable factor not what happens afterwards. That's why I said above the writer was underhanded and not evenhanded in his article.
You say "he got us in the playoffs." Yes he did but how much credit should go to him vs everyone else? It's not equal that he got us in vs Papi or Betts, right? Didn't Papi or Betts and Porcello get us in the playoffs too? They're not equal in terms of value getting us in the playoffs vs Farrell are they?
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Post by dnfl333 on Oct 8, 2016 6:12:29 GMT -5
Leyland is coming boys, be patient
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Post by Smittyw on Oct 8, 2016 7:26:49 GMT -5
Would Leland have made Porcello and Price not crap the bed and the offense not hit .200 so far in this series?
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gerry
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Post by gerry on Oct 8, 2016 10:31:25 GMT -5
Leyland is coming boys, be patient Perhaps Lovullo is coming, with JF being moved upstairs. JF was not managing a team full of Ruths and Williams. But he was managing a team with 3 players in the discussion for MVP (Betts, Ortiz and Pedroia), 1 for Cy Young (Porcello), 1 for Comeback Player of the Year (Hammering Hanley), 1 a potential ROY (Beni Baseball) and two with the season's longest hitting streaks (JBJ and XB): and a whole lot more. In other words, despite issues and injuries he had a very good team that should have made the playoffs, was favored to make the playoffs, and should contend for years ... If they are well managed.
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Post by Don Caballero on Oct 8, 2016 11:39:14 GMT -5
Leyland is coming boys, be patient And hide your oxygen tanks!
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Post by soxjim on Oct 8, 2016 14:07:39 GMT -5
Would Leland have made Porcello and Price not crap the bed and the offense not hit .200 so far in this series? Don't know. Maybe Leyland would have locked up the number 1 seed and maybe we doesn't use Wright so maybe guys like Porcello and Price would have pitched less innings. Many of believe a better manager wouldn't be forced to have played Cleveland in Cleveland to start the series. -- And Cleveland does play a lot better at home, right?
It's a legit question to express if Farrell was fired how much better we'd be. You can't just look at things in a vacuum.
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