Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Anatomy of the Red Sox batting order - WEEI | Rob Bradford
(www.weei.com)
Interesting stuff.
Read More...John Farrell and Torey Lovullo looked down toward the Twins bullpen. They saw some stirring, as Minnesota lefty reliever Brian Duensing had grabbed a ball and tossed it a few times.
Then Duensing sat down. It was then the Red Sox manager and his bench coach knew they had put the right people in the right places.
“It’s a good feeling,” Lovullo said after the Red Sox’ 12-5 win over the Twins Saturday night, “when all the puzzle pieces fit perfectly.”
The puzzle Lovullo ...
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1 2 >In what way did Farrell force this?
you work to live you don't live to work
john farrell manages john farrell's career. blue jays management sensibly recognized that their manager didn't have himself fixated on the job he had so why keep him around
you need trust in business but loyalty has you keeping you around deadweight when you need to move on. loyalty can get your business in the tank.
loyalty is for chumps.
Still don't know why the Sox are a better team in 2013 than the Jays, or even in 2014.
Don't know how it leaked that the Sox wanted Farrell during the season, but it was unprofessional. The guy pretty much quit on his team.
Like Bobby V, he seeks fame and recognition by controlling the reigns, but that city will eat you alive.
Yeah, "force" may have been the wrong word but I'm still uncomfortable with this. To Harveys point I'm not looking for "loyalty" but I do think honoring a contract should be expected.
That's going to be a bit hard to do, and I say that as a Jays fan.
It seems like he was prepared to honor his contract in the event that they decided to keep him around, wasn't he?
Clearly the Jays should be contracted.
Please provide evidence.
But clearly, because his _heart wasn't in it_, he'd be secretly throwing all of the games against Boston.
Yes. If the Jays forbade him from talking to the Sox, or decided not to engage the Sox in terms of compensation, then I'm sure Farrell would have been spending his utmost energies to manage the Jays next year. There's zero evidence that he was acting unprofessionally. Even if he told the Jays, "Boston is my dram job," if they decided to keep him in Toronto I'm positive he'd get over it and try his damndest to win there.
He's got a long post-playing baseball career to examine and has never done anything of the sort.
#6 - yes, many fans were eager to get rid of him. Now the same people are upset at how it happened. There's a lot of hypersensitivity and looking for reasons to feel offended at play.
I was thrilled to hear he was leaving. I'm also thrilled with how it happened, since now Boston will be saddled with this guy.
Anyone would have been an improvement over Valentine. Well, maybe not Pol Pot, but everyone else.
I was hoping the Blue Jays would hold out for more than just token compensation for Farrell. The Boston manager's job is pretty much always going to be more attractive than the Toronto manager's job, which means that any time the Red Sox want the Jays' manager, they can just take him. That's not right. Even if the Jays had no more use for Farrell, they should have demanded Felix Doubront or something for him, just to let the Red Sox know they can't just poach their manager any time they want.
Then once the Red Sox had been forced to hire Jim Tracy or Ozzie Guillen, the Jays could have fired Farrell any way, just out of spite.
This is patently false. They need Toronto's permission. All AA (or Beeston) had to do was say "Go Pound Sand" and the Sox would have no recourse. They would have hired Ausmus and life would go on.
#18 - exactly, which is what leads me to believe thy weren't all that unhappy about letting him go
Were the Red Sox being disloyal when they canned Bobby V? Contracts get broken all the time, and the party that does the breaking typically has to pony up--be it the remaining salary owed or a light-hitting middle infielder.
As a Sox fan, I would have preferred this AA to the one who said, "If you got any old baseballs lying around that you're willing to ship north, you can have him."
I find the track records of pitching coaches as managers, in general, and John Farrell as manager, in specific, to be wholly uninspiring.
You'll find out soon. Farrell was terrible in Toronto. Bad with understanding platoon splits. Bad situational use (and overuse) of the running game. Lost the clubhouse. Saw a huge number of hitters and pitchers regress under his watch. Saw almost all the young players brought up from the minors fail. Kept using Adam Lind against lefties. Kept using Dotel against lefties. Kept using Cordero at all.
Honestly, he's the worst manager I've seen in Toronto. We've had guys before who were less than perfect, but Farrell honestly seemed to lack a strength.
Maybe things will be different in Boston for him, since he supposedly has a good relationship with a bunch of their current players, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if he's a complete and total disaster there.
We'll see. He addressed some of those things you mentioned at his presser; said he should have changed closers sooner, overused the running game, etc. Means little until the rubber meets the road, but at least he's a guy who's acknowledged his mistakes.
Really, if he can get Lester and Buchholz straightened out (and both of those guys respect the hell out of him) and the clubhouse's respect, then he'll probably be fine here.
A complete and total disaster would represent a massive upgrade from Bobby Valentine.
Kidding aside Farrell comes in with a massive advantage; the support of EVERYONE. Fans, media, front office, players, no one is being remotely negative. You can argue that people were not fair to Bobby V. but if nothing else, the fact that every ####### game won't be a referendum on the manager should help. After the press conference yesterday they did a little Q&A with NESN (the Sox' network) and Jerry Remy was looking at Farrell with the same longing a 15 year old girl looks at the quarterback on the high school football team. If Remy had disappeared from the shot and all we heard was an unzipping sound I would not have been surprised.
That was a very good piece. I've been looking for such a thing given the venom from some Jay fans regarding Farrell. There certainly is ample amount to be concerned about in there.
Farrell's winning percentage as a manager is much higher than Tito's was when he was hired in Boston. Means little but still.
As time goes on I have become convinced that FIT is by far the most important aspect of a managerial hire. Tito struggled in Philly but was the perfect hire in Boston. I think Farrell fits very well in Boston: he has the respect of the players, will work well with the FO and has extensive experience working in the city already. Not to say he couldn't have fit better in Toronto, but all those things are positives for me.
Well the contract wasn't broken, Valentine is still getting paid. If you aren't troubled by this I don't know how to explain it. What happens if Bautista walks in to AA's office and says he wants to join Farrell in Boston and he's not going to suit up for Toronto if that doesn't happen? That's an extreme example of course but I can't help but be bothered by what seems to be a bit of a trend.
The tampering rules need to be strengthened. The Red Sox almost certainly tampered with Farrell in some way as did the Cubs with Theo a year ago. This bothers me.
these are employees, not indentured servants. if someone calls they can pick up the phone and listen. and they can tell whomever they are not interested
i am all for exploiting the masses but only as long as the masses have a chance to better themselves if they so choose
A quality article by Richard Griffin? What is the world coming to? :)
-- MWE
Considering this tampering led to the Jays being able to unload the useless Farrell while getting a potentially useful player in return, I'm okay with it.
Buck was bad. I still think Farrell is worse.
Farrell is going to get Vince Carter level boos the first time the Sox are in Toronto.
The Jays have to play the long game-- while they could have held Farrell hostage in Toronto, treating high-level professionals with respect is something that ultimately will work out in your favor when attempting to attract top-level talent to your organization in the future.
I stopped clicking on links with his name attached to them years ago. What have I missed?
ETA: I'd still remain a NYY fan tho.
Yes, this worked well for everyone involved because the Blue Jays apparently didn't really want Farrell anymore. Where it becomes a BFD is if the Sox had snatched up a Joe Maddon for example. I mean, let's say the Yankees fire Girardi after the WS and a "source within the Yankee organization" reveals they'd be willing to give Maddon a 4 year/$20 million contract. Suddenly the Rays are up against it trying to retain a guy that is seeing dollar signs and opportunities (assuming you think the Yankee job is better than the Tampa job).
Maybe I'm being overly concerned. If so, that's fine. I just think we've had four guys under contract move teams in 12 months (Epstein, Guillen, Hoyer, Farrell) and I think that sets a bad precedent. Frankly as a Red Sox fan I'm thrilled with this. I like Farrell quite a bit and Aviles was probably not coming back anyway so the Sox really haven't lost much. Like I said, I just worry about the precedent being established over the past year.
Why are people b1tching? Oh, I forgot. People like to #####.
What bothers me just a little bit about Tito vs Farrell is Tito spent some time out of baseball and as a bench coach, so he had time and the humbling experience of being demoted to make him think about his mistakes.
Farrell, in all likelihood, sees this as a promotion, so I don't know if he'll be as reflective. It's nice he acknowledged some mistakes already but I wonder whether it will stick.
What Farrell did is much more analogous to Bautista walking into AA's office and requesting (rather than demanding) a trade - something that he is, of course, perfectly entitled to do, as long as he's willing to play out his deal in Toronto if AA can't/won't put something together. Which Farrell apparently was. So why all the drama?
The Blue Jays either needed to commit to 3 or 4 more years of Farrell or they were going to be changing managers anyway. Clearly they weren't thrilled with his performance, so getting out from paying him for a year that he wouldn't have been managing the Jays in addition to getting Aviles back makes sense for both teams.
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