ON BBTN, Schilling was highly critical of Valentine for damaging the future employment prospects of his entire staff. Bobby really threw them under the bus, but maybe he figures it is only fair that if he never works in MLB again, the coaches should share his fate.

Why would anybody give two excrements what Bobby Valentine said? If you have been only vaguely paying attention to the Red Sox this year, then you know he inherited a team with an odd management structure, which Valentine helped convert into a horrible trainwreck.

Further evidence that he's done, I guess.

When everyone hates you maybe the problem isn't everyone else. Now good bye.

There's more than enough blame for the shitshow to go around. Valentine is obviously the central failure, but the reporting by Passan, Edes, and Abraham does not make Valentine's coaches look good, at all. One example - here's a report from Pete Abe from August:

Until recent weeks, after all sides agreed to try harder to make it work, Valentine’s conversations with McClure were dominated by one- or two-word sentences. Bench coach Tim Bogar and bullpen coach Gary Tuck spoke to the manager even less at times.

Valentine, in the first year of a two-year contract, had one group of coaches he bonded with (those he had a hand in hiring) and another he didn’t (those he inherited). “After a while, I just figured that was the way it was going to be,” Valentine said. “If I needed information, I found a way to get it.”

The situation grew so tense in late June that Bogar and McClure, two of the coaches Valentine inherited, considered asking for reassignment within the organization, according to two major league sources.

...

First baseman Adrian Gonzalez has attempted to serve as a bridge between the factions, taking concerns the coaches had about Valentine’s strategy back to the manager.

Everyone failed at their jobs. Valentine should be fired, but so should Bogar and Tuck and the rest of these jackasses.

gotta wonder if getting fired doesn't turn into a badge of honor for mcclure

I doubt it. The Red Sox starting pitching was the worst part of the team this year.

I doubt it. The Red Sox starting pitching was the worst part of the team this year.

What happened with Curt Young in Boston? I think he's worth his weight in gold, personally, so I'm curious why he washed out with the Sox.

What happened with Curt Young in Boston? I think he's worth his weight in gold, personally, so I'm curious why he washed out with the Sox.

I think it was just a bad mix. The Sox staff was in large part a veteran staff and pretty set in its ways. From the outside it seemed that Young and the pitchers just didn't connect while of course Oakland's staff is very young and Curt was evidently quite successful at interacting. Coaching at its core is about relationships and some guys work well with veterans and others work better with younger players. My sense is that Young is just better with the kids.

My sense is that Young is just better with the kids.

Makes sense.

Can't begin to understand bringing in a guy like Bobby V and not letting him hire his own coaches. If the FO wants a veto or a signoff on his choices, fine, but sticking him with FO guys just breeds factionalism and failure.

If it was Cherington's idea to play the season with an inherently divided coaching staff, I'd fire Cherington.

I found this distrubing:

"I am me," Tuck said.

This mess is why GM's almost always let a manager pick his own coaching staff.

I think it was just a bad mix. The Sox staff was in large part a veteran staff and pretty set in its ways. From the outside it seemed that Young and the pitchers just didn't connect while of course Oakland's staff is very young and Curt was evidently quite successful at interacting. Coaching at its core is about relationships and some guys work well with veterans and others work better with younger players. My sense is that Young is just better with the kids.

I don't know if this is necessarily related, but I've always thought Curt Young was one of the worst I've ever seen at mound visits. It seems like every time he visits the mound, something bad happens immediately after (including today's game for instance). Sure, obviously a struggling pitcher is more likely to get a mound visit, but I'd be curious to see stats in the AB immediately following a pitching coach visit. I bet Young is near the bottom of the pack.

(This is not necessarily actually a big part of a pitching coach's job, and obviously developmentally Young seems great -- but maybe he's a bad tactical coach, so to speak, and with a veteran staff this is a bigger part of the job?)

It seems unclear how much or how little Valentine truly was "stuck" with this coaching staff. Alex Speier has a timeline of the year today and it's pretty interesting. A couple of things from it;

December 7 - "I think that the three guys we have here are being picked by me because there is quality in Tuck and Bogar and Magadan. And the next three, I'll have some say in.” (Valentine)

December 23 - On McClure: “I felt, as I told Bob right from the first interview, that he was right out in front of everyone else, and after all the other interviews came in, he remained at the top."

On Bogar: "Not only was there a desire that was expressed, but he convinced me that he was ready, able and willing to do as good a job as anybody out there. I was really confident after talking with him that the right thing for him and the organization was to get him in the dugout and working side by side."

I think the returnees certainly were foisted upon him but the idea that he had no say in McClure certainly seems a bit unrealistic. He probably didn't have total authority over the pick but that doesn't seem especially unusual to me. I could be wrong about that.

If the coaches really refused to speak to the manager, then they should be blacklisted forever. I don't care how ambitious you are; if you can't do your job, you have no business on the payroll.

I would hope the ownership realizes they created a ridiculous organizational structure and fixes it. If it becomes just a matter of Bobby V's personal failings, then it's going to be a grim time for Sox fans. And I would certainly hope Scioscia would turn the job down if offered to him with the same ridiculous structure.

Valentine, in the first year of a two-year contract, had one group of coaches he bonded with (those he had a hand in hiring) and another he didn’t (those he inherited).

Did Magadan refuse to talk to him too? That sentence makes it sound like he did, but he's never mentioned by name.

When the Red Sox have their press conference in the next day or so, I'd announce the manager and the entire coaching staff have been let go. It's time to start anew, even if it means the team sucks for a couple of years while it rights the ship.

If there are players left on the roster who, after new management are in place, still behave like malcontents, I'd rather trade them for a bag of baseballs then keep the toxicity around.

If it was Cherington's idea to play the season with an inherently divided coaching staff, I'd fire Cherington.

Throw in the fact that pretty much every trade he's made has been a disaster, with the caveat that the jury is very much out on the dumping of the Crawford, Beckett, and Gonzalez contracts on the Dodgers since the offseason will tell much of the tale there. (Note, however, that the team went into a tailspin not long after that deal, not that the team's record after that trade per se is super-relevant to their success going forward.)

As someone who works for a broken organization and who has tried for years to manage up, what I have learned is that the only person who can save an organization is the guy at the top. If he's the wrong guy, things will just get worse till he leaves. Then when the new guy comes in he has to be brutal with the next layer of management as most of these guys are just trying to save their jobs. We came very close to this happening, but before the new guy could take over the former CEO and the next layer of management convinced the company that was buying us to kick him to the curb. Brutally depressing. Then it took over a year to finally get rid of the CEO and the new one has been very slow to realize the companies problems and axe the right people.

Because so many things are broken, to keep ones job many people turn on each other and it's a near impossible situation to be a total professional if you are at all rational.

Basically I don't blame the coaches even if they are jerks. This is top managements fault, and that is where the change must come from. Top management is there, however, because they are very, very good at deflecting blame. I fear the majority are not in those positions due to integrity and business success.

I was a Bobby V supporter, I liked him when he coached the Mets, and I thought it was very impressive for a gaijin to manage successfully in NPB.

But, the Mets were also an organizational disaster (more so than usual) during part of his tenure. I had always assumed that was entirely the fault of those above him, but maybe #### flows up-, down- and acrosshill.

Can't begin to understand bringing in a guy like Bobby V and not letting him hire his own coaches. If the FO wants a veto or a signoff on his choices, fine, but sticking him with FO guys just breeds factionalism and failure.

Can you begin to understand why a guy like Bobby V would agree to manage in a situation where he didn't get to hire his own coaches?

These guys are supposed to be professionals. If dealing with inhereted coaches was unworkable, Bobby shouldn't have taken the job. Having taken it, he has a responsibility to make it work with the staff on board. He (and they) failed in the most egregious way possible.

Each and every one of them should be fired immediately, preferably in the most humiliating manner imaginable.

i heard curt schilling being very critical of bobby for saying these things public. wasn't curt guilty of the same thing as player while with the red sox? i thought he went after manny.

yes? no?

Francona didn't get to pick his pitching coach in '04, right?

Francona inherited Dave Wallace as his pitching coach, Ron Jackson as his hitting coach and Euclides Rojas as his bullpen coach.

I don't get why it was so critical that Valentine pick his staff. Obviously there is a level of professionalism to be expected but part of being a manager in any job is you inherit some of the people who work for you. Good managers can handle this.

i heard curt schilling being very critical of bobby for saying these things public. wasn't curt guilty of the same thing as player while with the red sox? i thought he went after manny.

yes? no?

The one guy I remember him going after was Scott Williamson for not playing hurt (shortly before Williamson had season ending surgery). He may well have gone after Manny but I don't remember it. God knows Schilling liked hearing himself talk.

The manager and coaches that Boston hires this off-season will be required to take a loyalty oath.

Bobby lost 1485 player-games to the DL, per Pete Abe the other day. That's like 10 regulars, more or less.

re #24, One difference is that they were getting a new pitching coach for 2012 - Valentine wasn't inheriting a guy who had already been there.

Schilling means that you're supposed to leak to the media and sow discord ANONYMOUSLY. Don't let them reveal who their source is when they report your jibes about the players you're unhappy with.

I don't get why it was so critical that Valentine pick his staff.

It seems like the problem was that they were loyal to Francona and upset about him being let go. They weren't neutral or unknown to Bobby V; they resented him being there.

It seems like the problem was that they were loyal to Francona and upset about him being let go. They weren't neutral or unknown to Bobby V; they resented him being there.

Well, the pitching coach wasn't a Francona guy.

The problem was little people:

"I don't think it's personal with a lot of managers. But with me, there's guys with agendas and they've made it personal, but who cares? I'm all ready for that. I've been there, done that," Valentine told Caron. "I understand little people. I understand agendas. I've learned, in my life, to live with that -- not here in Boston; my whole life."

The problem was little people:

So it was Pedroia?

I understand little people

He should have hired Freddie Patek as coach.

One thing is for sure; we will never be entertained by Bobby as manager again, forever. Probably when Francona gets a managers job next year he's replace him.

Each and every one of them should be fired immediately, preferably in the most humiliating manner imaginable.

Naked, covered with chocolate syrup at a shopping mall?

I don't get why it was so critical that Valentine pick his staff. Obviously there is a level of professionalism to be expected but part of being a manager in any job is you inherit some of the people who work for you. Good managers can handle this.

The real question is whether Bobby had the ability to replace them if he needed to. I can understand the front office telling him to try these guys out, but when it got to the point that people refused to talk to each other, either Bobby or the other guys had to go. It's a serious failing of the front office that they allowed this situation to continue for so long.

The Red Sox are all but dysfunctional at this point. Bobby V's contribution to that dysfunction is on the order of 5% -- and that's probably high.