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Wednesday, October 03, 2012
In his weekly interview on Boston sports radio station WEEI, Valentine responded to a question about whether the coaching staff and the people around him have been loyal with a simple, “No.”
He was then asked if he felt like “some of these guys on the staff have undermined you at times.” His answer to that question was a curt, “Yes.”
Lyndon Johnson’s definition of loyalty: “I want him to kiss my ass in Macy’s window and say it smells like roses”
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1. The Yankee Clapper Posted: October 04, 2012 at 02:15 AM (#4253490)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.
Makes sense.
If it was Cherington's idea to play the season with an inherently divided coaching staff, I'd fire Cherington.
This mess is why GM's almost always let a manager pick his own coaching staff.
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?)
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.
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.
Did Magadan refuse to talk to him too? That sentence makes it sound like he did, but he's never mentioned by name.
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.
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.)
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.
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 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.
yes? no?
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 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.
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.
"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."
So it was Pedroia?
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.
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.
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