Players unhappy with the Valentine as manager?

[mvp 78]

BV was a bad hire. LL should have let 36DD pick the manager he wanted. Why hire someone who is seen right away as a lame duck?

[jung]

I am not sure Management would have given a BC choice more than two years either even if that meant the BC choice would not take the job and they would not have given a first time manager a big money deal so at least as it relates to that particular aspect of a manager hire, we likely would have ended up in the same spot......what a mess.

 

I do think this particular mess is one that both Management and the players asked for and got in spades.

[mvp 78]

It's not about contract length. From day 1, people saw BV as a short term fix, a bridge to another manager. That wasn't going to work to clean up the attitude problems.

[SemperFi Sox]

I'm glad the players are unhappy with the manager, that's what we needed.

[Designated Hater]

Let these prima donna pricks hate their manager. This can be the one thing in their loves that doesn't go their way. Boo f***ing hoo. They're baseball players and paid to win games. Just do that and everyone (INCLUDING MYSELF) will shut up.

[Elktonnick]

I am not sure Management would have given a BC choice more than two years either even if that meant the BC choice would not take the job and they would not have given a first time manager a big money deal so at least as it relates to that particular aspect of a manager hire, we likely would have ended up in the same spot......what a mess.

 

I do think this particular mess is one that both Management and the players asked for and got in spades.

 

No competent high performance organization whether it be a baseball team or what ever sets up its top operational manager to fail the way the Red Sox have done with BV. Forget this is a baseball team. What private entity would hire an on site manager and then not let him have authority to hire and/or fire his senior deputies, in this case the bench coach, pitching coach, hitting coach and bull pen coach. I can tell you from experience that never works when it is done as it was in this case. In my view BV made one huge mistake in accepting the job under the conditions that he couldn't hire his own coaches.

[iortiz]

This club is a mess. Time to Blow it up. Let the rats of fenway run.

[jung]

To be honest, I just don't care anymore what the players don't like....about this manager, the last manager, the next manager....I just don't care. For the most part they have played like s***....a fair number of them have been unprofessional in their demeanor and in some cases even in their handling of day in, day out, game in game out situations.

 

Until they play better, I just don't care what they think about the manager. You underperform, you usually don't get things the way you want them at least not immediately. As I said earlier, maybe the folks that said this would not be straightened out until after a major house cleaning (I cannot take credit for being in that camp) were right after all.

 

I can't even credit some of these players for common sense at this point. Although Management did castrate V early there was no chance of Management firing the Manager within a couple months of hiring him. So given that, what were some of these players dooming themselves and us to in carrying this s*** this far? Lets have another season of visible discord, disharmony, disunity and disfunction? If you want to do that as a player....fine give back half the money and jerk off for the season. Oh no we aren't going to do that are we! We are going to jerk off but we are not givin' back any of the money.

 

I will here make the same disclaimer that I have been making recently. I have to take what I see in the media with a grain of salt. However much of what we see now are things we can see with our own eyes or can hear directly from the players since they seem quite ready to spout off whenever they want to and then run and hide behind "leave us alone" when they don't want to.

 

I may regain interest in the players and their various and sundry peeves and problems once they start playing somewhere close to their potential.

[SoxSport]

http://espn.go.com/boston/mlb/story/_/id/8162350/boston-red-sox-manager-bobby-valentine-seems-encountering-problems-all-directions

 

Some insights into the Red Sox management problems by Edes.

 

Confirms there is a feeling in the organization that there is insufficient urgency to get rehabbing players back to action. That's been pretty obvious to me and others. The culprit seems to be Mike Reinhold, head trainer.

 

Says there isn't great communication between Valentine and "his" coaches--most of whom were not hired by him. Nor is there much rapport with the players. I suppose Youkilis would be a prime example, but it was the FO that pushed him out of a job--not Valentine. As for the other holdovers, I doubt Valentine has had much effect in changing anything. Maybe that's why the newbies are having more impact.

 

All in all, not a pretty picture. I've been saying the management issues are the biggest problem, and this article doesn't alter that view.

[SCM33]

I think Valentine is a great baseball manager. He is a goof off of the baseball field.

 

The problem is that nobody in the FO backs Valentine. They brought somebody in who could stir up the pot, and when he does just that.....they make him apologize for it.

 

If BV can't get it done, then they need to bring someone in like John Farrell, who could legit kick most of their asses if they crossed him.

 

They are a gossiping, crybaby, stab you in the back group of players. They need someone to kick them in the ass.

[User Name]

It's obviously a great idea to bring back players who are multi-million investments back from injury before they are physically or mentally (timing or mechanically-wise) ready for it. Who needs common sense?

[mvp 78]

The best thing about Edes piece is one of the final paragraphs where he says BV's accumen is what will get them to play in October... Hmmm, wonder who his source was? Hillarious.

[SoxSport]

The best thing about Edes piece is one of the final paragraphs where he says BV's accumen is what will get them to play in October... Hmmm' date=' wonder who his source was? Hillarious.[/quote']

 

Edes is pretty reliable, and is probably basing his view on V's experience. The talk is Pedey was his source.

[wyo-sox]

I've always been a Pedroia fan and we all see him as a leader of he Sox, as does he I believe. As the leader, I think he let the team down, in regards to the transition of a new skipper. He could have been the guy that was positive about Valentine, eager and submissive to the new leadership and I am confident the team would have followed. I think the veterans are finding it easier to find things they do not like about Bobby V. as opposed to acknowledging their own short comings.

 

When Dustin made his comment about Bobby ''that's not how we do it in Boston'' comment I remember how troubling I found that as he should be open to new ways since their way has not gotten much for results in a few years and got their beloved manager canned. This latest ESPN article tells me there is a self protective culture that sees itself as smarter then their bosses and unwilling to accept change. Good luck Bobby.

[jung]

I guess the only real issue I have with the idea of the players being unhappy with the choice of V to manage the team is that it does appear from the outside looking in that some of the players....maybe even more than some have never given V an opportunity in the sense of just abiding by what he wanted to do and just playing the game the best they could.

 

In the backdrop of what happened to Tito it is hard to have any empathy with the player's in the way they appear to have handled playing for their new manager.

 

I do think the Sox erred in commenting about the type of manager they would or would not hire before hiring V. That is not to say that they did not have the right to go ahead and hire the manager they wanted to hire regardless of what they said initially. I just do not think they should have said a thing in the first place.

 

I can tell you that I do not need to win championships to enjoy watching Sox baseball. They have won championships. I would love to see them win championships again but it is getting to the point where I would prefer to see them try to build championship teams without going the high ticket free agent route. Sure it will be much harder to win championships that way but to be honest I have just grown tired of all the stuff that comes along with employing high ticket free agents to get it done. Will they perform even if they remain committed to playing their best? Will they lose their edge once they have their guaranteed contract in place? Will they feel so entitled as to allow them to resist the organization and its efforts to compete the way it wants to compete?

 

Honest to God it is just getting to not be fun anymore. I would rather see a bunch of guys playing like the guys that have come up from Pawtucket even knowing that they are going to have peaks and valley and at times make terrible mistakes and very likely lose many games than watch a bunch of gnarled vets insistent that they are going to do things the way they want to do them....play the baseball they want to play individually, for the most part protective of what they have and unwilling to take even the smallest risk to achieve more.

 

What are we really asking of them? We are really just asking them to play hard....play like there is something out there worth playing for cumulatively as opposed to individually. They have their pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If you really think about it, how often does it now appear that its not enough for these guys. Once they have the big contract, many of them now appear to spend a good deal of time positioning for the next one.

 

I would prefer to have a bunch of guys play for that first big contract and if they continue to play well after they have it then fine, keep them. If not, move on to the next guy in line.