Time for Valentine to go

[jung]

Clearly the starting pitching has been the biggest problem as far as on field performance. Pedey has really had a rough year although we may never know how much his injured thumb has hampered his hitting. My comments above are more about having a plan going up to the plate and having an idea what you want to and can accomplish against a particular pitcher. I do think Pedey has always done a reasonable job of having a plan with regard to his plate appearances. The result has not been anything to write home about this year.

[mvp 78]

This team played better for Tito. BV was the wrong guy. All the "FrancoMa lost us 10 games last year" talk in the offseason was laughable. Sure, it was time for Tito to go, but LL picked a horrible replacement.

[SoxSport]

The latest Borges this morning:

 

http://bostonherald.com/sports/columnists/view.bg?&articleid=1061150827&format=&page=1&listingType=sco#articleFull

 

Noticeable shift in the media's view of the Red Sox since the Crawford "rest" eposide.

 

There is pretty much a consensus forming that "it's the management, stupid". And I don't mean Bobby V, though he has been much too cooperative with the media when asked about his views of certain players. Henry should hope V will hold on until the end of the season, because I doubt anybody else would be foolish enough to take that job right now.

 

Atr the end of the season, Henry needs to sell the team, or go through the organization with a broom.

[Palodios]

This team played better for Tito. BV was the wrong guy. All the "FrancoMa lost us 10 games last year" talk in the offseason was laughable. Sure' date=' it was time for Tito to go, but LL picked a horrible replacement.[/quote']

 

In all fairness, the specific thing many of us explicitly criticized about Tito was his misuse of the bullpen. Valentine has done very well with a mediocre group that is lacking Bard, and Bailey.

[Bellhorn04]

Valentine has done a good job with the bullpen. But that may be the only thing he's done well.

[jung]

I had always thought....right from the start that LL wanted V for his ability to stir the pot....give the media something to talk about and keep the Sox front and center on the Boston sports landscape. Now I am modifying that view a bit. I think LL wanted V as a ready made scapegoat allowing the Sox to continue their marketing and merchandizing blitz unabated and after all said and done claim that the on field failure is all V's fault and maybe BC's to some extent. Those two guys will be this year's sacrificial lambs whether they know it or not. I never thought the V hire was about cleaning up the clubhouse or focusing on fundamental baseball or any of that stuff. I always thought it was about the sizzle. I now think even that gives LL more credit than he deserves.

 

This was about the 100 year Fenway thing ala bricks and bats, the unwillingness to spend more money to right the recent wrongs ala the LT cap, and the need from LL's perspective to have ready made scapegoats in place to explain another disaster of a season should it occur, which it has.

 

How else do you explain all that "talk about why V for manager", immediately followed by his public castration at the first opportunity? How else do you explain V having been set up for that public castration instead of being told that the Sox did not want him to be the kind of manager everybody expected him to be? It would have been easy enough to set some parameters for V. How else to explain not allowing V any of his own coaches? V was set up by a true master of deceit. I have never been a V guy, but nobody and I mean nobody deserved what he has gotten. However I do think this is backfiring in that nobody is going to buy it. In truth I don't even think LL cares. He will have gotten the revenue job done for 2012 and will dream up something else for 2013. that is actually quite typical for guys like LL.

 

LL reminds me of this marketing manager that my company was competing with several years ago. His company gave him a huge marketing budget which he chose to spend by basically spinning a tale that the company engineering assets simply had no way to live up to. It was a facade for the most part immediately understood as such by potential customers as soon as their own engineering assets looked under the skirts. Mine was a technology field with big dollars at stake so everybody looked under the skirts. When the company sales department failed to generate sales from the company marketing effort the marketing manager commented that he had "brought the dogs to the dog bowl. It was somebody else's job to make them eat". In other words he absolved himself completely from being responsible for bringing the dogs to the dog bowl under false pretenses and was unwilling to acknowledge that those dogs would be rightfully miffed when the dog bowl turned out to be empty. LL would have loved that marketing manager and would very likely have blamed the sales manager for the failure to turn those potential customers into actual customers.

 

How is that for a f***ed up situation. LL is the President of the Boston Red Sox. Go figure a way to rebuild this team with that jackass at the helm.

 

Obviously everything posted above is my opinion.

[Thunder]

He might keep his job if the team becomes consistent.

[jung]

Who V....I don't think V has a chance in hell unless there is some way for LL to use V to weave a tale for 2013 as well as 2012.

[ibot2much]

He might keep his job if the team becomes consistent.

 

He may not want to....why put up with this crap from the people above you and those below you. He can go back to CT and pick up on all his activities there.

[Thunder]

He may not want to....why put up with this crap from the people above you and those below you. He can go back to CT and pick up on all his activities there.

 

I don't want him here either. Hey, um, aren't the Astros looking for a manager? They're terrible with Brad Mills. With BV, I'm thinking they go 30-132 in 2013.

[example1]

This team is unbelievably pathetic. Clearly they are talented, but goddamn are they good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. They are actually becoming quite consistent: doing okay in series nobody expects them to win, getting pasted in series they absolutely should win. It's so damn frustrating.

 

Not sure it is Vs fault but honestly I don't care. Lots of changes need to happen to turn this thing around.

[VA Sox Fan]

This team played better for Tito. BV was the wrong guy. All the "FrancoMa lost us 10 games last year" talk in the offseason was laughable. Sure' date=' it was time for Tito to go, but LL picked a horrible replacement.[/quote']

 

Agree 100%!

[mvp 78]

In all fairness' date=' the specific thing many of us explicitly criticized about Tito was his misuse of the bullpen. Valentine has done very well with a mediocre group that is lacking Bard, and Bailey.[/quote']

 

So make him a bullpen coach. The Sox were terrible in September, but they were never this bad for this long under Tito. Arguably, this team is the worst Sox team since 1996.

[a700hitter]

The manager always takes a hit in these situations, and the manager here was clearly not part of any solution, but this team has a lot more problems than Bobby V. They also need to get a real professional GM who has had success. Promoting an intern to head your organization is just not a good idea. He has no clue how to turn this around, and he has no balls to stand up to LL.

[ibot2much]

Now that is a point I was waiting for someone to make. Cherry is a huge part of the problem. When the underlings have been so attached to the big boy ( to the point that you can't tell one voice from the other), maybe there needs to be a fresh eye and a new voice brought it to do the job. That job should have been filled from the outside with someone who has had experience...not Epstein's errand boy.

[a700hitter]

Now that is a point I was waiting for someone to make. Cherry is a huge part of the problem. When the underlings have been so attached to the big boy ( to the point that you can't tell one voice from the other)' date=' maybe there needs to be a fresh eye and a new voice brought it to do the job. That job should have been filled from the outside with someone who has had experience...not Epstein's errand boy.[/quote']Let him go learn at a small market bottom tier team.

[mvp 78]

While Ben hasn't done a good job, the bigger FO problem is LL. I think he'll be here til this ownership group sells though.

[a700hitter]

While Ben hasn't done a good job' date=' the bigger FO problem is LL. I think he'll be here til this ownership group sells though.[/quote']LL is a problem, but he will be hard to drive out. Whether he stays or goes, the need a GM with backbone and a good plan.

[jung]

But this is a chicken and egg issue. There was at least in my view zero chance of the Sox hiring a GM that had been allowed an understanding of the job "outside" of the recent Red Sox experience. LL wanted someone that had grown used to LL's meddling, someone who would not fight it even as much as Theo did and that assured that BC would get the job.

 

The only guy that has the authority to force a different organizational dynamic on the upper management and baseball operations group is JH and he seems to detached and unwilling to deal with LL. JH appears to prefer the devil he knows to the devil he does not know and does not even seem disposed to choose someone that may not be any sort of devil at all. I suspect the fact that LL succeeds in driving the revenue line is the key element to this dilemma for us the fans of this team. As long as revenues are sound, I just don't think JH gives a rats ass how they are derived, short of things that expose FSG to criminal indictment.

[iortiz]

Overview?

 

This is the worst BRS team I've seen in my short life watching baseball.

 

Making a retrospective, a solid SP would have given us a chance to fight at least for the 2nd WC.

 

Pathetic planing in every way, Pathetic! But what the hell we know about running a MLB team, almost forget... this is close to rocket science, jeez!.

[iortiz]

Btw, Our problems are beyond V. Problem is FO.

[jung]

i think along with getting screwed royally by the Sox organization, the players have left him totally baffled as nothing he has tried has worked...nothing....at some point you can't blame the manager when the players don't give him any feedback, any indication with regard to something....anything they might be able to do well.

 

Can we pitch and play defense...no....can we manufacture runs....nope.....can we actually stage a rally that looks like a rally as opposed to a bunch of independent but fortunately concurrent offensive events...nope can't do that either.....Can we occasionally string together a bunch of independent and concurrent offensive events...... YES by golly Yes we can that. However, the random nature of these occurrences do not about to a bankable offensive presence that you can plan for and build on. Send them out there and hope for the best is about what V is left with.

[mvp 78]

There aren't many in the organization that could be blameless this year, if any. It's more than one or two people. Unfortunately, that's all that will change for 2013, just a few people.

[Elktonnick]

There aren't many in the organization that could be blameless this year' date=' if any. It's more than one or two people. Unfortunately, that's all that will change for 2013, just a few people.[/quote']

 

Nothing has changed in a year and nothing will change next year. The problem is JH and TW are distracted and are more interested in Liverpool. JH and TW are looking at the bottom line. In the short term because of disasterous long term contracts left by Epstein they can't turn it around on the field because of the financial hit they would take. I still maintain that Henry is going to sell this team and soon. I don't expect things to get better until after Henry is gone.

 

In the interim if they do fire BV they will only bring another manager and not empower him to deal with the malcontent players the way they have with both Francona and Valentine.

[mvp 78]

It's not that they're distracted, it's that they don't care as it hasn't affected their bank accounts yet.

[Elktonnick]

It's not that they're distracted' date=' it's that they don't care as it hasn't affected their bank accounts yet.[/quote']

 

Pardon the pun but: “Whether the pitcher hits the stone or the stone hits the pitcher, it goes ill with the pitcher.”

Don Quixote (vol. II, ch. XLIII)

[SoxSport]

While Ben hasn't done a good job' date=' the bigger FO problem is LL. I think he'll be here til this ownership group sells though.[/quote']

 

It isn't just Cherington, it's the rest of the FO. They have lost some key people to other organizations, and there is no talk about the quality of their replacements. So far, ben has done a mediocre job. His trades have backfired, and he has mishandled the staff. He doesn't have enough GM experience to GM a $170 million team--aside from all the turf problems they have. They needed a much bigger fish from the outside to take over for Epstein--with the September problems they had.

[SCM33]

There aren't many in the organization that could be blameless this year' date=' if any. It's more than one or two people. Unfortunately, that's all that will change for 2013, just a few people.[/quote']

 

Yup. Sorry folks, unless major changes are made.......NOTHING will change about this team next year.

 

They need an overhaul, and I said it last year.

[Youk Of The Nation]

Pardon the pun but: “Whether the pitcher hits the stone or the stone hits the pitcher, it goes ill with the pitcher.”

Don Quixote (vol. II, ch. XLIII)

 

A Don Quixote quote? You are officially my new favorite person.

 

The fact that both volumes are not required reading for high school students everywhere is a source of fury for me at times.

 

I wish I had the patience to learn a foreign language. I have often thought about learning Spanish specifically to be able to read it in the original language.

[Elktonnick]

A Don Quixote quote? You are officially my new favorite person.

 

The fact that both volumes are not required reading for high school students everywhere is a source of fury for me at times.

 

I wish I had the patience to learn a foreign language. I have often thought about learning Spanish specifically to be able to read it in the original language.

 

I have a Spanish edition which I read from time to time. Years ago a Spanish friend told me that you can open Cervantes to any page a find a gem. It is true!