Current Red Sox playoff chances

[sk7326]

What Farrell has done I think is just restore a sense of professionalism in the coaching staff. The communication is cleaner. Perhaps even the fried chicken is back - but moreover, an environment is there for the players to do their jobs. Were there other, less expensive choices who might have worked too? Without a doubt - like a Lovullo or a Gene Lamont - but clearly Cherington wanted Farrell and Farrell wanted Boston. The team and the day to day is just more "boring" this year - just a bunch of guys free to do their work, and a coaching staff that understands the entire Sox mission, from development to the nerdball.

[sk7326]

There was just no sense of togetherness on the team last year, which didn't make the team very motivated. V didn't help at all, so yes the season was basically over in ST.

 

Actually, last year's team was spectacularly unlucky - for a lot of the season carrying a positive run differential without a winning record. The pitching was bad - like wheeling out Aaron Cook's corpse bad. But the team was decimated by injuries and performance drops that nobody say coming.

 

Crawford was so horrible in 2011 that he would have had to be better in 2012 and 2013 by just being a living breathing baseball player. But the injuries held him up still. If he could have recovered to just "average" the Sox could have lived with that.

 

But what REALLY f'ed the Sox outside of the pitching - where their plans for world dominance failed - was that Adrian Gonzalez basically turned from a GUY! into a guy. The guy has persisted in LA. This doesn't mean he is a bad player - but he is not the transformational slugger for a decade the Sox (and the industry) thought the Red Sox were landing. 25 million for a 30 year old future Albert Pujols makes sense ... 25 million a year for a 30 year old future Adam LaRoche does not. You take that one one hand, and then take Kevin Youkilis, one of the leagues top dozen hitters entering that time frame, having injuries basically destroy his ability to be a serious everyday player. The things which seemed like safe bets ALL came up snake eyes - one hates just chalking it up to luck, but something very much like that happened.