Referendum on John Farrell

[Wade Boggs]

If Tony Clark's double doesn't hop into the stands it might have ended up differently. I do remember Wakefield being put in. I thought he was.

[Spudboy]

No one has ever said that home field advantage makes no difference. It just does not make as much of a difference in the playoffs as people think it does. My statements have stemmed from other people's criticism of Farrell not going all out to win HFA against Cleveland. Having his players healthy and rested and having his pitching lined up the way he wanted was more important than playing for HFA.

 

And that worked out so well.

[Spudboy]

I will stop with my 'silly' ideas now, because in the immortal words of Jack Nicholson, You can't handle the truth!!! ('You' being the collective you.)

 

Good.

 

I much prefer your unwavering support for Fatboy.

[a700hitter]

And that worked out so well.

LOL!! What a plan!

[sk7326]

What I've learned thus far this season:

The batting order makes no difference.

Anyone can bat anywhere and the result will be the same. It makes little to no difference if Mookie bats first, fourth, or ninth. Same with everyone else in the order. Therefore L-R-L-R in the order is insignificant.

 

Home field advantage makes no difference.

If this is true, why do teams try to bring in players who will play to the ballpark? Is anyone who thinks EE would hit more home runs in Boston than at Petco wrong?

 

Nine times out of ten it makes no difference who a manager brings in as a reliever.

If this is true then guys like Kimbrel are vastly overpaid when they can bring in some guy like Abad and nine times out of ten the result will be the same. Show of hands please - Who wants to give this a try?

 

::Giving my head a good hard shake::

 

If all of this is true we don't need an on-field manager. We can just let the players decide among themselves who's going to hit where and who's going to pitch when, and it won't make any difference. Just like the pickup games I used to play when I was a kid!

 

Ooh, funny - though the strawmen are strong here:

 

1. Lineup doesn't matter - nobody said that, but that the differences are small, and from a player psychology perspective, some guys care and some don't - and you try to accomodate the former and hopefully have enough of the latter to make it possible. Getting the right players on the field trumps exactly where they hit. You don't want Betts batting 9th, but within reason it's not a big deal.

 

2. Home field doesn't matter - It does help, but historically it has not been some sort of iron lock the way it is in the NBA. (or the NFL if they did best of 7s) Occasionally you get a team to sweep home games in the postseason (like the 2004 Red Sox), but it is extremely rare. Instead, teams win some, teams lose some. We know World Series teams have won exactly half of the Game 7s since 1946. Home teams lost the first five games of the 1996 World Series and went 1-4 in the 1986 World Series. What sucks is that this is baseball - good teams have 2-3 or 0-3 stretches all the time, usually against weaker competition than the playoffs. You build a team for the ballpark - but even then the results are still not much more than 6 out of 10, which is awesome, but can be scuttled in a short series very easily. After all, Toronto cut through a home field disadvantage with almost no difficulty.

 

3. Managers matter - and using the bullpen is the one tactical thing which does have value. At the same time, the players still have to perform. But in general, most of a manager's work does not happen during those 2.5 to 3.5 (or in the case of Sox-Yankees, 5.5) hours they are sitting in the dugout.

[sk7326]

And that worked out so well.

 

If only we had pooped home field advantage away as well as the Blue Jays did!

[a700hitter]

54% for HFA.

[Dojji]

And that worked out so well.

 

Baseball is like that sometimes. You can line yourself up perfectly for the 70% chance, and it'll hand you the 30% and hang up a sign saying "Sorry no refunds."

[a700hitter]

Baseball is like that sometimes. You can line yourself up perfectly for the 70% chance, and it'll hand you the 30% and hang up a sign saying "Sorry no refunds."

Yep true, but so many take the numbers as guarantees for all sorts of outcomes.

[Dojji]

And then act so pissy and disappointed when the random number god has other ideas.

[a700hitter]

And then act so pissy and disappointed when the random number god has other ideas.

Baseball is only random when things don't come out the way the numbers dictate.

[Dojji]

See that's where you're wrong. There's nothing deterministic about baseball. When the numbers come out in favor of the probable outcome, that's just as random as when they don't. It all comes down pretty much to the probability spread. Very very very few things in baseball don't come down to exactly that kind of calculation. The issue is that sometimes we only know well after the fact exactly what the numbers are.

[a700hitter]

See that's where you're wrong. There's nothing deterministic about baseball. When the numbers come out in favor of the probable outcome, that's just as random as when they don't. It all comes down pretty much to the probability spread. Very very very few things in baseball don't come down to exactly that kind of calculation. The issue is that sometimes we only know well after the fact exactly what the numbers are.

I can't be wrong, because I was being sarcastic and not taking the position that baseball is deterministic at all.

[sk7326]

54% for HFA.

 

Home teams win 54% of the games - tease that out over a 5 game series and the team with home field has a 50.2% to 49.8% probability of winning assuming the teams themselves were even to begin with.

[a700hitter]

Home teams win 54% of the games - tease that out over a 5 game series and the team with home field has a 50.2% to 49.8% probability of winning assuming the teams themselves were even to begin with.

An advantage... even when teased out.

[sk7326]

Yep true, but so many take the numbers as guarantees for all sorts of outcomes.

 

play the percentages, hope for the best ...

[sk7326]

An advantage... even when teased out.

 

An advantage which did not come into play in this series - or the other AL series - or what the Cubs did ...

[a700hitter]

An advantage which did not come into play in this series - or the other AL series - or what the Cubs did ...

A statistical advantage, not a guarantee. Play the percentages and hope for the best. I heard that recently.

[sk7326]

A statistical advantage, not a guarantee. Play the percentages and hope for the best. I heard that recently.

 

indeed - such as a set rotation and rested players ... which helps more than what is still effectively very very slightly more than a coin flip.

[a700hitter]

indeed - such as a set rotation and rested players ... which helps more than what is still effectively very very slightly more than a coin flip.

In this case HFA prevailed over rest and a set rotation.

[a700hitter]

Tito's players were rested and his rotation was set and he managed to overtake us for HFA. He did a good job, and gave his team the best possible chance of winning. Farrell did not.

[cp176]

54% for HFA.

 

54% vs 46% = advantage - I would take that advantage anyday in any length series. Just enough maybe. That is all anyone could ask for.

[Bellhorn04]

Pedro did not pitch into the 8th inning of that game.

 

I realize that. But Tito left him in too long. He left him in to face the red-hot Matsui in the 7th with 2 runners on base, the Sox losing 4-2 and Pedro over 100 pitches. Matsui hit a bullet that Trot Nixon made a running catch on. On Pedro's 111th pitch of the game. It was another example of how fortune was on our side in 2004.

[georom4]

Well it did end badly as my thread suggested it would and now you're all debating whether home field advantage would have mattered. I see some people are still in denial. You honestly believe that the Guardians would have swept the Sox at Fenway the first two games? This year of all years given the Papi swan song? The emotional tenor of the opening game in Boston would have impacted it significantly imo. Having said that I was amused to hear all these people ready to jump off the Tobin Bridge because Farrell is coming back. He is a product of the Theo/Tito school of playoff thinking that says just GET into the playoffs (remember a wild card was as good as a division winner for them). They played so poorly at the end I have no idea why they thought they would just turn it around against a playoff team in their ball park. That was JF's big mistake, not the in-game managing. Besides the desperation move of pinch hitting his two best hitters in the series the final game and leaving his worst in, there was little he could do. I suggested that Price should've been used in game 1 and Porcello in game two matched with their ace. You just wanted to get out of there with one win. Both of these guys failed. Starting Buch was a mistake because we played scared the entire time (pulling him in the 4th???) Not the way you want to start an elimination game. The irony is that as shaky as Clay was, he was still better than our two studs. Looks like that heckler guy was right - all we had to do was play .500 ball at the end and we would have had the HFA - that is totally on JF. Starting Owen with three subs? he just threw that game away and that came back to haunt us. Sometimes the manager/organization just get it wrong. Case in point, last year's Patriots. Maybe next year we will finally learn that there is no time to relax in a pennant race.

[Bellhorn04]

No, the real mistake was winning the division. We would have been better off following the Jays example and being in the Wild Card game. They outfoxed us.

[Bellhorn04]

Looks like that heckler guy was right - all we had to do was play .500 ball at the end and we would have had the HFA - that is totally on JF. Starting Owen with three subs? he just threw that game away and that came back to haunt us. Sometimes the manager/organization just get it wrong. Case in point, last year's Patriots. Maybe next year we will finally learn that there is no time to relax in a pennant race.

 

Owens only started that game because Pomeranz couldn't go. You really think it's Farrell's fault that Pomeranz couldn't go or that Owens was our #6 starter?

[Slasher9]

Does anyone want to list what cleveland home vs road record this season was?

Sometimes "hfa" actually benefits the "other" team more than it "hurts" your team.

 

Someone also please list what porcello era home vs road this season?

[Slasher9]

Does anyone want to list what cleveland home vs road record this season was?

Sometimes "hfa" actually benefits the "other" team more than it "hurts" your team.

 

Someone also please list what porcello era home vs road this season?

 

53-28 (25 games OVER)

41-39 (2 games over)

hmmmmmm. does that seem like a HFA to you??????????

 

porc home: 2.97

porc road: 3.31

 

its putting your head in the sand if you think HFA didnt matter in this series.

[Bellhorn04]

53-28 (25 games OVER)

41-39 (2 games over)

hmmmmmm. does that seem like a HFA to you??????????

 

porc home: 2.97

porc road: 3.31

 

its putting your head in the sand if you think HFA didnt matter in this series.

 

Maybe it did matter.

We'll never know.

 

If everybody would agree on those points we'd be done.

 

But let's face it, it's much more fun to keep arguing in an endless loop.

[georom4]

Owens only started that game because Pomeranz couldn't go. You really think it's Farrell's fault that Pomeranz couldn't go or that Owens was our #6 starter?

 

Amazing how he got mysteriously better by the time the playoffs started....what did we save him for? relief gigs? And even if he was hurt why did you start your worst starter and then sub 1/3 of the lineup with back up players? Either way it smells of surrender...and it came back to bite us - facts are facts...

Edited October 13, 2016 by georom4