Countdown to the Playoffs - 2017 Edition

[SoxHop]

I am not saying that. I am saying that if these games are close, he needs to push all the right buttons.

 

Got ya... He does. It isn't officially playoff time, but it is playoff time.

[Hugh2]

I'm not exactly Farrells biggest fan, but it's hard to put all the blame on him when the starting pitching has been weak lately and the teams offense goes dormant.

 

Yes, they are tired and probably need rest. I'm sure if they squeezed out one more win the past 160 days that is exactly what he would be doing.

 

Now we might actually have to pitch Pomeranz and Sale to end the season.

[OH FOY]

Cleveland wins tonight its over for the Astros, also if the Astros lose today.

[devildavid]

I am not saying that. I am saying that if these games are close, he needs to push all the right buttons.

 

Which is easier said than done. In game management has very little influence over game outcome.

[FredLynn]

I'm not exactly Farrells biggest fan, but it's hard to put all the blame on him when the starting pitching has been weak lately and the teams offense goes dormant.

 

Yes, they are tired and probably need rest. I'm sure if they squeezed out one more win the past 160 days that is exactly what he would be doing.

 

Now we might actually have to pitch Pomeranz and Sale to end the season.

 

No, Farrell isn't responsible for our SP putting the team in a consistent and early hole of late, Fister being the exception. However, the guy who is leading the league in home BA wasn't in the lineup last night (Vasquez). Instead Farrell allowed Leon, who is useless with a bat in his hands, to catch. Thats a mistake. I don't much care that Fister wanted Leon. Too bad. We needed runs last night, and every night.

[mvp 78]

Lock

[Slasher9]

95.5%

[illinoisredsox]

Magic Numbers:

 

Division - 0

Wild Card - 0

[SoxHop]

Magic Numbers:

 

Division - 0

Wild Card - 0

 

....smile.................

[Kimmi]

Which is easier said than done. In game management has very little influence over game outcome.

 

My man.

[Kimmi]

No, Farrell isn't responsible for our SP putting the team in a consistent and early hole of late, Fister being the exception. However, the guy who is leading the league in home BA wasn't in the lineup last night (Vasquez). Instead Farrell allowed Leon, who is useless with a bat in his hands, to catch. Thats a mistake. I don't much care that Fister wanted Leon. Too bad. We needed runs last night, and every night.

 

Well perhaps Fister pitched as well as he did because of Farrell's decision to let Leon catch him?

 

When it comes to catching, handling the pitcher is the top priority. Putting Leon in was not a mistake. It was the right call. The rest of the offense should be able to get the job done.

[Kimmi]

Division Champs baby!!!

[mvp 78]

f*** that noise. The division is ours bitches.

 

Yup

[SoxHop]

Yup

 

wow........ amazing you called that...... impressive....

[Maxbialystock]

I am not saying that. I am saying that if these games are close, he needs to push all the right buttons.

 

And you alone get to decide which buttons were right? What a crock. The boo birds refuse to recognize that this team under Farrell has now won the Division two years in a row for the first time since 1916 despite weak hitting and a rotation near collapse. Instead you second guess every conceivable situation and decision because when the team loses it must have been the managers fault. This was the unremitting drumbeat when Francona, then called Francoma, was here. Heck, moonslav insists the team has no fire because the manager has no fire. I mean we are talking looney tunes stuff.

 

The team wins two divisions in a row, he stays. Plus he has better information and a whole lot more experience than all us Yahoos on Talksox. Seriously--its that simple.

Edited October 1, 2017 by Maxbialystock

[Maxbialystock]

No, Farrell isn't responsible for our SP putting the team in a consistent and early hole of late, Fister being the exception. However, the guy who is leading the league in home BA wasn't in the lineup last night (Vasquez). Instead Farrell allowed Leon, who is useless with a bat in his hands, to catch. Thats a mistake. I don't much care that Fister wanted Leon. Too bad. We needed runs last night, and every night.

 

Whine, whine, whine. That's all you boobirds do. What about the Sox amazing record in extra inning games when managerial decisions really can make a difference? You ever think of that? Last night's game goes into extra innings if Betts makes a decent throw home or the Sox win if ahNRam hits the double with the bases loaded instead of empty or its tied if Beni doesn't K with a man on 3b and one out.

[moonslav59]

Now is not the time to rag on anyone, but overall JF is not a part of the reason we won, except for how he handled the staff, which is no minor thing, I might add.

 

It's my opinion just like it's your opinion.

 

We had some tough injuries to overcome but not anything abnormal. 7 out of 7 of our top returning regular everyday players declined and you count this as a plus for JF? He got us to win despite "weak hitting". Like it couldn't possibly be any of his fault we hit so poorly and inconsistently.

 

My "no fire" comment was made a while back. I have seen more fire the last month or longer. I still don't see as much enthusiasm as other teams or past winning Sox teams,

but I clearly have said several times that "fire" is not needed to win a ring.

 

I know, you weren't talking to me in your whole post, but I, for one, have not been critical of his every move. I was a big Tito fan until he lost control. I hardly ever criticized anything Tito did. I was the last to call for Bobby V's firing. I'm not the type of poster that habitually criticizes managerial decisions. I have my own line-up philosophy, but I've always been careful to say I don't claim to know more than any manager we've had. Heck, I even defended Grady Little for leaving Pedro in.

 

I could be way off base, but I projected a 100 win team. Our bats were shockingly inconsistent and weak. Our fundamentals were off-the-charts awful. Our pitching and defense carried us. Aggressiveness helped. JF deserves credit for squeezing the most out of a pen I felt was out "weakest-not weak- link" going into the year. Our starters did well in the absence of Price and Wright, but Porcello bombed out badly.

 

We clinched tonight. Let's be happy and enjoy the hard fight we won. Let's hope we keep on winning series after series and bring home a ring this fall.

 

[Slasher9]

100%

[moonslav59]

Odds of winning the World Series

 

Westgate (9/18 update)

9:4 CLE

5:2 LAD

5:1 HOU

7:1 WSH

8:1 CHI

10:1 BOS

12:1 NYY

14:1 AZ

 

Bookmaker.EU

3:1 CLE

7:2 LAD

9:2 HOU

15:2 CHI

8:1 BOS

8:1 WSH

10:1 NYY

 

FiveThirtyEight

27% CLE

16% LAD

15% HOU

12% WSH

11% CHI

7% BOS

6% NYY

3% AZ

 

Odds Shark

+300 LAD

+350 CLE

+500 HOU

+700 WSH

+800 BOS & CHI

+1400 NYY & AZ

[mvp 78]

wow........ amazing you called that...... impressive....

 

Enough people were whining that it still was too closr to call. It wasn’t.

[jacksonianmarch]

Farrell did a fine job this year. He’s no tactician. But he somehow took a team that relied on hitting in 2016 back to the AL East crown while seeing the hitting decline rapidly. He took a team built on pitching, lost the #2 starter to injury and still won with pitching. He coddled a pen built from scraps and Kimbrel into a good pen. Farrell gets a lot of s*** for his game management, and he deserves that criticism. But he took a team that turned out not to be very good when you look at all the parts individually, and turned them into division winners. The sox overachieved based on performance and pythag this year. They won close games. They continually came back to win. They didn’t bludgeon teams like they did last year.

[Bellhorn04]

I'm not the type of poster that habitually criticizes managerial decisions. I have my own line-up philosophy, but I've always been careful to say I don't claim to know more than any manager we've had.

 

You make me laugh with statements like these, moon, you really do. For putting Holt in the lineup as much as he did and for putting him in the 1 and 2 spots, you were calling Farrell an idiot, clown, criminally negligent and on and on. Nobody on this site spent more time trashing Farrell than you did the last few months. You were going full-on Seabeachfred. Maybe you've changed over the years. But you have been a hardcore Farrell basher and there's no way around it.

 

You're perfectly entitled to be that, it goes without saying...but don't try to portray yourself as a Mr. Reasonable type, because you haven't been.

[Bellhorn04]

Enough people were whining that it still was too closr to call. It wasn’t.

 

It was plenty close by any reasonable definition. It went to the second-last day of the season and having to use our #2 starter and our best available players to win on that day.

[oldtimer]

Odds of winning the World Series

 

Westgate (9/18 update)

9:4 CLE

5:2 LAD

5:1 HOU

7:1 WSH

8:1 CHI

10:1 BOS

12:1 NYY

14:1 AZ

 

Bookmaker.EU

3:1 CLE

7:2 LAD

9:2 HOU

15:2 CHI

8:1 BOS

8:1 WSH

10:1 NYY

 

FiveThirtyEight

27% CLE

16% LAD

15% HOU

12% WSH

11% CHI

7% BOS

6% NYY

3% AZ

 

Odds Shark

+300 LAD

+350 CLE

+500 HOU

+700 WSH

+800 BOS & CHI

+1400 NYY & AZ

 

I guess the Twins have no chance

[cp176]

You make me laugh with statements like these, moon, you really do. For putting Holt in the lineup as much as he did and for putting him in the 1 and 2 spots, you were calling Farrell an idiot, clown, criminally negligent and on and on. Nobody on this site spent more time trashing Farrell than you did the last few months. You were going full-on Seabeachfred. Maybe you've changed over the years. But you have been a hardcore Farrell basher and there's no way around it.

 

You're perfectly entitled to be that, it goes without saying...but don't try to portray yourself as a Mr. Reasonable type, because you haven't been.

 

I know that it probably seems unethical of me to say but I really do like this post. You know me by now though - when I look at our for the most part everyday lineup, their hitting statistics don't really surprise me much at all. I think that the significant drop offs of Ramirez (age and injury - doesn't even look like he did in 2011) and Bogaerts (who knows why) do stand out but as for the rest, I really am not that surprised. It really does make me chuckle when I hear how much worse these guys have performed over their norms ( whatever the hell they might be) in the eyes of some posters. I will not let the facts get in my way -lol. These guys are over achievers.

[moonslav59]

Farrell did a fine job this year. He’s no tactician. But he somehow took a team that relied on hitting in 2016 back to the AL East crown while seeing the hitting decline rapidly. He took a team built on pitching, lost the #2 starter to injury and still won with pitching. He coddled a pen built from scraps and Kimbrel into a good pen. Farrell gets a lot of s*** for his game management, and he deserves that criticism. But he took a team that turned out not to be very good when you look at all the parts individually, and turned them into division winners. The sox overachieved based on performance and pythag this year. They won close games. They continually came back to win. They didn’t bludgeon teams like they did last year.

 

No doubt, JF did a great job with the pitching staff. I wish he could go back to being our pitching coach.

 

I do think it's wrong to portray JF as a mastermind who "overcame" the poor hitting and weak power of his team.If we are going to credit him for maximizing the pen production,

and I feel he does deserve a lot of credit for that, then he should also be held accountable for the massive decline of our returning players on offense, the massive decline of Porcello, and the injury circumstances for Wright and maybe even Thornburg.

 

We led the league in runs scored last year by over 100 runs. Our top 8 returning players by PAs in 2016 all declined-- most by over 100 points. Winning the division does lessen the impact of that fact, but glossing over such an incredible decline from those 8 and our Cy Young winner is doing a disservice to reality.

 

Leon .845> .644 (-201)

Holt .705> .520 (-185)

Young .850> .713 (-137)

HRam .866> .750 (-116)

JBJ .835 > .729 (-106)

Betts .897> .803 (-94)

Pedey .825> .760 (-65)

Bogey .802> .746 (-56)

 

6 of 8 declined by 94 points or more!

 

Even Bogey's 56 point decline is not insignificant.

 

 

 

[Kimmi]

And you alone get to decide which buttons were right? What a crock. The boo birds refuse to recognize that this team under Farrell has now won the Division two years in a row for the first time since 1916 despite weak hitting and a rotation near collapse. Instead you second guess every conceivable situation and decision because when the team loses it must have been the managers fault. This was the unremitting drumbeat when Francona, then called Francoma, was here. Heck, moonslav insists the team has no fire because the manager has no fire. I mean we are talking looney tunes stuff.

 

The team wins two divisions in a row, he stays. Plus he has better information and a whole lot more experience than all us Yahoos on Talksox. Seriously--its that simple.

 

That's pretty much it in a nutshell. I will sometimes question the calls made by a manager, but I try to give them the benefit of the doubt because they know how to manage MLB games better than any of us do.

[Kimmi]

Now is not the time to rag on anyone, but overall JF is not a part of the reason we won, except for how he handled the staff, which is no minor thing, I might add.

 

Farrell is as much a part of the reason we won as he is part of the reason we lost. Since we won far more than we lost, he must have done a good job.

[Kimmi]

We clinched tonight. Let's be happy and enjoy the hard fight we won. Let's hope we keep on winning series after series and bring home a ring this fall.

 

I am 100% on board with this!

[Kimmi]

Enough people were whining that it still was too closr to call. It wasn’t.

 

Going into September of 2011, making the playoffs was about as locked as a situation can be. Nothing is locked until it actually is.