Time for AC to GO

[moonslav59]

51 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

Fire Cora or dont, I dont think its an important job.  But Notins suggestion that every team makes bad GM moves and those come out in the wash is not one of his better takes. It reminds me of some of his other wild takes , such as : free agents dont impact you on the field, they are just for PR.

Notin, you have some of the best takes on this forum. I appreciated how quickly you were the second person here to say "just get Bregman" and thats just one example.

But the most important thing in winning baseball is the talent level.  Who you have.  Not how they are coached, not how they are developed, not how they are used. The key to winning in baseball , more than anything else, is have better players.

I couldnt care less is if Cora was retained, fired, or kicked upstairs to GM.  But Bres needed to get sacked yesterday. And Bloom stunk too.  And these reasons are why weve stunk since DD left. We didnt go to crap when we changed managers, it was when we changed DD and stopped prioritizing having the best players we could.

Cant make chicken salad out of chicken dung.

Well said, and I greatly respect notin's opinions, as well.

I disagree on this one, but am not of the mind to think if we fire Cora, it would be a horrible thing. (Who we replace him with might be.)

I agreed with notin on Bregman, the Sale trade and many other issues.

I don't think firing Cora is the answer, and besides, he won't be fired: he'll be promoted.

 

[notin]

50 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

Fire Cora or dont, I dont think its an important job.  But Notins suggestion that every team makes bad GM moves and those come out in the wash is not one of his better takes. It reminds me of some of his other wild takes , such as : free agents dont impact you on the field, they are just for PR.

Notin, you have some of the best takes on this forum. I appreciated how quickly you were the second person here to say "just get Bregman" and thats just one example.

But the most important thing in winning baseball is the talent level.  Who you have.  Not how they are coached, not how they are developed, not how they are used. The key to winning in baseball , more than anything else, is have better players.

I couldnt care less is if Cora was retained, fired, or kicked upstairs to GM.  But Bres needed to get sacked yesterday. And Bloom stunk too.  And these reasons are why weve stunk since DD left. We didnt go to crap when we changed managers, it was when we changed DD and stopped prioritizing having the best players we could.

Cant make chicken salad out of chicken dung.

I have to discredit myself in your eyes.  I was not fully on board with Bregman.  I’ve been down on him since he whined about getting booed after the cheating scandal news broke and before this year, he was among my least favorite MLB players.  I do like him better in the new uniform; it’s the fan in me.

Free agency is largely a PR venture in my eyes.  As I’ve said before, it involves paying heavily for players in their 30s for what they did in their 20s for another team.  But it does show the fanbase money will not be an obstacle.  Fans love that.  And they should.

As for Cora, I find him fungible.  I can’t criticize his pitching staff management, since I know he and I are on very different planes of knowledge regarding their daily statuses. I don’t mind him resting players; I think he does it more so to keep the bench players involved, which is good.  He may not do it for that reason, but it does happen.  I hate his dedication to platoons and his apparent disbelief in defense.  And I was thoroughly disappointed with his avoidance of the Devers situation where he blamed the departed guy, refused to handle the situation, and finally went and got ownership to do his job.  I know I don’t have the savvy to manage an MLB team, but even I can shirk responsibility at that level…

[Maxbialystock]

2 hours ago, Duran Is The Man said:

i began to loathe Cora the day he gave Story a "rest day", a week into the season and just after he was signed. good Lord. he demands so little that he gets what he demands.

To me the rest days always did 2 things.  They allowed Cora to play one of his benchers and provided both physical and mental relief from the unbelievable stress of playing 6 games a week for 6 months.  When he started it in 2018, it seemed to work, especially because back then the games went lasted forever.  

What the heck do you mean by "demands?"  The games make the demands.  The pitchers make demands on hitters and vice versa.  Defenders have no choice but to defend as well as they are able and baserunners get around the bases as well as they are able.  Before every game every player drills on defense, hitting, and pitching--162 games per season. 

If Cora wanted to sabotage this Sox team by demanding absolutely nothing of his players, he couldn't.  Forget all the repetitive pitching, hitting, and defending drills before every game.  Players want to excel because of the money, because everything they do is scrutinized by the fans, and because they are in The Show.  Oh, and don't forget the huge number of stats and computer programs now in use.   Despite all that, Campbell couldn't stick, but you better believe that wasn't on Cora.  

MLB has by far the longest apprenticeship of any sport.  Once a player gets to The Show, he can expect more drills than any player of any other sport.  

 

[moonslav59]

12 minutes ago, jdc69 said:

He takes pitchers out too early and then the bullpen blows the save or just blows everything to smithereens. He takes them out when the game is close, they're still throwing effectively and the pitch count is under 90. He's done it about 4-5 times now and it has all resulted the same, undermining the teams momentum. Taking Giolito out early was the latest. Look at that succesful period where we swept the Yankees, all the pitchers pitched deep into the games and the bullpen performed well to finish.

Cora is not managing to win games, he's managing to prevent injuries. Its a losers mentality and doesnt seem to prevent injuries either.

Our SP'ers have not been getting the job done just as much as the pen. In fact, our pen ranks higher than our rotation.

Crochet leads the league in IP, and the word was he needs to have his innings managed, due to no previous large IP seasons. Cora got flack for leaving Crochet in a game too long, a few starts back.

While I was curious why he yanked some SP'ers, when he did in several games, we don't have any idea to what all the facts involved were for each decision made. Hell, one could easily argue he left Houck, Buehler, Newcomb, the early Gio and other selected in hindsight pitchers in one, two or three batters too long. You want me to go back and find all the instances?

The fact is Cora has been working with the 6th, 9thand 12th slotted SP'ers more often than we expected. His preseason #2, #3, #4 and #5 SP'ers have sucked, been injured or both. Our fWAR rotation ranking is 17th. One could call that miraculous. Our pen fWAR ranking is 4th, when every single poster on this site was upset to irate over the lack of pen building over last winter.

Am I lying? Am I being overly selective with cherry-picked stats? I didn't even mention the effect our defense has had on a staff expected to get 4-5 outs in way too many innings.

Should Cora have put on the cleats and played 2B for the team?

[moonslav59]

4 minutes ago, Maxbialystock said:

MLB has by far the longest apprenticeship of any sport.  Once a player gets to The Show, he can expect more drills than any player of any other sport.  

You make some great and insightful comments, Max.

I know, I often respond only to the ones I disagree with, but I agree with more than not.

[cp176]

2 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

To be candid I've wondered if some of the bad play falls on Cora.  Maybe it does.  But there's so much stuff we don't know.  Like with the hitting.  They seem to have gone all in on the Driveline stuff.  Does it seem to be working?  I'm pretty dubious about it, myself.  We strike out so much and seem to be lousy at situational hitting, generally speaking.

The average runs per game might look okay, but we sure seem to post a lot of 1's and 2's, many of which lead to painful losses featuring blown saves and Manfred Man nightmares. 🙃

Hey I like the guy and you folks are right that it appears that the players like him.  I don’t think that he is anything other than an average in game manager.  Maybe that is good enough.  Someone has to take the blame as well as the credit here.  It does go both ways but lately there seems to be a heck of a lot more bad play than good.  From situational baseball, use of the pitching staff, base running and play in the field.  I think that most people have noticed that we haven’t been very good for some time now.  Oh, I forgot to mention hitting.  I understand totally that he isn’t making the plays but he is the guy leading the way.  It is his team on the field.  Maybe the fact that he is a nice guy and his players like him is enough.  I’m not real sure that  a major change with respect to him alone would solve many of our problems.

[Maxbialystock]

1 hour ago, drewski6 said:

Fire Cora or dont, I dont think its an important job.  But Notins suggestion that every team makes bad GM moves and those come out in the wash is not one of his better takes. It reminds me of some of his other wild takes , such as : free agents dont impact you on the field, they are just for PR.

Notin, you have some of the best takes on this forum. I appreciated how quickly you were the second person here to say "just get Bregman" and thats just one example.

But the most important thing in winning baseball is the talent level.  Who you have.  Not how they are coached, not how they are developed, not how they are used. The key to winning in baseball , more than anything else, is have better players.

I couldnt care less is if Cora was retained, fired, or kicked upstairs to GM.  But Bres needed to get sacked yesterday. And Bloom stunk too.  And these reasons are why weve stunk since DD left. We didnt go to crap when we changed managers, it was when we changed DD and stopped prioritizing having the best players we could.

Cant make chicken salad out of chicken dung.

Good points about the importance of the CBO.    But I think JH is just as important.  His ownership is the best in Sox history--4 WS wins which both ended the 86 year curse and produced more WS than any other MLB in the same timeframe (2002-2024).  

 DD succeeded because he's good--we can agree on that--and because JH supported him with the highest payroll in MLB.  But then 2019 happened--still the biggest payroll, but no postseason.  Worse, DD was going to need more than the highest payroll in MLB to fix what went wrong--primarily pitching--in 2019, to say nothing of competing with the Dodgers (who have a lot more money) for Mookie.  

So JH changed course and signified that by hiring Chaim Bloom of the Rays, who have consistently built competitive teams with one of the lowest payrolls in MLB.   If you recall the movie Moneyball, you know JH wanted to hire Billy Beane as his GM/CBO after the 2002 season.  

What that meant for Chaim Bloom is that his budget was limited, and that trend continues this season, in which the Sox payroll is ranked 12th in MLB.  Even worse, spotrac says the the Sox effective payroll (players on on the active roster) is $105M, ranked 19th in MLB.  

 

[Maxbialystock]

4 minutes ago, cp176 said:

Hey I like the guy and you folks are right that it appears that the players like him.  I don’t think that he is anything other than an average in game manager.  Maybe that is good enough.  Someone has to take the blame as well as the credit here.  It does go both ways but lately there seems to be a heck of a lot more bad play than good.  From situational baseball, use of the pitching staff, base running and play in the field.  I think that most people have noticed that we haven’t been very good for some time now.  Oh, I forgot to mention hitting.  I understand totally that he isn’t making the plays but he is the guy leading the way.  It is his team on the field.  Maybe the fact that he is a nice guy and his players like him is enough.  I’m not real sure that  a major change with respect to him alone would solve many of our problems.

Agree completely that you do not in fact think.  You opine.  So do I.  

[Maxbialystock]

33 minutes ago, notin said:

I have to discredit myself in your eyes.  I was not fully on board with Bregman.  I’ve been down on him since he whined about getting booed after the cheating scandal news broke and before this year, he was among my least favorite MLB players.  I do like him better in the new uniform; it’s the fan in me.

Free agency is largely a PR venture in my eyes.  As I’ve said before, it involves paying heavily for players in their 30s for what they did in their 20s for another team.  But it does show the fanbase money will not be an obstacle.  Fans love that.  And they should.

As for Cora, I find him fungible.  I can’t criticize his pitching staff management, since I know he and I are on very different planes of knowledge regarding their daily statuses. I don’t mind him resting players; I think he does it more so to keep the bench players involved, which is good.  He may not do it for that reason, but it does happen.  I hate his dedication to platoons and his apparent disbelief in defense.  And I was thoroughly disappointed with his avoidance of the Devers situation where he blamed the departed guy, refused to handle the situation, and finally went and got ownership to do his job.  I know I don’t have the savvy to manage an MLB team, but even I can shirk responsibility at that level…

He needs the platoons because of the difference in how some players hit righties vs righties.  But platooning only ameliorates the greater and grimmer fact that this lineup is without both Bregman and Devers. 

You don't think he likes having Rafaela in CF, Abreu in RF, Narvaez behind the plate, Story at SS, and Mayer/Bregman at 3b?  I beg to differ.   

Every team's first line of defense is their pitching, and our first line ain't so hot.  

Moreover, the first skill a position player must have is hitting.  I think Campbell and his many errors would have stuck had not his OPS dropped to .668.  Rafaela sticks because of his super defense in CF, but also because his June OPS is .837.   Breslow and Cora would have been ecstatic with Devers defense at 1b, no matter how bad it might have been, because of his hitting.  Duran with his lousy fielding stays in LF because of last year's OPS and the hope he can get back there.  

Cora didn't shirk, or so I believe.  My take on Devers is that he was headed out the day Bregman was announced as the Sox thirdbaseman, a position Raffy had held for 8 years, which he took great pride in, and which he had been promised he would keep.  Cora persuaded him to embrace DH, which Raffy did with great success.  Then Breslow asked him to play 1b, which to Raffy was the last straw.   

The great irony of that is that now the Sox have neither Bregman nor Raffy, and it hurts.  Since Bregman's quad was also bad in 2021 and also cost him 2 months on the IL, one has to wonder whether he is worth all that money and the loss of Devers.  

[Maxbialystock]

3 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Breslow went ahead and had that awkward conversation.  Apparently it didn't go so well.

If it was a simple matter to get Devers to play 1B, he'd still be with the team.

 

Exactly.  And better stated than my explanations.  

[jdc69]

32 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Our SP'ers have not been getting the job done just as much as the pen. In fact, our pen ranks higher than our rotation.

Crochet leads the league in IP, and the word was he needs to have his innings managed, due to no previous large IP seasons. Cora got flack for leaving Crochet in a game too long, a few starts back.

While I was curious why he yanked some SP'ers, when he did in several games, we don't have any idea to what all the facts involved were for each decision made. Hell, one could easily argue he left Houck, Buehler, Newcomb, the early Gio and other selected in hindsight pitchers in one, two or three batters too long. You want me to go back and find all the instances?

The fact is Cora has been working with the 6th, 9thand 12th slotted SP'ers more often than we expected. His preseason #2, #3, #4 and #5 SP'ers have sucked, been injured or both. Our fWAR rotation ranking is 17th. One could call that miraculous. Our pen fWAR ranking is 4th, when every single poster on this site was upset to irate over the lack of pen building over last winter.

Am I lying? Am I being overly selective with cherry-picked stats? I didn't even mention the effect our defense has had on a staff expected to get 4-5 outs in way too many innings.

Should Cora have put on the cleats and played 2B for the team?

I'm talking about taking them out while theyre doing well and having a 90 or under pitch count. Look at the message that sends. Here you are, a player trying to win a game and the manager inexplicably takes the pitcher, who is pitching effectively, out of the game. The replacement then completely ruins all that hard work in less than an inning. I'm sure the player is thinking, "why didn't he just leave the starter in there? Now I've got to do enough to cover these nonsensical moves too?" But he's done it continuously, and I think it affects the team.

It seemed as if he learned his lesson when we swept the Yankees. He even left Crochet in to pitch the 9th. Yes, he gave up a HR to Judge but guess what, the team rallied for him and they won the game. Wasn't that fun?

[notin]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

He didn't blame Bloom, when He said "he's not here, anymore."

Actually, that’s what he did.  He passed the buck on the promise to play third base off on the guy no longer around, rather than addressing the real issues, like the fact that Devers was a poor defensive 3b and moving him to a different position was definitely within the best interests of the team.  I get that’s not an easy thing to tell a player if said player has any pride in his game.  But it needed to be said then and there, and Cora needed to start with that.  By pushing everything off on the “last guy”, he took steps toward turning the situation into Management vs Players, with the management telling Devers “you play where we want and you will like it!”  
 

Sure he clearly knew it wouldn’t go over well with Devers, so he avoided it altogether .  He probably stayed Players Favorite in some eyes, but it’s not his job to be their favorite…

[Bellhorn04]

1 hour ago, notin said:

Actually, that’s what he did.  He passed the buck on the promise to play third base off on the guy no longer around, rather than addressing the real issues, like the fact that Devers was a poor defensive 3b and moving him to a different position was definitely within the best interests of the team.  I get that’s not an easy thing to tell a player if said player has any pride in his game.  But it needed to be said then and there, and Cora needed to start with that.  By pushing everything off on the “last guy”, he took steps toward turning the situation into Management vs Players, with the management telling Devers “you play where we want and you will like it!”

I don't get it.  Isn't that exactly what you thought management should do? 

You said Devers was being a "whiny bitch".  If the guy was being that kind of difficult, what approach exactly do you think Cora should have used that would have worked?   

 

[dgalehouse]

Devers is a wealthy young man. He is not a child. Let's stop with the " He was promised third base " crap. 

[Bellhorn04]

1 minute ago, dgalehouse said:

Devers is a wealthy young man. He is not a child. Let's stop with the " He was promised third base " crap. 

I agree in principle.  But in reality some of these guys are in fact man-children who have been glorified and heavily rewarded for their sports prowess since they were kids.  Sometimes whether you like it or not you have to be a child psychologist with them, because they are the talent that you win games with.  The old school approach of Billy Martin wanting to swing it out with Reggie in the dugout just isn't in favor any more.   

[moonslav59]

4 hours ago, jdc69 said:

I'm talking about taking them out while theyre doing well and having a 90 or under pitch count. Look at the message that sends. Here you are, a player trying to win a game and the manager inexplicably takes the pitcher, who is pitching effectively, out of the game. The replacement then completely ruins all that hard work in less than an inning. I'm sure the player is thinking, "why didn't he just leave the starter in there? Now I've got to do enough to cover these nonsensical moves too?" But he's done it continuously, and I think it affects the team.

It seemed as if he learned his lesson when we swept the Yankees. He even left Crochet in to pitch the 9th. Yes, he gave up a HR to Judge but guess what, the team rallied for him and they won the game. Wasn't that fun?

It worked, once. That is proof?

He yanked many a pitcher early, when they needed to be yanked, and they were way below 90 pitches.

I agreed on some times I wondered why he pulled a guy that seemed to be doing well, but stated we don't and didn't have all the facts. Maybe, they noticed something we didn't. Maybe even the pitcher said something we didn't hear, or the catcher commented that the guy was losing it. Maybe the guy was on a pitch count for a good reason, we didn't know about. Maybe Bello is still pitching well, precisely because we yanked him early a few times.

We just don't know all the facts and what ifs.

I do know that during the game threads, I see a lot of , "Cora should have yanked ____," said right after a homer of bases loaded walk. We also see many times a pitcher looks horrible, then pitches 3-4 nice innings after some were screaming he be yanked. We forget about those choices made more than we remember the choices that did not work out.

I have no issues with Cora's in game pitching choices. I question some moves, but not any more than other managers, and probably less.

He's had to start our 8th, 10th and 12th slotted SP'ers way too often. He was handed a highly questioned pen, and they have the 4th best fWAR in MLB. To me, how he's handled the staff is his strongest point in favor of not being terminated.

We just have to agree to disagree. Yes, he's made mistakes. He'd agree, too.

To me, he's done more good than bad, and the team just hasn't responded, key players were hurt or traded away. If I gotta blame someone, it's the players, JH and then maybe Brez. Cora is way down on my blame list.

[cp176]

14 hours ago, Maxbialystock said:

Agree completely that you do not in fact think.  You opine.  So do I.  

We all do I’d say.  Some don’t agree with our opinions.  I’m ok with that.  

 

[dannycater]

20 hours ago, drewski6 said:

Fire Cora or dont, I dont think its an important job.  But Notins suggestion that every team makes bad GM moves and those come out in the wash is not one of his better takes. It reminds me of some of his other wild takes , such as : free agents dont impact you on the field, they are just for PR.

Notin, you have some of the best takes on this forum. I appreciated how quickly you were the second person here to say "just get Bregman" and thats just one example.

But the most important thing in winning baseball is the talent level.  Who you have.  Not how they are coached, not how they are developed, not how they are used. The key to winning in baseball , more than anything else, is have better players.

I couldnt care less is if Cora was retained, fired, or kicked upstairs to GM.  But Bres needed to get sacked yesterday. And Bloom stunk too.  And these reasons are why weve stunk since DD left. We didnt go to crap when we changed managers, it was when we changed DD and stopped prioritizing having the best players we could.

Cant make chicken salad out of chicken dung.

spot on. Managing a lesser roster is a near impossible task. So maybe just fire Breslow (they won't)....and fire Cora too if only to bring in a new voice and one who may be great with the kids rather than just have a good rapport with the Latin players in dugout. Managers come and go, there is no upside with Cora since the original changeover to get rid of the '18 roster. Breslow has worsened the team and its direction and that has to change too. But it comes down to Henry and the reality is he is quite happy he has 280 more mil to spend on his soccer franchise since the Devers unload.

[notin]

15 minutes ago, dannycater said:

spot on. Managing a lesser roster is a near impossible task. So maybe just fire Breslow (they won't)....and fire Cora too if only to bring in a new voice and one who may be great with the kids rather than just have a good rapport with the Latin players in dugout. Managers come and go, there is no upside with Cora since the original changeover to get rid of the '18 roster. Breslow has worsened the team and its direction and that has to change too. But it comes down to Henry and the reality is he is quite happy he has 280 more mil to spend on his soccer franchise since the Devers unload.

And I was just talking about ownership conspiracy theories on another thread.  Thank you for this well-timed comment…

[notin]

17 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

I don't get it.  Isn't that exactly what you thought management should do? 

You said Devers was being a "whiny bitch".  If the guy was being that kind of difficult, what approach exactly do you think Cora should have used that would have worked?   

 

Huh?

I never said the CBO worked with the manager that way.  In fact, we know they do work together, although they don’t always agree.

Devers absolutely was a whiny bitch.  Who else, when asked to replace AN INJURED TEAMMATE says “do they expect me to play everywhere?” and “it’s [Breslow’s] job to go get a 1b.”  I cannot think of how those responses can be construed any other way.  Even you admit Devers was raised to be a power-thumping man-child.  He certainly has supported you there.

But that has NOTHING to do with whether or not Cora was working with Bloom and Breslow in some capacity to make the roster out…

[Bellhorn04]

6 minutes ago, notin said:

Huh?

I never said the CBO worked with the manager that way.  In fact, we know they do work together, although they don’t always agree.

Devers absolutely was a whiny bitch.  Who else, when asked to replace AN INJURED TEAMMATE says “do they expect me to play everywhere?” and “it’s [Breslow’s] job to go get a 1b.”  I cannot think of how those responses can be construed any other way.  Even you admit Devers was raised to be a power-thumping man-child.  He certainly has supported you there.

But that has NOTHING to do with whether or not Cora was working with Bloom and Breslow in some capacity to make the roster out…

Please clarify how you think Cora should have approached Devers about the position changes.  

[notin]

3 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

I'm asking you exactly how you think Cora should have approached Devers about the position changes.  Your position seems to be that Cora kind of washed his hands of it, passed the buck as you put it. 

Ignore my previous response.  I thought I was responding to another post.

I think he should have tried the straight up honest approach.  “That was two years ago, and in that time you simply didn’t improve your defense.  I think it’s best for the team if you try (first base? DH? Both?).”

 

Maybe not so soft.  But let him know third base is not working out…

[Bellhorn04]

6 minutes ago, notin said:

Ignore my previous response.  I thought I was responding to another post.

I think he should have tried the straight up honest approach.  “That was two years ago, and in that time you simply didn’t improve your defense.  I think it’s best for the team if you try (first base? DH? Both?).”

 

Maybe not so soft.  But let him know third base is not working out…

But we have no idea exactly what Cora said to Devers.  And we know that Devers accepted the move to DH and was in fact hitting very well.  So what did Cora do wrong there?  

[dannycater]

10 minutes ago, notin said:

Ignore my previous response.  I thought I was responding to another post.

I think he should have tried the straight up honest approach.  “That was two years ago, and in that time you simply didn’t improve your defense.  I think it’s best for the team if you try (first base? DH? Both?).”

 

Maybe not so soft.  But let him know third base is not working out…

It should have been a very aggressive approach by somebody in organization whether it be Cora or another employee that Devers be told he can no longer play 3b. But this also is one flaw of Devers in the first place too--the English translation issue--he never wanted to learn English--or get more proficient--the way so many Boston latin athletes did a great job of getting better and better over the years in the communication game. Today's society has allowed for this need for translation--my own junior high school had spanish translation for the graduation...it was a total joke--absolute waste of time...and done inconsistently by a wok California principal--(sorry about the politics)--but this applies to Devers too. He was making 300 mil and sorry he needed to learn English--he needed to become a better communicator in USA media. Instead he went Ohtani--who also needs to learn the language for the same reasons--he has to learn English period...all foreign players need to acclimate. But no one wanted to approach Devers and maybe that was one reason. He was insulated in his own little world. But he became a DH and I was fine with that--isn't that what everyone wanted??? He transitioned after a really terrible first few weeks--then he just went off. Who doesn't want the next JD in lineup 162 games

[moonslav59]

22 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

But we have no idea exactly what Cora said to Devers.  And we know that Devers accepted the move to DH and was in fact hitting very well.  So what did Cora do wrong there?  

We know he did not get Devers to even try ona 1Bman's mitt in practice.

I do not know, but I don't think he even politely asked Devers about maybe playing 1B. He should have told him, nicely, "We need you to play 1B and not 'everywhere.'" He could couch it anyway he felt necessary, but Devers needed to play 1B and he did not.

Then, he says "I'll play anywhere," the first day in SF.

How can anyone think we managed the move to 1B, correctly?

If Cora didn't even ask him, that's a huge problem, IMO.

If he did ask him, and Devers refused, then trading Devers was the correct thing to do.

[moonslav59]

23 minutes ago, dannycater said:

It should have been a very aggressive approach by somebody in organization whether it be Cora or another employee that Devers be told he can no longer play 3b. But this also is one flaw of Devers in the first place too--the English translation issue--he never wanted to learn English--or get more proficient--the way so many Boston latin athletes did a great job of getting better and better over the years in the communication game. Today's society has allowed for this need for translation--my own junior high school had spanish translation for the graduation...it was a total joke--absolute waste of time...and done inconsistently by a wok California principal--(sorry about the politics)--but this applies to Devers too. He was making 300 mil and sorry he needed to learn English--he needed to become a better communicator in USA media. Instead he went Ohtani--who also needs to learn the language for the same reasons--he has to learn English period...all foreign players need to acclimate. But no one wanted to approach Devers and maybe that was one reason. He was insulated in his own little world. But he became a DH and I was fine with that--isn't that what everyone wanted??? He transitioned after a really terrible first few weeks--then he just went off. Who doesn't want the next JD in lineup 162 games

It's very difficult for many adults to learn a new language. I lived in Mexico for 3.5 years, took 5 levels of Spanish at the big university, and then hired a one-on-one tutor for another year. I got to the point where I could understand maybe 75% of what I read, 50% of what I could hear and my speaking level got to maybe 25% efficiency. (I teach ESL, so I know a little bit about proficiency levels in all 4 domains of language.)

I'm not defending anybody for not learning the prominent language of the country they spend so much time in, but this is not even his home. I couldn't learn Spanish when Mexico was my home, and I planned on living there indefinitely. 

[Bellhorn04]

6 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

We know he did not get Devers to even try ona 1Bman's mitt in practice.

I do not know, but I don't think he even politely asked Devers about maybe playing 1B. He should have told him, nicely, "We need you to play 1B and not 'everywhere.'" He could couch it anyway he felt necessary, but Devers needed to play 1B and he did not.

Then, he says "I'll play anywhere," the first day in SF.

How can anyone think we managed the move to 1B, correctly?

If Cora didn't even ask him, that's a huge problem, IMO.

If he did ask him, and Devers refused, then trading Devers was the correct thing to do.

Well, Breslow asked and Devers refused and they traded him, so it seems like the right things were done, I guess.

[Old Red]

13 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

We know he did not get Devers to even try ona 1Bman's mitt in practice.

I do not know, but I don't think he even politely asked Devers about maybe playing 1B. He should have told him, nicely, "We need you to play 1B and not 'everywhere.'" He could couch it anyway he felt necessary, but Devers needed to play 1B and he did not.

Then, he says "I'll play anywhere," the first day in SF.

How can anyone think we managed the move to 1B, correctly?

If Cora didn't even ask him, that's a huge problem, IMO.

If he did ask him, and Devers refused, then trading Devers was the correct thing to do.

Wha, wha, wha😂😂😂. This is all old news, and has already been explained. Yes he did not get Devers to try on a 1B mitt, because he didn’t think it was a good idea. He didn’t ask Devers politely, or any other kind of way about playing 1B, because Cora didn’t think it was a good idea. Devers playing 1B was always a bad, and stupid idea IMO, and guess what? Cora felt the same way, so as I said before to me it was NO problem at all except to you, and others who had a brain fart, and thought it was a good idea. Cora knew Raffy better than you, or anyone else, and it was a only a baseball decision that you, and others are still trying to make it otherwise.

[moonslav59]

4 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Well, Breslow asked and Devers refused and they traded him, so it seems like the right things were done, I guess.

If this is true, and I can find no direct quote that says Brez asked or told Devers to play 1B, it makes Cora look even worse. It's a managers job to play the players at positions he wants them to play and inform them on where they will be playing. The fact that Brez had to do it, assuming he did, only highlights Cora's dropping the ball on his managerial duties.

[moonslav59]

2 minutes ago, Old Red said:

What, wha, wha😂😂😂. This is all old news, and has already been explained. Yes he did not get Devers to try on a 1B mitt, because he didn’t think it was a good idea. He didn’t ask Devers politely, or any other kind of way about playing 1B, because Cora didn’t think it was a good idea. Devers playing 1B was always a bad, and stupid idea IMO, and guess what? Cora felt the same way, so as I said before to me it was NO problem at all except to you, and others who had a brain fart, and thought it was a good idea. Cora knew Raffy better than you, or anyone else, and it was a only a baseball decision that you, and others are still trying to make it otheraise.

I see you are predictably back, when things are going badly. Welcome back.

I see you still keep getting my position wrong, as always. That is not so welcoming.

The GM wants Devers to play 1B. That has nothing to do with what I've wanted for years. The manager doesn't do what his GM wants, so the GM has to try it himself. I guess that is no problem for you. It is to me. 

I'm fine if you disagree, but at least understand my true position, correctly.

Again, welcome back during another down time in Sox history.