sk7326

my fandom and my fantasy team thank you Seriously Pedroia went undrafted in my league. I know he's been hurt, but he's a top 10 second baseman until then.

The prospects are there, but not much help before 2017 at the ealiest.

Yeah, I think they moved way up for 2016 - #3 behind the Dodgers and Astros. Red Sox are #4. They're #1 in Keith Law's team ranks (Red Sox #10).

A rebuild. And one of the worst local TV deals in the country. One of the top farm systems - hope if the kids will start to be ready to arrive when the team is successfully moved to the burbs.

to be fair, Freeman is the only guy on the team that can actually hit

I think there is certainly some impact, but how much I don't know - I have my doubts that Francona and the pitching coach were constantly surprised with the calls. Varitek brought a lot to the table - but I also know Beckett had significant stretches of real awfulness, and the game plans for Matsuzaka were deeply flawed. Isolating Varitek's contributions is obviously the last part of the catching defense black box to be cracked. I know there are attempts out there - but the reliability is dicey.

When you can throw the knuckler for strikes it can do good things. Ride it while you can. You have to bet he will turn into a pumpkin at some point, but there is no reason he can't crank out consistent decent starts.

Their schedule started tough - and then got easier. So we're going to end up with a fairly representative sample for the first month. Seriously, I don't think Farrell elevates the team's parts tacitically. But he largely does not actively harm them. And I think it's obvious the guys are playing hard for him. He is on a short leash because DD did not hire him - but it's hard to get too fired up about his performance one way or the other. I whine about certain decisions - but that's managing for you.

Some contrasting histories there as well. To me, the Red Sox "curse" was sort of a backhanded compliment. I mean, basically since 1967 - the team has almost always been good, or at least good for a while. The World Series losses were all 7-gamers. The Cubs have their own curse - but ruined far fewer summers than the Red Sox, simply because they have largely been too bad a team to get to the point of raising hope. Old timers now like Shaughnessy have a very long history of the Red Sox largely being pretty good and it not working out. The Patriots as the pinkhat aged fans know them, are really just 20 years old. Aside from that their history aside from a couple of patches was big league incompetence. I tell people that if you had cryogenically frozen a Patriots fan in 1990 (like Dr Evil) and then revived them in 2016 and told them the Patriots are the New York Yankees of the NFL .. I think you would have had an easier time telling selling them on Bangladesh joining the G7. The Patriots org, basically since Parcells - has been so good, and in such a stunning contrast to how laughable they were - I think old fans are just grateful for them not being Victor Kiam.

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I was talking about the game calling voodoo - on the actual defense he was excellent. The base stealing - well that was an organizational choice.

That would be a workable pen for sure. Way pitching staffs are conducted these days, add Barnes (for a 12 man staff which is the norm these days)

Hopefully he is not hurt too bad. Hopefully he never starts.

I don't think he has always matched the right hitter with the situation. Young has hit a bit too much against righties given his dossier. But I do agree with you that he has not - for the most part - actively and significantly hurt the team with the chess moves. He hasn't optimized them either.

Also, he did a lot of tinkering which made him look smarter. Lots of stuff with tiny samples.

One of the fun things about baseball is that fans are so familiar with all of the tactics and levers to pull. Things basically happen one at a time - it's not like the other sports where all the players are moving at once. It's easy to want to pull a bunch of moves - and think along with the manager. Bobby Cox, Francona, Earl Weaver (all great managers in their time) - all got harangued I think for not bunting, not hit and running ... for more or less (usually) let the players play. Of course, that is (in general, if the players are good) the right thing to do. Also managers are like any other job - they can get better. Francona and Bochy have. I'll use Francona as my soapbox - although Bochy and Maddon certainly could be advocated if you wanted. 1. Created a comfortable work environment. He resembled (to me) a good manager at a real job. Made great pains not to humiliate his players. Not every player thrived, but that happens with everybody. Managed one of the more ego-filled clubhouses you will every see, and got people to pull in the same direction - a lot of times just by being a remarkably decent man. 2. Managed coaches - The Red Sox staff turned over a lot over that time. Lot of coaches came through, but the overall quality on that end did not suffer. 3. Managed the media - He was effectively the Red Sox Press Secretary. He represented the Red Sox as a corporation wonderfully. 4. Integrated young players - Supervised one successful transition of players. When the GM wanted to usher out vets and play younger players, Francona could do that too. He gave the kids playing time, defended them in public, while developing and holding them accountable. Pedroia (example I always go to) was handed the 2B job without much big league evidence in his corner, but was given the time to breathe and grow into job while not compromising the big league mission. I think his background in both managing, and player personnel helped.

He had it going - a mere 3 games before that he had not. C'est baseball. Fun aside: Ortiz' 2013 ALCS is probably the most fondly remembered crappy performance in baseball history.

The World Series where Bonds was .471/.700/1.294 and hit 4 homeruns? The Angels won the World Series because the Giants could not hold a 5 run lead with 9 outs to go.

There are no absolutes. I think managing in 2012 had passed Bobby by. His experience was not recent.

1. There is literally nobody who is going over printouts when a dude is on deck. The manager already knows the guys to call up in situations and such. Heck, I think the Pirates have an analytics guy on staff traveling with Hurdle to advise him on defensive positioning. 2. Repeatedly walking a guy is generally crappy baseball. Ortiz was ungodly hot for 6 games coming off of a series where he went 2 for 22. Sometimes you tip your hat to the other guy. Pitching around a guy is like bunting - it sounds like a good idea, but in fact very rarely is. 3. Agreed on Matheny and Ausmus, who in game miss things which seem obvious. At the same time they have won a lot (which tells you a lot about the actual magnitude of the impact of in game tactics). In particular Matheny has handled young players well as the Cardinals put new guys out all the time.

I hope - but he has to hit. The hypothesis was that his awful defense bled into his hitting last year. (along with the shoulder issue) This year that has not changed yet. There is time of course.

Oh, quite the opposite. Yes, they don't say anything interesting ... but the job of getting between the media pressure/fans need to know and the players (whose job is tough enough already) is extremely underrated. Francona's work there was crucial to allowing the team to trot out Dustin Pedroia day after day at 2B the first couple months of his career, look completely unqualified to be a major leaguer and figure this thing out himself.

Now there are some problems - Rosenthal wrote a great piece on it - fancy degreed GMs hiring people they know and skipping over guys who have cut their teeth managing in the minors. It also makes the field unnecessarily whitebread. It's what makes Farrell a particular disappointment. His resume was perfect for the job but it has not worked out as well as it should have on paper.

Are you sure most of them are bad managers of people? That seems unlikely - players play hard for the most part. There are lot who deploy them incorrectly. Hell, Showalter is very accomplished, and managed to take a preseason favorite and lead them to a 69 win season.

I think the pen is a bit out of his control with the lack of innings the starters were giving him. The one thing I give him crap for is when he warms up Uehara without using him (which happened in the TB series). You know his miles are limited - make them count.