Sox75

Could have been a hit & run sign, so I'm not gonna kill JD there.

TOO bad! Could have been a foot on the throat inning.

You can be WAY UP in the count, and this guy can make you look silly in a heart beat . . .

Mookie sets everything in play!

Mother f***ers CAME TO PLAY!

This is ONE great guy to f***ing HATE!

:0 LOL ..... While you were Sleeping... a great movie! While you were texting . . . . PERFECT! +100

Ok... So, the original joke thread morphed into a real debate about what it takes to he labelled 'THE BEST Red Sox Manager of all time.' A pretty decent basis for a good debate.... Pretty good arguments on all sides. I think we all agree that it certainly takes a TEAM stacked with talent to win in the mlb. It also takes some pretty damned good pitching, & more often than not, a couple of All Star Pitchers. It takes a TEAM stacked with very good hitters, & a couple of big bats. Solid to great D is also a must. The MLB & NFL take having REALLY GOOD - GREAT TEAMS to win. In the NFL it also takes a really good - GREAT quarterback & a really good - GREAT COACH. The MLB really good - GREAT pitching & a manager who can unite so many individuals. I would think we can all agree that the silly non-parallel argument about how you define individual MLB player greatness is a red-herring argument. There is no parallel in determining "the GREATEST MLB manager." As we've seen here, that argument gets truly ridiculous REAL FAST. unlike other sports where the coach & the game plan can dramatically impact any game, the MLB manager is truly unique. TOO MANY INTANGIBLES, and a manager's worth can only be assessed over the course of a VERY LONG season. Managing such a varied group of individuals. LEADING them, not so much "coaching them" toward greatness. So far, the only thing we know for sure, is that Cora HAS UNDOUBTEDLY proved to be THE COACH OF THE YEAR! NO doubt about it. He has taken a very talented young team, and led them to A TRULY HISTORIC season. CAN he motivate and lead them all the way to ultimate historic GREATNESS in the Post Season? Now that would pretty much seal the deal. IF HE DOES, there will be absolutely NO DOUBT that he is THE BEST OF ANY MANAGER out there!!!! . . . . . THIS YEAR! After that . . . . Does he become a transcendent manager, a la Bill Belichic? Nobody knows. He will not be given the Nobel Peace Prize now! Not before earning it. SURE! He will remain a great coach of the year, for THIS YEAR, but without winning it all, THAT TAG will go to Dave Roberts. Without winning it ALL, Cora CAN NOT be in the conversation for "Greatest Red Sox Manager Ever!" SORRY ! It is what it is. It is axiomatic for a reason! Not everyone gets a trophy in The World Series. You don't win it ALL, you never make it into the conversation. Please stop with the false "what about the rings" for individual MLB players. It's false equivalency & a ridiculous red herring argument! It's a TRULY dumb argument not worthy of discussion. ! ! ! NEWS FLASH ! ! ! MLB managers and players are assessed on completely different metrics! SURE! It's fun to talk about the relative greatness of NBA players, or even MLB & NFL players..... fun! Someplace else. p.s. NOT pulling a Pike & prescribing the parameters of the conversation!!!! Just pointing out the ridiculousness of the false parallels being drawn by some. :0 LOL just my 2 cents.

Judging individual MLB "greatness" when it comes to players, requires a far different metric than judging managers, who must bring talent together to perform as a unit striving to achieve the same goal. Saying one player is "less great" than another based on rings is of course ridiculous, as alluded to above. Managers? OF COURSE require a completely different metric for good reason. Lots of managers have incredible talent. Few take teams of relatively equivalent talent all the way. NO doubt there are great managers who never get a team with great talent. There is really no good way to measure this, unless you use the "sucked less than they should have" metric. Using the same, "what about the rings" metric to judge individual PLAYERS IS of course ridiculous! Using it to discredit that argument with managers is likewise ridiculous. At this point, we have a great little microcosm to study. THE 4 BEST TEAMS by all accounts. Cora & Red Sox Players have defeated THE 2 BEST. If Cora and crew are victorious over the Dodgers, a TRULY formidable team, it's fair to say Cora got the best out of this Red Sox team! That is a great manager! Like it or not, managers ARE JUDGED by their ability to get their team to win. Many managers get their teams all the way there with roughly equivalent talent. More often than not, "the better team wins." What is behind the players stepping up & performing is too complicated & enmeshed to boil it down to being all about the manager. Still, it's the best we can come up with. If you've got a great team that wins with a great manager, the manager of course gets a good deal of the credit.

I thought I pretty much said that? I said "HE beat 2 GREAT TEAMS." I said he HAS BEEN EXCEPTIONAL! WE agree on everything, except on what has yet to happen. We haven't won it all yet. That's it. Like it or not, without winning it all, Tito still ranks above Cora. FOR NOW.... As I also said, Cora has ALL THE TOOLS! Whether it happens for him is yet to be seen. Either way, he remains a GREAT MANAGER. "The best?" I just don't know yet.

No doubt, SO FAR..... it's easy to make the case that Cora IS a TRULY EXCEPTIONAL manager. You certainly don't win 108 regular season games by accident. You don't roll over the Yankees and Astros, BOTH GREAT TEAMS, by accident! Cora is calm, cool, collected, & talks softly, succinctly, & quietly, while carrying a very big stick. SO FAR, he IS EXCEPTIONAL! SO FAR, he has managed THIS TEAM brilliantly! So far . . . . BUT..... sorry! NOBODY should be giving him The Nobel Peace Prize this early. Results matter. SO FAR, he has 3 BIG RESULTS.... Far more than Obama had when being given the NPP, but we haven't even made it TO THE BIG PRIZE. It's ridiculous to assume he wins it, before a pitch has been thrown. On paper, WE SHOULD WIN IT, so what will be said if he doesn't? Unlike with the NPP, Cora will be deemed a failure. Unfair, but true. He will have to take the blame. Unfair perhaps, but true. I think I'll wait for your bigger sample before crowning him King. Any other decision is just silly. I freaking LOVE THIS GUY, & think he has ALL THE RIGHT TOOLS to become one of the best managers ever! He simply put, clearly relates to, motivates, inspires, pushesball the right buttons, and unites a very diverse group of players. NO SMALL FEAT! He is uniquely positioned for the current demographics of players today! Plus, he clearly seems to be a genuinely decent and exceptional person. He has all the right tools to BE THE BEST ever, but it still remains to be seen.

psst... We got the joke. BUT, making this into a serious discussion was not a bad idea. The fact that so many put Cora ahead of Tito is pretty funny. I absolutely LOVE Cora right now, but thus far, all he's shown is that he is a great manager. NO SMALL FEAT!!!! But, it's nowhere near what Tito did, & keeps on doing. I still feel badly about the 'difficulties Tito got into, with the "inmates running the asylum," due perhaps to a bit of a "pain management problem." Yeh. At the time he had to go, but his downturn in MO WAY diminishes his HISTORIC success in Boston. That 2004 ALCS actually belongs right up there with 67 & 75. In fact, so much so that many of us were far less excited about the final WS win. That series was THE GREATEST COMEBACK in all of sports history, let alone just MLB HISTORY. For 7 out of 9 years, Tito pulled all the right levers. Anyway.... Let's pray that Cora becomes everything & more than Tito, or at least comes close! It's gonna be tough, what with so many guys heading for EPIC MONEY in free agency. It's gonna be VERY TOUGH to keep this talent together over the coming years.

Pretty easy pick with Tito. Cora clearly had the GREATEST SEASON, but 67 & 75 definitely felt better. I guess that's the sign of the times? Cable dilutes EVERYTHING, & it's tough to get a consensus on anything anymore.... yeh. More choices, but less cohesiveness. :'( 8t still has to go to Tito right now, but there is no telling what Cora could do IF HE WINS IT ALL in 2018??? YET to be seen? p.s. it's stunning to see the general lack of EXCITEMENT for this Red Sox Team. Sure... the hysteria will heat up with the band-wagon crowd jumping on the wagon, but it's still somehow muted? I've never seen anything like this in Boston? Sad! :'( is baseball really dying?

So far? Cora & Tito

Today, 08:54 PM #948 SPLENDIDSPLINTER SPLENDIDSPLINTER is online now MVP Join Date May 2018 Posts 4,349 Quote Originally Posted by jacksonianmarch View Post The Sox were better than the Yanks. The Sox were more poised than the Astros. I haven’t seen a defending champ so lifeless once punched in the mouth. They took game 1. Game two didn’t go their way. They battled a bit in 3 and 4, but once the lead was given back, they turtled. Game 5, they just gave up. Have never seen that before. It’s almost like the Astros just became contented around that one ring. Just an embarrassing performance for Houston ********! The Sox flat out came out & took it from them! The bats rallied in Game 2 to cover Price. Eovaldi GREAT! in game 3!!! Porcello, OUR BP & the big bat of JBJ once again. Price, Eovaldi, Barnes, & Kimbrel DOMINATED in Game 5. WE simply kept PUNCHING them down every time they tried to rally. 2 GREAT TEAMS! One was simply BETTER! Our SP & BP have been GREAT! TO SAY that the ASTROS simply rolled over is a ******** insult. Sox TOOK IT! PERIOD!

GREAT! My ginger-head boy just went to bed crying reading this thread. He's ok. We told him to suck it up & take one for the team. Funny. He got to meet Kumbrel in Seattle last trip, & Kimbrel was THE NICEST GUY ever! All of them were, but I think Kimbrel got a kick out of our ginger,

Can you believe???? Like Lackey's come back in 2013! f***ing GOOD ON JBJ! What a humble kid! Not one ounce of "take this MVP and shove it up your arsses!" As so many guys would be want to do! GREAT KID! What a come back year! It took all year, but GOD DAMNED if he wasn't ready?!

David .... GREAT! Kimbrell.... GREAT!

This has to be a fake out? "Psyche!" Right?

I can't un-read that, can i? EWWWWWW! LOL :0

Is that like a close talker?

oh s***! I thought that was gone . . . Heart stop.

s***!

Shut this s*** down!

No doubt, Price absolutely finally stepped up BIG in the Post Season! BUT . . . This is no time to fall asleep. That 1 - 2 - 3 five minute 7th will come back to bite us in the are if we don't wake up! THIS is where the game will be won or lost! NO DAYDREAMING! NO calling the win before the fat lady sings! f***ing GREAT job though DP!