This is not a John Farrell thing, this is a "98% of managers in baseball" thing.
Farrell Fails Again
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This is what happens when you are managing a 162-game season where every game isn't part of a 7-game series or as one individual entity like how a game thread is managed. Francona was killed here for years in not better utilizing his bullpen based on different type of leverage situations. We also saw Francona manage much differently in the post-season when each game carried much greater weight as a sprint as opposed to a season-long marathon.
"Farrell's rigidity and lack of imagination has led to poor situational matchups at crucial times"
This is my problem with Farrell in a nutshell. On a nightly basis he seems to have no feel for the game. This is precisely why I am a fan of Joe Maddon. I think it wins you 4-5 extra games a year.
Is there anything like WAR for managers?
This is my problem with Farrell in a nutshell. On a nightly basis he seems to have no feel for the game. This is precisely why I am a fan of Joe Maddon. I think it wins you 4-5 extra games a year.
Is there anything like WAR for managers?
I find that his arguments pass the "eye test," i.e., he's saying what I think I have been seeing regarding the relievers; for example, that RRJr. is greatly underrated.
(Rovin Romine, thanks for the link.)
Just to move off of pitching for a breather:
1st Inning: Bradley strikes out with Hanley on 2nd (end of rally)
2nd Inning: Benintendi strikes out with Leon on 2nd (end of rally)
3rd Inning: Bogaerts and Hanley ground out after Pedroia leads off with a double (end of rally)
4th Inning: Benintendi grounds out with Holt on 3rd (end of rally)
5th Inning: Shaw flies out with Hanley on 2nd (end of rally)
7th Inning: Future All Star Cessa comes in to relieve - 3 up / 3 down
8th Inning: 3 up / 3 down
9th Inning: Betances pitching - Pedroia and Bogaerts strike out with Leon on 3rd and the tying run on 1st (end of rally)
It ain't always about Red Sox bullpen usage.
1st Inning: Bradley strikes out with Hanley on 2nd (end of rally)
2nd Inning: Benintendi strikes out with Leon on 2nd (end of rally)
3rd Inning: Bogaerts and Hanley ground out after Pedroia leads off with a double (end of rally)
4th Inning: Benintendi grounds out with Holt on 3rd (end of rally)
5th Inning: Shaw flies out with Hanley on 2nd (end of rally)
7th Inning: Future All Star Cessa comes in to relieve - 3 up / 3 down
8th Inning: 3 up / 3 down
9th Inning: Betances pitching - Pedroia and Bogaerts strike out with Leon on 3rd and the tying run on 1st (end of rally)
It ain't always about Red Sox bullpen usage.
You don't really believe that the "proven closer(TM)!" thing is real? That managers (on average) tend to have highly inflexible bullpen hierarchies? That they always "save their closer for the ninth when it's <= 3 run game" and "pitch their second best reliever in the 8th" and so on?
This has been one of the most common complaints from the saber community for the last two decades.
Slow your roll man. I wrote, "However, I do think there's a good point to be made out of Farrell doggedly using his "second best man" in the 8th inning of a save situation."
And no, I don't believe that 98% of all baseball managers do that.
Also, "So what?"
If the vast majority of managers behave the same way, then its hard to say that Farrell sucks more than they do, even if people find it easy to say he sucks.
As for 98%, once the Cubs got Chapman, Rondon pitched in the 8th in 5 of 6 games. Only exception was a 12-inning game.
I spent a bit of time looking at game logs, and what I found is that teams who have a dominant primary setup guy do tend to use him pretty strictly in the 8th or later. O'Day entered in the 8th or later in 26 of 30 appearances this year. Miller, 43 of 44 with the Yankees. Shaw, 48 of 53.
Teams who mix and match tend to be teams who don't have a relief ace... and if you don't follow them closely it can be hard to tell from game logs what represents flexible usage vs. shuffling guys between roles where the roles remain rigid. But it definitely happens more. And you can certainly make the case that the Sox do not have a relief ace, and that regardless of YTD decisions, a more matchup-driven, flexible approach would probably help from here on out.
98% is likely an exaggeration, but other than Francona and maybe Maddon, there hasn't been a ton of "using relievers in LI spots instead of by inning" with teams not owning a dumpster fire of a bullpen (ex: the Reds and post-Ziegler DBacks don't count). I write about bullpens for Fangraphs occasionally so I am (sometimes against my will) forced to keep track of this pretty regularly.
If the Red Sox have clearly identified that the team needs to bring in a guy who uses Red Sox relievers in a more "unorthodox" fashion (compared to rigid "this is my closer, these are my setup guys, they are my long relievers..."), then they better have a particular individual lined up who is willing to do this. Just hot-swapping Farrell for some other manager means you are likely to get someone with a similar idea of "bullpen roles" since this is still the way the vast majority of baseball operates.
Like I've said before -- if people want to can Farrell for the sake of "shaking things up," that's fine, but no one has produced any real objective evidence that A) pitchers wildly underperform their peripherals under him and/or B) his bullpen management is any worse than (insert replacement X), especially when he's actually been quite predictable in what he's going to do (I guess, minus the whole "Buchholz sucks, LOLJK he's a high-lev RP now" thing).
I have trouble keeping track of the pro-Farrell arguments. Is it that the bullpen is really awesome, despite the peripheral/actual divide? Or is it that Farrell is just the victim of bad luck - that he really has no positive or negative influence on pitcher performance? Or is it that Farrell is managing one of the premier baseball organizations like all the other old school guys and that's OK? Or is it that we're not allowed to criticize Farrell unless we present an advanced statistical metric, find a replacement, vet their philosophy, and do modeling based on that philosophy?
I was glad to learn that all managers but two don't employ LOOGYs or ROOGYs in anything other than a strict inning by inning role. Guess I don't watch enough baseball.
I was glad to learn that all managers but two don't employ LOOGYs or ROOGYs in anything other than a strict inning by inning role. Guess I don't watch enough baseball.
Where have I made any pro-Farrell arguments? In fact, I've repeatedly said I don't particularly care what the team does with the manager (partly because I don't think managers' on-field decisions matter as much as people want to believe and partly because I assume Lovullo would just take over in the event of a canning).
I am merely pointing out that people seem to be doing an incredible amount of mental gymnastics to "prove" how terrible JF has been as a manager. This conveniently coincides with a rather lackluster couple of weeks from the Red Sox, particularly from "reliable" members of their bullpen. The vast majority of this "proof" seems to be "that game 3 days ago that the Red Sox lost? JF should have done things the opposite and not lost, ergo we should fire him" or "look how terrible he's been in 2016 because of (insert stat here) -- ignore 2013-2015 since (insert stat here) doesn't support that conclusion."
This board practically ran off EV for cherry-picking stats to fit his narrative (well, and other reasons) yet that's what has filled the front page here the last few weeks.
We talked upthread about the ERA / FIP gap this season, but that seems mostly confined to the starters; reliever ERA and FIP track pretty closely. I also looked at team bullpen WAR, IP, WPA and CLUTCH totals and rankings for the last four years. The short version of the story is that the Sox bullpen's situational performance has been terrible this year, leading to a big gap between their ranks for total WAR and their WPA. They are 11th in bullpen WAR in 2016 despite being 26th in IP. But they are 21st in WPA.
But that takes us back to the same old issue - is it the manager's fault that the pen has sucked in key spots? Or the players? By the same metrics, Farrell actually spun gold out of hay in 2015, wringing middle-of-the-pack WPA out of a pen that was dead last in WAR (but 7th in terms of clutch performance). And the prior two years, there was no gap at all and the rankings clustered pretty closely.
One could certainly make the case that Farrell's situational decisions have contributed to the WPA gap this year, but you would have to concede that it's a new development in his tenure. I haven't spent much time looking at the relationship between bullpen IP and WAR accumulation / WPA, but it certainly seems reasonable to think that a team whose starters go deeper would do better in these areas, since it allows you to give a greater share of hi lev innings to your best relievers.
Did you miss the part where he stated he's the one that's actually studied this in detail? You produce this neverending stream of explanation in huge walls of text all over the board here and get thanked for it, and this is how you respond to someone returning the favor. Interesting.
Also, I really doubt an airtight case can be made using stats that JF sucks. Manager decisions are intermingled with too many other variables, and we have such incomplete information. Doesn't mean those of us who hate Farrell shouldn't look at the data, but I personally don't expect to come out with a perfect case for his dismissal based on stats alone.
And, conversely, I think it's reductive when his defenders describe all the situational / qualitative analysis as either second-guessing, hindsight, or "the players fault." There's almost an assumption at times that no critique of an individual decision can be correct and rational. The board would be a better place if half of us would acknowledge the ambiguity of the statistical case, and the other half would acknowledge the validity of some situational reflection.
And, conversely, I think it's reductive when his defenders describe all the situational / qualitative analysis as either second-guessing, hindsight, or "the players fault." There's almost an assumption at times that no critique of an individual decision can be correct and rational. The board would be a better place if half of us would acknowledge the ambiguity of the statistical case, and the other half would acknowledge the validity of some situational reflection.
By Pythag:
Farrel:
Year: Actual/Pythag/DIF
2016: 61/64/-3
2015: 78/81/-3
2014: 71/72/-1
2013: 97/100/-3
2012(T): 74/73/-1
2011(T): 79/81/+2
Orioles/Showalter
2016: 61/64/+3
2015: 83/81/-2
2014: 96/94/+2
2013: 85/85/0
Maddon:
2016(C): 72/77/-5
2015(C): 97/90/+5
2014(T): 77/79/-2
2013(T): 92/87/+5
Not definitive at all, but by that metric it looks to me like Farrel's teams are usually below their pythag, Showalter's teams bounce around Zero, and Maddon is up for debate - I have a hard time penalizing him for the -5 this year when his team is 13 games up in the division.
Player WAR correlates pretty highly to wins - so you could use deviance from that as a proxy for manager quality:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/does-projected-team-war-actually-mean-anything/
A 0-WAR team is supposed to play .294 baseball (or 33 wins so far) according to fangraphs- I can't seem to find any good way to total fWAR, so we'll use bWAR here (which probably throws off the correlations some). Red Sox position players have produced 25.2 bWAR this year, and pitchers 8.3, for 33.5, or 66.5 wins, so they're 4.5 games below 'performance' there.
'Performance'/Actual
2016: 66.5/61/-5.5
2015: 84.9/78/-6.9
2014: 74/71/-3
2013: 102.8/97/-5.8
Its possible I messed something up, or misapplied the stats (please, someone correct if I did), but every time I run any sort of comparison (actual vs preseason projections, WAR vs actual, Actual vs Pythag, etc) - I get these same sort of results - Farrell's teams underperforming by a couple wins a year.
Rodriguez was sent down to AAA to work on the pitch-tipping issues he had. Willis, and I'm guessing Farrell, were very aware of those issues, according to articles from last year and this year. They tried to work on them in-season, but during games, he would revert to form and began tipping again. The only way to resolve tipping is to make sure the habit is broken during games. Yes, they could have left him in Boston and continued to work on it, but since that would be during games that counted, in my mind it's much better to work on tipping, and other problems, during games that don't count in AAA. Once the issue was resolved he was brought back up. so far, it seems like it's not an issue anymore.
Buchholz identified his lower arm slot by looking at video from 2013. Bannister confirmed what CB found:
Yes, that is something that Willis should have identified, but he didn't. I have no reason why, but you also need to remember that with the number of problems the pitchers are having that he can't possibly have the time to give everyone the individual attention they need. I'm guessing that is a big reason Bannister is now travelling with the team. He can be in the clubhouse during games using video, and other resources, to identify potential problem areas during the game. And before gmes he can be in the pen working with the pitchers with Willis. And he can go over those issues he sees with Willis during and after the game so they can all work on them as soon as possible.
There are all sorts of mechanical issues pitchers can have, same with hitters, that cause them to fuck up in games. Just like with ER, it's one thing to work on them in side sessions and another to translate those side sessions to the mound during a game. And it's usually not just one thing causing the player to be ineffective. Most of the time it is many things because the player will try to compensate for the original problem and change his mechanics to try to "fix" the original problem.
When a pitcher doesn't bring the work they did in the pen into a game, it's the pitcher's fault, not the coach. A lower arm slot, especially when it happens gradually - which appears to be the case with CB - is not as easy to identify as something like throwing more across the body or not driving towards the plate with your shoulder when you deliver the pitch. I'm not saying this to excuse Willis by any means, but some problems are much easier to identify than others.
Farrell was a very good pitching coach, but that's not his job anymore. Willis, and now Bannister, have that job. I'm surprised that move wasn't made earlier and also that more teams aren't doing this. As for Farrell, I doubt that there are enough hours in the day for Farrell, in addition to managing the team, to have much time to also coach the pitchers. I do agree with many that his bullpen management isn't always optimal, but as many have noted, many managers have similar problems. I do wonder if people would have the same reaction to many of his moves if they had the same knowledge about the relief pitchers as the team does.
The bottom line is still, you have to allow people to do the job they were hired for. If they can't do the job, fire them. I'm not ready to fire Farrell yet, especially since I have no idea who would do things differently enough to matter.
So you don't penalize Maddon's -5 "because the team is 13 games up," but Farrell's (two 'Ls" ) -3 is an issue in a year they won the World Series. Do I have that about right?
NM...I forgot, they won that series in spite of their manager.
Also, per Baseball-reference.com, "the average difference between the actual and the Expected W-L is a bit more than 3 games at the end of a season (although a recent exception is the 2005 and 2007Arizona Diamondbacks, who both beat their expected W-L by 11 games), as did the 2012 Baltimore Orioles. Deviations from expected W-L are often attributed to the quality of a team's bullpen, or more dubiously, "clutch play"; many sabermetricsadvocates believe the deviations are the result of luck and random chance."
http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Pythagorean_Theorem_of_Baseball
So you really can't read to much into difference between Farrell's actual record and the Pythagorean record since the difference is within the margin of error.
Well that's comforting... Farrell's teams have underperformed for 5 consecutive years because he's unlucky.
If it's luck and random chance, there's a 1.5% chance that one manager would under-perform their Pythag 5 years in a row. The Sox should keep Farrell, he's due for some regression.
If it's luck and random chance, there's a 1.5% chance that one manager would under-perform their Pythag 5 years in a row. The Sox should keep Farrell, he's due for some regression.
The Red Sox won the Division in 2013 by 5.5 games, and were as close as 3 games in the last week of the season.
The 2016 Cubs are 13 games up in the division. They would have to play at an almost historically bad level to drop the division in the next 49 games to a team that is barely playing .500 ball. Their games almost don't matter - so I have no problem with Maddon being tactically inefficient . He can afford to lose some games to make sure nobody is playing hurt, etc.
The Red Sox can't.
They're not comparable at all.
The interesting thing is that the Sox played 3 games under their Pythag in August and September of 2013, a stretch where they played .603 ball but their run differential would suggest a .669 winning percentage. Those two months account for the entire gap between actual win % and Pythag, so are we really saying that Farrell's management down the stretch, which got the Sox into the playoffs healthy and with HFA, playing .600 ball, was a problem? In a year where they went on to win the World Series?
Even if we suspect that Farrell's management style produces under-performance relative to expected wins over the long run, we don't have to boorishly assume that it has the same negative effect at all times, or that there are no meta-game considerations as a counterbalance, particularly over the short run. It could easily be true that the same tendencies which are contributing to the current problems with the 2016 Red Sox had a positive, or at least neutral impact on the postseason chances of the 2013 Red Sox. We certainly can't rule it out. Similar strategies work differently with different teams and players attempting to execute them.
I'm fully open to the possibility that Farrell was the right man for the job in 2013, even though I think he's the wrong man for the job today. Circumstances change.
Oh I wasn't trying to help you. And yeah, it's pretty clear czar doesn't need anyone's help on this one.
You are correct that they are not comparable at all.......because in 2013 our "underperforming manager"' won a FUCKIN WORLD SERIES with a bunch of scrap heap washed up utility guys!!!!!
Give Farrell full credit for 2013. He made some very gutsy decisions in the postseason -- starting Bogaerts over Middlebrooks, starting Ross over Saltalamacchia, starting Gomes over the objections of SoSH. His pitching decisions also worked out well. He was bold and probably lucky, and they won a championship nobody expected at the start of the year.
That's the only year, though, when you can say he did a great job. His Blue Jays teams never performed quite as well as it seemed like they should have, and we know the story these past three years in Boston. Underperforming the Pythag is one sign, but you also have to wonder if the run differential is as good as it should be in the first place. If Farrell's disposition makes his teams play tight (as has been alleged in the past), then maybe they're even worse relative to their talent than the stats show.
Ultimately, there are things about a manager's performance that can never show up in the numbers. The team perked up last year when Lovullo took over. Maybe he just has a way about him that helps them relax and play better. I'd be curious to see what happens if he gets another shot.
That's the only year, though, when you can say he did a great job. His Blue Jays teams never performed quite as well as it seemed like they should have, and we know the story these past three years in Boston. Underperforming the Pythag is one sign, but you also have to wonder if the run differential is as good as it should be in the first place. If Farrell's disposition makes his teams play tight (as has been alleged in the past), then maybe they're even worse relative to their talent than the stats show.
Ultimately, there are things about a manager's performance that can never show up in the numbers. The team perked up last year when Lovullo took over. Maybe he just has a way about him that helps them relax and play better. I'd be curious to see what happens if he gets another shot.
Saltalamacchia
Ross
Drew
Victorino
Napoli
Gomes
Nava
Peavy
I have these same discussions in the NBA with coaches. Tyronn Lue looked real good when LeBron and Kyrie are doing their thing with Love knocking down shots. Boy, those Knicks coaches suck and are holding back the franchise!!
I'm thinking if Ortiz wasn't morphing into Mike Carp before our eyes over the past several weeks we'd have more wins and less discussing of marginal coaching decisions. If relievers did their jobs and recorded outs we'd have more wins and also fewer discussions.
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Has this been alleged by anyone who has actually been in the clubhouse, or only by people on SoSH?
I heard Steve Lyons mention it on the pre-game last night. He would know.
Lyons actually said something like the players play tight under Farrell? He does seem lacking in sense of humor.
Maybe we'd have better relievers if Farrell did a better job identifying, developing, and managing
relievers. There's an element of back and forth with
the front office in some of these moves, but the manager should have an important say and a good manager would be able to influence the ultimate choice. I mean, sure, every manager would love to have Herrera, Davis, Holland, but in point of fact,
Davis and Holland were converted starters. If the Royals had stubbornly continue trying to run them
out there to start games instead of close them, then they'd probably look a lot like Joe Kelly.
Likewise, when you look at Pythag and conclude that Farrell was -2 based on run differential, how are you accounting for who makes decsions that
lead to the run differential? How many starts did
Masterson get last year while Steven Wright pitched in AAA? How much did Farrell argue for the Masterson signing because he'd worked with him before and thought he could "fix" him?
Who said anything about acting in a vacuum? I would think that if you have a situation of one player having options and the other not, that the manager's preference would take a back seat to organizational depth. I would think if a player shows potential at two positions, there's a discussion that weights the organizations' long-term goals about equally with the manager's needs for the current season. I would think if two players have minor league options and play the same position or if it's a choice of keeping one and cutting the other either way, then the manager gets the final say.
If those weren't the minimum standards of managerial input, then we don't have a manager, we have Art Howe's caricature in the Moneyball movie.
Bochy is widely regarded as one of the game's best. Last night he helped turn a 6-0 lead with 2 out and no one on into a save situation for his closer when he replaced Romo, who walked Chris Davis with two outs and no one on after he struck out the first two hitters in the 9th. He brought in Javy Lopez when he *had* to know that the Orioles would put up a righty to PH for Alvarez, then a righty after that. Both guys got on. (*then* he gave up a weak hit to a LHH, which I think speaks more to Lopez being near the end of the line than anything else.) Casilla got the final out on a one-pitch grounder.
If Barnes walked a guy with 2 outs and no one on after striking out the first two batters in the 9th of a 6-0 game, then Abad came in and let 2 RHH's get on, then Kimbrel had to come in to finish it, Farrell would be roasted on a spit, even in victory.
This isn't to diminish Bochy's standing, it's to point out that it's relative performance that counts. Its fine to think that Farrell sucks, but how much does he suck compared to other managers? That's why I push back. Not because I think Farrell is great, because I don't know how he is relative to his peers in the areas that gets praised or criticized for, and the criticisms here seem to be applicable to most other managers most of the time, but Farrell's nostril hairs are the only ones we examine.
Yaz won a bating title one year hitting 301. That's lower than 9 teams hit in 1930.
If Barnes walked a guy with 2 outs and no one on after striking out the first two batters in the 9th of a 6-0 game, then Abad came in and let 2 RHH's get on, then Kimbrel had to come in to finish it, Farrell would be roasted on a spit, even in victory.
This isn't to diminish Bochy's standing, it's to point out that it's relative performance that counts. Its fine to think that Farrell sucks, but how much does he suck compared to other managers? That's why I push back. Not because I think Farrell is great, because I don't know how he is relative to his peers in the areas that gets praised or criticized for, and the criticisms here seem to be applicable to most other managers most of the time, but Farrell's nostril hairs are the only ones we examine.
Yaz won a bating title one year hitting 301. That's lower than 9 teams hit in 1930.
Guy, SF won, 6-2. I mean, it's fine to make the counterargument, and I'm basically agnostic on this issue, but you're grasping. Those calling for his head are not roasting Farrell for a 6-2 win.
Sure, but most of the criticisms of Farrell here are of the "he should have made a move/shouldn't have made a move" and "he should have gotten more out of them long term."
Pointing to a blown save doesn't really do much to advance
the discussion, I think. Nobody is criticizing calling for the closer in the 9th, no matter the results.
But isn't that my point?
Bochy's bullpen (not just the closer) gave up 7 runs over the last 3 innings to turn a 7-1 lead into an 8-7 loss. Of course I could say "man, they should have brought in Romo instead of Strickland and Law" but sometimes your bullpen just sucks. No manager can really stop that.
The chatter in this thread seems to have quieted greatly with the sweep of AZ. Let's see how long the calm lasts.
Wright to the DL
We are going into our most important road trip of the season without our second best starter because he was asked to take on a role for which he had little experience...and that is on Farrell.
We are going into our most important road trip of the season without our second best starter because he was asked to take on a role for which he had little experience...and that is on Farrell.
Sorry no. That's just plain clear truth. If Wright didn't injure himself, it still would have been a bad risk to take there... the fact that he did isn't surprising.
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