What's gone right?

Sampo Gida

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The schedule the past 10 games has been a big boost to the teams record and confidence. Couldn't pick 3 teams you would rather be playing at this time than the Astros Braves and Yankees. Lets see if it carries over against the White Sox
 

Adrian's Dome

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The team is playing hard.
The team is playing smart.
He isn't making insane lineup decisions.
He has the Boston Red Sox being the most appropriately aggressive baserunning team this town has ever seen.
He manages the media well.
He doesn't let players rot on the bench.
The team just got done playing ten games against some of the coldest teams in baseball. They looked mediocre earlier against tougher competition.
This lineup basically writes itself on most given days, still, he's made some questionable decisions to this point. If a pro is "he doesn't screw up the lineup most days," that's not exactly a shining endorsement.
Yes, they're running the bases well. How much of that attributes to him, we don't know. A known characteristic of many of his former teams is overly aggressive and crappy baserunning...perhaps he finally has a team that's smart and fast enough to catch up to this philosophy of his.
Yes, he manages the media well. I don't believe that's particularly difficult.
Yes, he doesn't let players rot on the bench, but he often doesn't utilize them to their strengths, either.

We could go back and forth for days on this. I'm as happy as anyone the team has done their job against weak competition the past couple weeks, but singing praise for Farrell over it is jumping the gun big time.
 

imlapa

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Apr 26, 2016
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to answer the title of the post "what's gone right"

At this Point, the Red Sox have a better record than anyone else in the AL East, the Yankees have the worst.
 

Rasputin

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The team just got done playing ten games against some of the coldest teams in baseball. They looked mediocre earlier against tougher competition.
This lineup basically writes itself on most given days, still, he's made some questionable decisions to this point. If a pro is "he doesn't screw up the lineup most days," that's not exactly a shining endorsement.
Yes, they're running the bases well. How much of that attributes to him, we don't know. A known characteristic of many of his former teams is overly aggressive and crappy baserunning...perhaps he finally has a team that's smart and fast enough to catch up to this philosophy of his.
Yes, he manages the media well. I don't believe that's particularly difficult.
Yes, he doesn't let players rot on the bench, but he often doesn't utilize them to their strengths, either.

We could go back and forth for days on this. I'm as happy as anyone the team has done their job against weak competition the past couple weeks, but singing praise for Farrell over it is jumping the gun big time.
There isn't a manager alive that doesn't make questionable decisions from time to time, You know, because you have been watching this game for more than four and a half minutes that as fans, we don't have perfect information and that as far as tactical decisions go, quite a lot of them are completely irrelevant. This fixation you have with the horribleness of John Farrell is absurd. List the managers this team has had in the last thirty years. John MacNamara, Joe Morgan, Butch Hobson, Kevin Kennedy, Jimy Williams, Grady Little, Terry Francona, Bobby Valentine, John Farrell. I exclude Joe Kerrigan for the obvious reason that his tenure was way too short to draw anything resembling a conclusion. Rank them from the best to the worst. If you come to any conclusion other than that John Farrell is the second best manager we've had in a generation, you're lying to yourself.

We could replace John Farrell with a manager who is better, but the last time we replaced a manager who didn't completely suck, we replaced him with Bobby Fucking Valentine. Replacing John Farrell is no guarantee of getting a better manager. That's just reality.

I would appreciate it if someone could move this to the appropriate thread so I can continue to ignore it.
 

lexrageorge

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There isn't a manager alive that doesn't make questionable decisions from time to time, You know, because you have been watching this game for more than four and a half minutes that as fans, we don't have perfect information and that as far as tactical decisions go, quite a lot of them are completely irrelevant. This fixation you have with the horribleness of John Farrell is absurd. List the managers this team has had in the last thirty years. John MacNamara, Joe Morgan, Butch Hobson, Kevin Kennedy, Jimy Williams, Grady Little, Terry Francona, Bobby Valentine, John Farrell. I exclude Joe Kerrigan for the obvious reason that his tenure was way too short to draw anything resembling a conclusion. Rank them from the best to the worst. If you come to any conclusion other than that John Farrell is the second best manager we've had in a generation, you're lying to yourself.

We could replace John Farrell with a manager who is better, but the last time we replaced a manager who didn't completely suck, we replaced him with Bobby Fucking Valentine. Replacing John Farrell is no guarantee of getting a better manager. That's just reality.

I would appreciate it if someone could move this to the appropriate thread so I can continue to ignore it.
The bolded deserves some comment. I've always been convinced that if the infallible Joe Maddon were the manager of the Red Sox, the board would light up from time to time as a result of some of his moves. Probably just as often as they do now.

It is fun to discuss and question in game and lineup decisions from time to time. I realize that is part of the reason many of us are here. And it's certainly thread worthy to discuss John Farrell's job security, especially after the team did finish in last 2 years in a row. But some of the complaints against Farrell have been extreme reaches or borderline ridiculous (starting Chris Young to give Holt a day off, or echoing complaints about overly aggressive baserunning back in his Toronto days without bothering to look up the fact that the Sox have been better than league average in that department since Farrell's arrival).

As for what's gone right: Price has an ERA over 6; Buchholz has been terrible; Joe Kelly's presence was a net negative in his 3 starts. The pen was missing one of their key acquisitions, and had 2 games where their ace relievers blew up (Kimbrel and Uehara). And they are still 15-10.

It's a long season, and the competition lately has indeed been bad. And Farrell could still indeed be on the hot seat if they are in last place at the All Star break. But the same could be said for a lot of teams. If this team is destined to finish last again, a different manager is not going to magically make the team a playoff contender (there's actually been studies on this).
 

JimD

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John Farrell's biggest problem is that he made 2013 look too easy.

Re: what's gone right - the hiring of Chili Davis last season certainly comes to mind.
 

grimshaw

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I've heard a few posters talk about the soft schedule so far.
Does anyone think the Jays, Astros (and to a lesser extent Yankees) are going to be this bad all year? Sure, we're kicking them when they are down, but those rosters haven't changed all that much from last year.

We're beating good teams going through rough patches by outplaying them. The sole exception being the O's who beat Craig Kimbrel. The White Sox are really the only AL team that has stood out as potentially dominant.
 

Darnell's Son

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The offense has gone right and abs wrote about their April performance on the .com today.

Boston has won seven of the last ten and has a +21 run differential through the first 24 games. They lead the AL in runs scored with 126 for an average of 5.25 per game. They also lead the AL in stolen bases (21), RBI (119), BABIP (.340), BA (.281), OBP (.343), wOBA (.342), doubles (66), and triples (9), and are tied for first in bases on balls (79). On the other hand, they are last in home runs with 19; the Orioles lead the league with 34.
Also, iayork animated the pitches from the Price/ARod at-bat.
 

nvalvo

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We're getting to the threshold where this is predictive, and JBJ still has a K% under 23%.

2013: 29.0%
2014: 28.6%
2015: 27.1%
2016 (through April): 22.6%

BABIP remains high, but some of that is earned with a good line drive rate and hard contact. So there's probably a bit of air in his numbers, but not a ton.
 

Adrian's Dome

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There isn't a manager alive that doesn't make questionable decisions from time to time, You know, because you have been watching this game for more than four and a half minutes that as fans, we don't have perfect information and that as far as tactical decisions go, quite a lot of them are completely irrelevant. This fixation you have with the horribleness of John Farrell is absurd. List the managers this team has had in the last thirty years. John MacNamara, Joe Morgan, Butch Hobson, Kevin Kennedy, Jimy Williams, Grady Little, Terry Francona, Bobby Valentine, John Farrell. I exclude Joe Kerrigan for the obvious reason that his tenure was way too short to draw anything resembling a conclusion. Rank them from the best to the worst. If you come to any conclusion other than that John Farrell is the second best manager we've had in a generation, you're lying to yourself.

We could replace John Farrell with a manager who is better, but the last time we replaced a manager who didn't completely suck, we replaced him with Bobby Fucking Valentine. Replacing John Farrell is no guarantee of getting a better manager. That's just reality.

I would appreciate it if someone could move this to the appropriate thread so I can continue to ignore it.
Yeah, except Farrell makes questionable decisions all the time, and has been doing so for years. He looks decent when everything rolls right (which, to this point this year, it basically has,) and looks terrible with the team is mediocre or worse. This board has been shrugging over his management for years because the teams have either won outright (which I personally believe was a fluke in 2013) or been outright bad (which I believe he contributed to.)

Secondly, your point is that just because the team has had a boatload of shitty managers, that makes Farrell not shitty? Excellent analysis. I never thought about it that way. Personally too, I don't think he's any better than Gump, sans one braindead decision in the playoffs (his incessance of starting Jonny Gomes could've been that, but he got lucky.)

Oh, and as an aside, firing Francona in favor of Valentine was almost a universally-hated move at the time. You can't say that'd be the case if Farrell were shipped on.
 

whatittakes

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Yeah, except Farrell makes questionable decisions all the time, and has been doing so for years. He looks decent when everything rolls right (which, to this point this year, it basically has,) and looks terrible with the team is mediocre or worse. This board has been shrugging over his management for years because the teams have either won outright (which I personally believe was a fluke in 2013) or been outright bad (which I believe he contributed to.)

Secondly, your point is that just because the team has had a boatload of shitty managers, that makes Farrell not shitty? Excellent analysis. I never thought about it that way. Personally too, I don't think he's any better than Gump, sans one braindead decision in the playoffs (his incessance of starting Jonny Gomes could've been that, but he got lucky.)
I hope you realize that this could apply to practically every manager in the league.

Every move that didn't work is "questionable," whether there was really a better idea (as opposed to simply a *different* idea) or not. And every manager in this sport will make a large number of moves that didn't work, simply as a function of making a large number of moves period over 162 games. There's usually more than one decision a manager can make in a given situation, so every time a manager makes one choice and it fails, all of the other options that weren't tried and therefore didn't fail get cited to render a given decision "questionable." Whether or not there was any kind of reasonable chance that those untried alternatives would have turned out any better at all.

I have some sympathy for even moves that turned out to be both stupid in foresight and hindsight. A good example is the Grady Little boondoggle, leaving Pedro in too long against the Yankees in Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS. That's a decision that got him fired after a 95 win season, and yet I can see why he did it. That 2003 bullpen was awful, No holds barred, no questions asked, almost unmitigated 100% bad. I may have made exactly the same mistake in exactly the same circumstance because the last thing I want to do in a game like that is take out my best pitcher, turn the game over to the bullpen, and get Thompsoned.

It was still the wrong decision. Pedro was done and he knew it, he'd given his two fingers to the sky the previous inning and Grady ignored that or failed to notice, it should have been Timlin (despite appearing in 3 of the previous 4 games) and then the closer. I still can't quite make myself hate the guy for deciding that if he had to get beat it would be with his best pitcher on the mound.
 

tims4wins

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I hope you realize that this could apply to practically every manager in the league.

That 2003 bullpen was awful, No holds barred, no questions asked, almost unmitigated 100% bad. I may have made exactly the same mistake in exactly the same circumstance because the last thing I want to do in a game like that is take out my best pitcher, turn the game over to the bullpen, and get Thompsoned.

It was still the wrong decision. Pedro was done and he knew it, he'd given his two fingers to the sky the previous inning and Grady ignored that or failed to notice, it should have been Timlin (despite appearing in 3 of the previous 4 games) and then the closer. I still can't quite make myself hate the guy for deciding that if he had to get beat it would be with his best pitcher on the mound.
Bad?

Williamson had a 1.13 ERA, .750 WHIP
Timlin had a 0 ERA and had given up 3 runners in 9 2/3 IP
Embree had a 0 ERA and had given up 4 runners in 6 2/3 IP

The pen was lights fucking out in the playoffs.
 

chrisfont9

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The reason they didn't fire Farrell was his cancer diagnosis, nobody in the camp of wanting a change was overreacting to the slow start, and nobody in his pro camp should be bringing up a small sample of games against otherwise horrible teams. People who want a change want it because of his bad track record and questionable in-game decision-making over a 5-year sample, people who don't tend to shrug off the belief that the manager has an effect on what happens on the field.

There's a line in the sand, but this team to this point has hardly had a "volatile" rotation, more like a struggling Buchholz. The bullpen is one of the most talented and deep in the majors and is hardly "injury-weakened" just because they lost one player for a few weeks, and the young players are a big reason why the team is what it is. Let's not overreach.
To be clear, I was referring to the state of the Sox' rotation at the time people like Cafardo and the alleged people who write to him were starting to ask for Farrell's scalp. And to be fair, Buchholz, Price and Kelly are all over 6.00 ERA, which would lead the Cafardo-ites to consider the Sox' rotation volatile. Also spring training numbers (I know, I know) were even worse. That was the panic I was speaking of. It certainly doesn't reflect how I see the team. Smith's injury definitely has hurt, along with the stress on the bullpen that had them back on their heels, though again I personally see it as an emerging strength.
 

chrisfont9

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Bad?

Williamson had a 1.13 ERA, .750 WHIP
Timlin had a 0 ERA and had given up 3 runners in 9 2/3 IP
Embree had a 0 ERA and had given up 4 runners in 6 2/3 IP

The pen was lights fucking out in the playoffs.
This. For me, that was the fire-able offense for Grady. Not merely overworking Pedro but forgetting about how great their three-man bullpen had been for the playoffs and down the stretch.
 

Auger34

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This. For me, that was the fire-able offense for Grady. Not merely overworking Pedro but forgetting about how great their three-man bullpen had been for the playoffs and down the stretch.
Absolutely. I can not believe that on SoSH, where some of the smartest fans in baseball reside, I am actually reading a defense of Grady Little's ass awful decision making in Game 7 2003. That was one of the worst decisions I have ever seen in any form of organized sports. The man deserved to be fired and he deserves to have his name be preceded by a "fucking" every time it is spoken by any Red Sox fan
 

Clears Cleaver

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Dustin Pedroia. He's hitting the ball hard, not striking out as much. And, going to RF with conviction. I was worried his injuries would render him league average at the plate but he's been great
 

In my lifetime

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What's gone right?
Beyond expectations
1. Porcello
2. Wright
3. Tazawa
4. Hembree
5. Ross
6. Vazquez' recovery time
7. HRam's fielding
8. Shaw - all aspects
9. Bradley's Hitting
10. Papi's age defying hitting

To reasonable expectations +/-
1. Koji (considering his age, this could easily be added to the above group)
2. Vazquez
3. Pedey
4. X
5. Betts
6. Bradley's fielding
7. Holt

What's gone meh or poorly, but can reasonably expect to improve
1. Price
2. Kimbrel
3. ERod - hasn't gone
4. HRam's hitting especially the power numbers

What's gone meh or poorly, and could improve or implode
1. Buchholz
2. Kelly
3. Hanigan's hitting

What's gone poorly and will probably continue on that path
1. Panda
2. Young


The above makes sense for a team in 1st place. The things that have gone well > the things that have gone poorly.

Some Questions for the next 2 months include
1. Does Wright turn into a pumpkin?
2. Is ERod a #2 starter, or #4/5 and can he get back on the mound?
3. The mystery of Kelly, healthy or not, does he harness his ace-like stuff or not?
4. The annual Buchholz question regarding health and effectiveness?
5. Is Shaw the real deal?
6. Can the RS add a capable left fielder to the mix, so Holt can return to super utility man?

If half of those 6 questions end up well, the RS should be in a position to win the division.
 

whatittakes

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Well to take the thread in a slightly different direction, Baseball Reference has a helpful little display in its season summary for each team, and it has a top 12 by WAR at this point in the season, here's the top 5

1: Travis Shaw 1.5
2: XB 1.3
T3: Papi 1.2
T3: Pedroia 1.2
5: Porcello 1.1

Link http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BOS/2016.shtml

Just outside the top 5 is Wright at 1.0

So if the question isn't simply "what's going well' as "what's going the most well," that's one answer.
 

plucy

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a rock and a hard place
That this team set fire to about $100m in salary from last year and may be on the verge of doing so again (I'm concerned about Hanley's K rate, sw-str % and drop in o- contact) and the team is playing above expectations after a month means something has gone very right.
 

Yelling At Clouds

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To me the answer to "what has gone right" is that they're in first despite the fact that the two guys who both projection systems and common sense thought would be their two best players - Price and Betts- aren't yet playing their best ball.
 

grimshaw

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It's hard to say anything conclusive about Chris Young after 29 plate appearances.
Sure we can. In his 10 at bats vs. lefties he's hitting .417/.600/1.017 with an wRC+ of 182.
Clearly he fits in the "exceeding expectations" area.
 

pk1627

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What's gone right is the team kept their young players, and they can play. I'm enjoying the resilience of this team already.

And has Papi ever started this well? He got himself ready. Stay healthy, large father.
 

Adrian's Dome

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Source? Any source *at all* from a RS official, "anonymous source" -- literally anything -- that backs that up? I'm not convinced they were ever even considering this.
Come on. We all knew it. You really need to see it in writing?

Absolutely. I can not believe that on SoSH, where some of the smartest fans in baseball reside, I am actually reading a defense of Grady Little's ass awful decision making in Game 7 2003. That was one of the worst decisions I have ever seen in any form of organized sports. The man deserved to be fired and he deserves to have his name be preceded by a "fucking" every time it is spoken by any Red Sox fan
Uh, nobody defended that decision. Instead of seeing red at the sheer mention of Gump's name, did you see what I actually wrote? I said that I don't think Farrell is particularly a better manager than Gump was in the aggregate, Gump just made one tremendously awful decision at the worst possible time. Farrell also made one (well, several, if you count every start Gomes made against RHP in the playoffs) of those calls, but it worked out in his favor in the end. It's a game of inches, and inches can affect legacies. I'm trying to look at the bigger scale of things.
 

Sandy Leon Trotsky

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Come on. We all knew it. You really need to see it in writing?



Uh, nobody defended that decision. Instead of seeing red at the sheer mention of Gump's name, did you see what I actually wrote? I said that I don't think Farrell is particularly a better manager than Gump was in the aggregate, Gump just made one tremendously awful decision at the worst possible time. Farrell also made one (well, several, if you count every start Gomes made against RHP in the playoffs) of those calls, but it worked out in his favor in the end. It's a game of inches, and inches can affect legacies. I'm trying to look at the bigger scale of things.
I think the response was to this " That 2003 bullpen was awful, No holds barred, no questions asked, almost unmitigated 100% bad." from Whattitakes. P
 

lexrageorge

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This is a probably a topic for another thread, but AD's assumption that Farrell was not fired solely due to his cancer diagnosis is a somewhere between an assumption and a guess, not a fact. It's a reasonable assumption (or educated guess), as the Sox did finish last 2 years in a row and brought in a new head of baseball operations to replace Lucchino and a named a new GM to replace Cherington.

It's also possible that the Dombrowski and Hazen met with Farrell and decided that Farrell is their guy for now. See Sweeney/Julien for a similar example across town.
 

geoduck no quahog

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Shouldn't the anti-Farrell obsession be in the anti-Farrell thread? What's it doing here?

I think Holt's play in LF and his base running skills are pleasant surprise. His hitting, like everyone else's, will be up and down. In the meantime he's not an automatic out in a surprisingly long lineup.

Speaking of which, lineup construction has also gone better than expected. I was one of those guys lobbying for a change early on, but I was wrong. L-R-L is not as important as I thought. Meanwhile, two base stealers are lined up in front of Pedroia and Bogaert's base running skills have been utilized by Farrell perfectly in front of Ortiz (not too much, not too little...always available to take the extra base). I don't think it's pure coincidence that Ortiz is hitting so well in front of the soon-to-be ball-crushing Ramirez...and his speed, combined with Shaw (surprisingly good) and Holt demonstrate why this team has been able to generate all of those runs with so few homers, and that's not something that's going to go away.

The virtual disappearance of bunting, a 92% success rate for stolen bases and the good execution of hit-and-run has the team league-average in GIDP despite being 3rd in ground balls (and first in overall hits)....more things that won't decay as the season wears on.

A lot to be optimistic about (until their next 3 game losing streak, when all hell will break loose)
 

PapaSox

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Yeah, except Farrell makes questionable decisions all the time, and has been doing so for years. He looks decent when everything rolls right (which, to this point this year, it basically has,) and looks terrible with the team is mediocre or worse. This board has been shrugging over his management for years because the teams have either won outright (which I personally believe was a fluke in 2013) or been outright bad (which I believe he contributed to.
I'm not sure you stated this in a fashion that supports your argument. In fact it sounds a tad more supportive to Rasputin than I think you'd have liked. Every manager looks good when his team is rolling and looks bad when they're not. He looked great in 2013 because so many individuals far exceeded peoples expectation and they all pulled together as a team. You can see that so far this season. However, in 2014 & 2015 one thing after another just went sour. Last year it was Panda & Hanley going into tail spins, Peddy being hurt. The OF taking awhile before it got situated. The rotation being DOA until the last couple months. Finally, Napoli just going over the cliff. Was that Farrell, the team or the organization?
 

Savin Hillbilly

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The wrong side of the bridge....
Speaking of which, lineup construction has also gone better than expected. I was one of those guys lobbying for a change early on, but I was wrong. L-R-L is not as important as I thought.
It helps when the first two guys in the R-R-R string have such trivial platoon splits. Bogaerts is the only one of the three who has been notably vulnerable to RHP so far in his career, which makes hitting him ahead of Papi a smart move (and one that has paid off so far).
 

Rasputin

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Yeah, except Farrell makes questionable decisions all the time, and has been doing so for years.
False.

He looks decent when everything rolls right (which, to this point this year, it basically has,) and looks terrible with the team is mediocre or worse.
True of every manager ever.

This board has been shrugging over his management for years because the teams have either won outright (which I personally believe was a fluke in 2013) or been outright bad (which I believe he contributed to.)
Your personal belief is false.

Secondly, your point is that just because the team has had a boatload of shitty managers, that makes Farrell not shitty? Excellent analysis. I never thought about it that way.
No, my point was that Farrell is not shitty and that someone who follows this team should recognize the difference.

Personally too, I don't think he's any better than Gump, sans one braindead decision in the playoffs (his incessance of starting Jonny Gomes could've been that, but he got lucky.)
Both of these are indications that you have absolutely no idea what the hell you're talking about. I neither know nor care whether Farrell has done something personally to you or your family to deserve your ire, but you have conclusively demonstrated that you are not capable of making anything resembling a rational or even reasonable argument about him. You simply declare all the good things he does to be either flukes or bad things because you said so.

Oh, and as an aside, firing Francona in favor of Valentine was almost a universally-hated move at the time. You can't say that'd be the case if Farrell were shipped on.
You don't get to scream that you want Farrell replaced then turn around and suggest that one of the reasons he should be replaced is that some people--i.e. you--think he should be replaced.
 

Adrian's Dome

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False.



True of every manager ever.



Your personal belief is false.



No, my point was that Farrell is not shitty and that someone who follows this team should recognize the difference.



Both of these are indications that you have absolutely no idea what the hell you're talking about. I neither know nor care whether Farrell has done something personally to you or your family to deserve your ire, but you have conclusively demonstrated that you are not capable of making anything resembling a rational or even reasonable argument about him. You simply declare all the good things he does to be either flukes or bad things because you said so.



You don't get to scream that you want Farrell replaced then turn around and suggest that one of the reasons he should be replaced is that some people--i.e. you--think he should be replaced.
So I can't believe he's a shitty manager, but you can believe he's a good one?

Glad to know your opinion is the only one that matters. When your only reply to anything is "false, no, or you're wrong" and you don't have anything whatsoever behind any of it except multiple bullshit paragraphs of "I disagree", perhaps it's time to let it go. It's elitist, toxic, and disengaging.
 
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pantsparty

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the third base issue has worked out much better than any of us thought it might 6-8 weeks ago.
I've really been surprised how competent Travis Shaw has been defensively. His body doesn't scream athleticism, but he's looked a lot more nimble and coordinated than I expected. DRS says he's been positive, UZR says he's been negative (both are obviously too small a sample size to be predictive), and to my eye while not a gold-glover he's looked fine. He's flubbed a few things hit right at him but also made some plays I didn't think he'd get to, and combined with his bat he's a solid player at the position.
 

Heating up in the bullpen

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Has anybody else noticed that a lot of close calls are going the Red Sox way? I'm thinking of several tag plays at 3rd - Sox runners being called safe, opposing runners being called out. Most of those plays are bang-bang judgment calls by the umps. Because the initial rulings are in favor of the Sox, the reviews end up in favor of the Sox, not because the evidence is clearly in favor of the Sox, but because there's not enough evidence to overturn.
The Ortiz score just before Hanley was tagged out at third play on Sunday was just the latest example. If the initial ruling had been no run, it probably wouldn't have been overturned.
To my eye the Sox have been getting a lot of those kinds of calls. It feels like everything that could go right is going right.
 

Ted Cox 4 president

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I agree about calls seeming to go the RS' way right now. One that comes to mind was in the Saturday game at Fenway against the Blue Jays last month, when Bautista tried to stretch a double into a triple in the top of the 1st, following a triple by Donaldson. Had he been called safe (Gibbons challenged the call, but it was upheld upon review), the 1st inning, and the game, might have turned out very differently. As it was, the bases were empty and there were two outs. Price settled down.
 

Plympton91

bubble burster
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Oct 19, 2008
12,408
Bad?

Williamson had a 1.13 ERA, .750 WHIP
Timlin had a 0 ERA and had given up 3 runners in 9 2/3 IP
Embree had a 0 ERA and had given up 4 runners in 6 2/3 IP

The pen was lights fucking out in the playoffs.
The other thing is that part of the reason the pen was bad was because Little had completely mismanaged Kim all season, first overusing him to the point of ineffectiveness, then tanking the rug out from under him in round 1.
 

kieckeredinthehead

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Jun 26, 2006
8,635
The other thing is that part of the reason the pen was bad was because Little had completely mismanaged Kim all season, first overusing him to the point of ineffectiveness, then tanking the rug out from under him in round 1.
Especially considering Kim's track record of pitching under pressure.
 

DanoooME

above replacement level
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Mar 16, 2008
19,831
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I've heard a few posters talk about the soft schedule so far.
Does anyone think the Jays, Astros (and to a lesser extent Yankees) are going to be this bad all year? Sure, we're kicking them when they are down, but those rosters haven't changed all that much from last year.

We're beating good teams going through rough patches by outplaying them. The sole exception being the O's who beat Craig Kimbrel. The White Sox are really the only AL team that has stood out as potentially dominant.
And I wouldn't count on that right now. Based on their RS/RA numbers, they should be a 15-11 team, which puts them in a huge clump with a bunch of other teams, including the Red Sox. They certainly aren't the Cubs.
 

reggiecleveland

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Mar 5, 2004
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The other thing is that part of the reason the pen was bad was because Little had completely mismanaged Kim all season, first overusing him to the point of ineffectiveness, then tanking the rug out from under him in round 1.
To me it is the opposite. Kim was not the right guy and Grady made the gutsy move to not use him. Grady had shown some guts in going with what he thought was right rather than "dancing with the guys that brought him". He recognized Kim wasn't getting it done and found a vet group that was dealing. Was Timlin ever throwing harder than October 03? He went to these guys and they took him to the edge of the WS. Then he went against what he (seemingly) knew was right. I am not too sure many people see Grady;s screwed up because he quit pitching Kim. I actually had confidence the fool was going to do the right thing in game 7, no small part because he had quit pitching Kim.
 

Sandy Leon Trotsky

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Mar 11, 2007
6,344
To me it is the opposite. Kim was not the right guy and Grady made the gutsy move to not use him. Grady had shown some guts in going with what he thought was right rather than "dancing with the guys that brought him". He recognized Kim wasn't getting it done and found a vet group that was dealing. Was Timlin ever throwing harder than October 03? He went to these guys and they took him to the edge of the WS. Then he went against what he (seemingly) knew was right. I am not too sure many people see Grady;s screwed up because he quit pitching Kim. I actually had confidence the fool was going to do the right thing in game 7, no small part because he had quit pitching Kim.
Wasn't Kim dropped from the roster for the ALCS then?
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Jan 23, 2009
20,673
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Wasn't Kim dropped from the roster for the ALCS then?
Yes. Left off the roster at the start of the ALCS with a shoulder issue. A shoulder issue stemming from an injury in the spring (while he was still in AZ) and in no small part exacerbated by the way in which Grady "Proctored" him all summer.
 

geoduck no quahog

not particularly consistent
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Nov 8, 2002
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Fun with simplistic offensive stats...

As of today:

Red Sox have highest team BA in the league, but while Detroit has 3 hitters in the top 10 and Baltimore 2 - the Red Sox only have Pedroia...implying their hitting is more spread out than other teams

Red Sox have highest OBP in league, but while Seattle has 2 in the top 10 - the Red Sox only have Ortiz

Red Sox have the highest OPS in the league: Baltimore, Detroit and Toronto each have 2 in the top 10 - Red Sox have only Ortiz

Red Sox are tied for the most stolen bases in the league. In this case they actually have 2 in the top 10 (Betts & Bogaerts) while no other team has more than 1.

I know these are ridiculously arbitrary statistics, but hell - it's always good to find something to hang your hat on.