Savin Hillbilly said:
I guess I would turn that question around and ask, is there any circumstance you can imagine in which the Sox were losing this much where you wouldn't recommend firing the manager as a response? If it's just a question of being "accountable for the results on the field," there's nothing to discuss, because obviously those results have been abysmal for almost a year and a half now. Sure, he won a World Series, but that was then, this is now.
OTOH, if we're going to demand specific evidence that managerial incompetence has been a significant factor in the team's suck, that's a very different bar and a harder one to meet. Maybe he's losing the clubhouse, but the FO would know much more about that than we do, and I think they would not hesitate to fire him if they thought that were the case. That really leaves his in-game decisions, which I know people here love to bash, but honestly, I take that with a grain of salt, because I heard so much bashing of Tito's in-game moves when he was manager. For fans of a losing team, the definition of a good manager is always "the one we don't have right now."
In short, absent a clearly toxic clubhouse situation, I think you ride out this year and reassess when it's over.
There's something in between managing the clubhouse and the in-game decisions, and that's the strategic decisions. What kind of medium and long-term advice is he giving to the players, front office, and the ownership?
For instance, Rick Porcello has been using more 4-seamers this year and getting fewer groundballs as a result -- What was Farrell's role in that transformation? Is it working, did Farrell say that such a transformation might have a half-year (and counting) adjustment period in which the contract would look foolish?
To what extent is the piss-poor baserunning on this team reflective of Farrell's inherent style or instruction? The same issue repeatedly came up with his Blue Jay teams. That seems like a real flaw in his overall approach to game management -- risk and reward more generally -- and that is more than just "in game decision-making."