As expected, lazy Nick has 'its not your fault'
article defending Bobby who 'had no chance' The way Nick writes it and discusses the problem it really turns into an opinion piece by Nick and not grounded fact base reporting. Really a disgrace of a column if you ask me.
Valentine was a fish out of water from the moment he was hired to change the “beer and chicken” culture of the Red Sox clubhouse. The push for change was met with great resistance by veteran players that management did not clean out until the megadeal with the Dodgers in late August got rid of $264 million worth of bad contracts in Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, and Josh Beckett.
So Bobby might have had a chance if only management could have pulled off one of the biggest trades in baseball and wipe the entire team slate clean before Bobby started. Gotcha
Those efforts by Valentine were never supported by management, starting with a remark he made in April during an interview on Channel 7. Responding to a question about Kevin Youkilis, Valentine said of the third baseman, “I don’t think he’s as physically or emotionally into the game as he has been in the past for some reason.”
Because it would be too much to ask to change the culture without trashing players publicly.
Valentine often couldn’t contain his emotions and said things he shouldn’t have said. But that should not have been a surprise, because he has always been that way. He never deviated from who he was, as much as the Red Sox tried to suppress him.
How could the Red Sox not have done their homework on Valentine? He has always ruffled feathers, always put his foot in his mouth, yet they seemed surprised.
.....
Cherington, who preferred Dale Sveum and Lamont over Valentine, did not recommend Valentine be the manager, despite public comments by Lucchino that Cherington made the hiring. We never bought that one, nor did we buy that Valentine wanted all the holdover coaches that Cherington “recommended” he consider.
Put 2 and 2 together here Nick. You say that LL essentially made the hire, and then wonder why the RedSox were surprised with Bobby's actions. Rather than asking 'why were they surprised' why not do a little work and get some answers from Larry, you know kind of do your job as a reporter.
Valentine never trusted the holdovers and vice-versa. It was a terrible arrangement from the start. Pitching coach Bob McClure was eventually fired and Randy Niemann, one of Valentine’s coaches, was named pitching coach.
While this sucks, and it certainly was as moronic setup, remember that Bobby must have agreed to such a setup. If Bobby didnt ask about this during the hiring, shame on him for not asking. If the RedSox said he could hire his own staff, then dictated this to him, then shame on them. Rather than implying blame, it would be more appropriate to find out the specifics here, rather than just be lazy and use this as evidence that Bobby was doomed and it was the organizations fault. Its possible Ben detailed how this would work to Bobby and Bobby agreed to it, and then this really isnt an excuse for Bobby. Again, that would involve Nick doing some work, its much easier to leave such questions unanswered and make implications.
Valentine was unable to do a lot of things he’d done in other places. He had to adhere to instructional methods that were already in place.
While the Red Sox thought Gary Tuck’s method for teaching catching was superior, Sox catchers didn’t get appreciably better. Valentine has his own ways to teach catchers, but he wasn’t able to implement them.
Again, something that should have been hashed out before the hiring. But in Nick's world I guess the organization should have changed all of their methods that were already in place to suit Bobby before he had even proven that he could manage here. Yeah, that makes sense.
Another great implication that Tucks method were the problems and Bobbys were the answers.
Valentine will walk away with a $2.5 million severance package, providing he adheres to a clause in his contract that prohibits him from bad-mouthing the Red Sox. How long the clause is in effect for is not known, but Lucchino wrote the language himself and Valentine signed off on it.
Its really amazing that Nick was able to get this level of detail, most likely from Bobby himself, but obviously couldnt be fair in his article and get information from the other parties involved.