Where are the John Farrell haters now?

[Schad]

Followup: before his season was cut short, the leader on the Red Sox this year was Joel Hanrahan. 30 lbs overweight, control-free Joel Hanrahan. Before he got injured for a second time and was shelved, Farrell reasserted his commitment to using him in pivotal moments.

Also, if you go back to 2011, our top six short relievers in innings pitched, ordered by ERA:

Janssen, Frasor, Fatcisco, Camp, Rauch, Perez.

And by gmLI:

Rauch, Fatcisco, Frasor, Camp, Janssen, Perez.


Our most-effective reliever was used in the fifth-highest leverage situations. Our fifth-most effective reliever was used in the highest-leverage situations.

[s e n s i]

Well, I would say that the part that's most difficult to comprehend is the hubris of posters such as yourself.

You and others of your ilk constantly second-guess a manager. When your guesses tend to work out you remember those mistakes for years. When your guesses prove incorrect, and the managerial move proves to work (majority of the time) you immediately forget the incident.

So somehow, this ability to luck into being correct once in a while, and the ability to critique moves in hindsight while also forgetting all of the times you were wrong, gives you such high opinion of yourself that you huff and puff when someone points out a gap in your recollection.

point me towards a thread where i can read these incorrect guesses you speak of. a single post of mine where i questioned a farrell decision, only for that move to pay dividends on route to a win would suffice. you're also implying that i disagreed with every decision farrell made, which isn't true. i agreed, and still do -- with the logical moves even when they didn't work out, and disagreed with the illogical ones even when they did work out. criticizing a manager for making an inexplicable decision with his bullpen is fair game as far as i'm concerned, as is pointing out his refusal to make the logical move a few too many times as evidence to support the notion that farrell cost us games with his pen mismanagement.

when someone asked "why is farrell using cordero in a high leverage spot again?!" only for cordero to blow yet another save, that's not lucking into being correct. when someone asked "why is lind in the line-up versus jon lester today?" only for lind to go 0-fer, that's not lucking into being correct. when someone asked "why is farrell using robert coello here instead of using his best reliever darren oliver?" only for coello to give up a tie-breaking HR, that's not lucking into being correct. when farrell had gone to another sh*tty reliever in a high-leverage spot, and that reliever actually pitched a clean inning, that actually was a case of farrell lucking into being correct.

Why didn't a tired Frasor start the inning? Plethora of possibilities. Perhaps Frasor looked like the more tired of the two after the previous night?

yeah maybe farrell noticed a baggy-eyed frasor slouched in his chair in the clubhouse pre-game. thought he looked too tired to open an inning, but not tired enough to eventually bring him in to try and record 3 outs anyway.

Perhaps Frasor had unfavourable history against the first two batters?

or perhaps not? andrus was 1-8 career vs frasor. kinsler was 0-10 with 4 K's.

Perhaps he liked what Igarashi did the night previous, and played a hunch?

igarashi gave up 4 hits, a walk and 2 runs on 41 pitches in an inning of work the night previous. if farrell liked that, and used that as his reasoning to use him instead of frasor, then john farrell should not be anywhere near a baseball diamond

At the end of the day, it turned out that both options for Farrel were suicidal. But what matters telling the whole story, when you can simply log a checkmark in your personal "Me vs Farrel" column, and tell your abridged tale to posterity, eh?

only one option was suicidal, and that was depending on a scrub like igarashi to close out a game versus the top of the rangers line-up. also had frasor opened the inning and gave up 3 runs for the blown save, do you really think posters would have complained asking "why didn't farrell use igarashi?" hell no. and it's not me vs. farrell. it's a simple reply to a topic that suggests farrell is some genius manager because his team is leading the division.

[Randle McMurphy]

Bringing in Igarashi in that situation made no sense. How he had earned the trust to pitch in a situation like that over a guy like Jason Frasor, I'll never know. Just another unconscionably bad decision among a season full of them from Farrell.

[Penny1993]

lol you've got it all wrong, people never hated him THAT much for his mediocre management skill...

People were pissed because of how he left town, and gave us a big middle finger on his way out at the darkest time of this franchise... If people wanted him out that much, they wouldn't have been so mad at him...

That being said, I still hate him and glad that his gone, the Bo-Sox should be good with their payroll no matter who's managing (well.... anyone who's name is not Bobby-V)

[Kurtz]

Followup: before his season was cut short, the leader on the Red Sox this year was Joel Hanrahan. 30 lbs overweight, control-free Joel Hanrahan. Before he got injured for a second time and was shelved, Farrell reasserted his commitment to using him in pivotal moments.

Also, if you go back to 2011, our top six short relievers in innings pitched, ordered by ERA:

Janssen, Frasor, Fatcisco, Camp, Rauch, Perez.

And by gmLI:

Rauch, Fatcisco, Frasor, Camp, Janssen, Perez.


Our most-effective reliever was used in the fifth-highest leverage situations. Our fifth-most effective reliever was used in the highest-leverage situations.

Schad, excellent argument, I can't really debate it much. I would only point out that Francisco and Rauch were two of the biggest AA acquisitions prior to this year, and AA brought them in with the express purpose of setting-up/closing. Ditto Hanrahan. So Farrel was/is merely following his GM's design, and his fault was in doing it for too long. However, at the same time, giving his players the looooong rope/showing immense patience, is what often endears a manager to the players, and is perhaps the biggest reason why Farrell is considered to be "well-liked" among players. This quality is serving him well this year.

Consider that we, fans, are on the opposite side of the spectrum. We're looking to cut/run the moment a player goes into a slump, and champion a player when he goes on a hot streak. How many folks do you think are now comfortable with going into next year with LIND as our DH, after spending the last 2 years begging to cut him loose (myself included)?


And Sensei, you only have to read a typical game thread to see that Gibbons' and every manager before him is constantly second-guessed during a game. Before the game. After the game. I dare say that if our club was managed by the collective consciousness of this and other message boards, we'd never lose a game. Especially given our awesome ability to make all the right decisions in hindsight.

[Kurtz]

lol you've got it all wrong, people never hated him THAT much for his mediocre management skill...

People were pissed because of how he left town, and gave us a big middle finger on his way out at the darkest time of this franchise... If people wanted him out that much, they wouldn't have been so mad at him...

That being said, I still hate him and glad that his gone, the Bo-Sox should be good with their payroll no matter who's managing (well.... anyone who's name is not Bobby-V)

Sweet sig.

[s e n s i]

And Sensei, you only have to read a typical game thread to see that Gibbons' and every manager before him is constantly second-guessed during a game. Before the game. After the game.

you accused me personally of doing this and i usually don't, unless all logic is damned and the move is so baffling that i can't help but question it. which happened far too often between 2011-2012.

but in any event, go as far back as two weeks ago when i immediately applauded gibby for using janssen in a high-lev spot rather than saving him for a save situation, and even though janssen gave up the go-ahead run, i'll still firmly stand by that move. why? because he's the best reliever on the team being used at the most important point of the game, something farrell failed to do consistently as evidenced by the stats schad pointed out.

people have every right to question a manager when scrubs like pauley, coello, igarashi are being used in close games while reliable, shut-down arms are waiting in the bullpen being saved for an even higher-leverage spot, one that might never even come.

I dare say that if our club was managed by the collective consciousness of this and other message boards, we'd never lose a game. Especially given our awesome ability to make all the right decisions in hindsight.

again, it's not just after the fact the jays lost did we scold farrell for a move. those moves were scrutinized as soon as they were made. and we had every right to, as several decisions just simply could not be explained without using speculative off-field reasoning. i actually believe managers have a bigger influence on the mentality of ball club more than most here do, not to a telepathic level obviously, but i also prefer my manager to make sound, rational in-game decisions, and i don't believe farrell did either well enough to regret trading him.