Boston Red Sox potential managerial conundrum
Back-to-back last place finishes and the third highest payroll in baseball scream for success. John Farrell will be firmly planted in the baseball managerial hot seat.
In the coming baseball season, Boston Red Sox manager John Farrell may be floating on the waters of Lethe in April and May as the team coalesces into what may be the 2016 Boston Red Sox.
Sports, as in life, is a place where success is rewarded and failure is not. Of course, there is sometimes a lack of consistency and one goes no further than the recent coaching change with the Cleveland Cavaliers or the managerial merry-go-round instituted by George Steinbrenner. Emotional greed can occasionally trump common sense.
“Listen, if you start worrying about the people in the stands, before too long you’re up in the stands with them.” – Tom Lasorda
Farrell is firmly in the baseball hot seat in 2016 as baseball operations guru Dave Dombrowski has loaded up the team with Gorilla Glue filling in any holes that degraded the team to a second consecutive last place finish. DD has presented his field boss with a pre-season roster that has the attention of sports pundits as being among the potentially best in the game.
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Farrell is both a success and a failure. The success is flying briskly on a pole at Fenway Park since it is a World Series banner that has joined two others firmly erasing a multi-generational drought. More are expected and clearly that means 2016. The failure is also on the managerial resume with back-to-back last place finishes in Boston and losing more games than winning with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2011-2012.
“If you don’t win, you’re going to be fired. If you do win, you’ve only put off the day you’re going to be fired.” – Leo Durocher
A new administration often means change and the Red Sox are no exceptions. A day after the John Henry group purchased the Red Sox, Dan Duquette joined the government U-6 employment statistics. And Terry Francona was rewarded with media innuendo and finally handed in his resignation. Farrell may well have been gone last season except for the serious cancer situation. Face it – a PR nightmare would have ensued after canning a manager fighting for his life and that would have paled the kerfuffle over a broadcaster – Don Orsillo – who was informed to look elsewhere.
The Red Sox without Farrell had a sudden rejuvenation and at the helm was his friend, Torey Lovullo. Louvullo resigned with Boston rather than look elsewhere for the managerial jobs that pop-up in the off-season. So Tony returns as either bench coach or manager in waiting and if the Red Sox are hovering slightly under .500 in June or before a change may be imminent.
Do switching managers really help? Go back far enough and you have “Morgan Magic” when Joe Morgan replaced John McNamara at the All-Star break as the talented 1988 team flopped around like a cod suddenly dropped in the Sahara Desert. The team responded, winning 12 straight and won the division. Two years later Morgan was fired in favor of Butch Hobson.
“A manager’s job is simple. For one hundred sixty-two games you try not to screw up all that smart stuff your organization did last December.” – Earl Weaver
The baseball scene in Boston has seen other interesting attempts at getting successful managerial talent that may repeat in Boston. Joe McCarthy, who had corralled seven WS titles at the Yankees helm, was brought in by Tom Yawkey in 1948 and the end result was losing a one-game playoff to the Indians. Three seasons and back to retirement for “Marse Joe.”
The Indians were managed by their shortstop, Lou Boudreau, who Yawkey brought to town in 1951 to play short and the next season Lou became manager. Boudreau, who had led the Indians to a WS title in 1948, failed in Boston and moved on to Kansas City.
Casey Stengel didn’t manage the Red Sox, but did manage the Boston Bees (Braves) to a series of dismal performances and finally was dismissed after five seasons. Casey had also failed in three years with the Dodgers, so his managerial talent was questionable.
Clark Griffith was desperate for money in the depression years of the 1930s – not to be confused with our latest depressions – and traded his son-in-law, Joe Cronin, to the Red Sox. Cronin was a shortstop and a player-manager who worked the bench in 1946 when the Red Sox lost a World Series to the Cards. Cronin moved to GM after 1947 and never won a title in Boston despite a world of talented players and a bottomless pit of Yawkey money.
Jake Stahl, a player-manager, won a World Series Championship with the Red Sox in 1912 and was gone during the 1913 series – resigning over internal disputes with his teammates. Sound familiar? Maybe Jake – where the term “Jaking it” originates – had his own clubhouse beer and chicken?
“I’ve got two people here (in the stadium) that drive me crazy. They are all over me, and I’m like ‘Shut up, you drunk.’ It’s easy to make moves when you’re drunk.” – Ozzie Guillen
Cronin, Boudreau, Stengel, and McCarthy all have a thread that connects them – they are all members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, so even that sometimes does not portend success.
Farrell will be on a very short leash and results are expected and no one is more aware of this than Farrell. The Red Sox will have a staggering payroll obligation and any bumps early in the seasons could result in a very quick change. If history is any indicator a switch apparently has limited impact.
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Farrell has mixed blessings among the denizens of RSN. Posting boards have a love him or hate him aura with very few migrating to the middle ground. The late season surge with Lovullo only intensified those that felt a change should have been made regardless of any fallout. The early going of 2016 will show if they are correct and each managerial blunder – usually invoked by hindsight – will be dissected to the nth degree.