John Farrell Fired (10/11/17)

It took just two days but the Boston Red Sox formally announced that John Farrell's services will not be needed after back to back first round exits following back to back last place finishes. It was a long time coming because quite frankly, the Red Sox regressed this season after what was a great bounce back 2016. The loss of David Ortiz hurt and injuries to David Price, Tyler Thornburg and Steven Wright didn't help, but the evaporation of the Red Sox offense in 2017 was frightening. It all starts up top and Dave Dombrowski refusing to sign Edwin Encarnarcion and trading away Travis Shaw was a death knell. Still, Dombrowski did his best to fix things by trading for bits and pieces along the 2017 season to at least attempt to fix it. Farrell, on the other hand, refused to change his ways and time and time again did things that were more harmful than good. Now he's on the unemployment line and well deserved.

Back in 2013 he was hired because he was familiar with the holdovers of the 2007 team when he was the pitching coach. He supposedly was going to help Clay Buchholz, Jon Lester and John Lackey pitch well and work with the relievers as well. The 2013 team was built on low cost, low risk free agents that overachieved beyond anyone's wildest expectations. Mike Napoli, Jonny Gomes, Shane Victorino, David Ross and especially Koji Uehara helped the holdovers Dustin Pedroia, Ortiz, Lester, etc win 97 games and the World Series. The criticisms of Farrell were few and far between in 2013 but not much went wrong that year.

The following season was a much different story. The 2014 season was more or less what was supposed to happen in 2013. The magic was gone and the offense evaporated as nobody performed as well as they had the year earlier. Still, Farrell didn't help matters when he took Xander Bogaerts out of the shortstop spot and handed it to the .200 hitting Stephen Drew. Bogaerts didn't hit effectively for pretty much the remainder of the season. Sox general manager Ben Cherrington torpedoed the team by trading Felix Doubront, Jon Lester, John Lackey, Jake Peavy and Jonny Gomes before the trade deadline for Joe Kelly, Allen Craig, Yoenis Cespedes, Edwin Escobar and Heath Hembree. As of this writing Jon Lester is trying to strong arm the Chicago Cubs to back to back world titles while Heath Hembree and Joe Kelly are mere relievers in the Red Sox bullpen. Still, the moves Farrell made as an in-game manager started to be questioned as the losses piled up. Why did he bring in this guy? Why didn't he pinch hit that guy? Why did he leave this guy in too long or pull him too early? The 2014 team was doomed to fail but if Farrell was as good as he was, you'd think they would have done better than last place.

The 2015 team was almost as bad as the previous. Cherrington eventually lost his job because rather than overpay to bring Jon Lester back, the starting rotation turned into a hodge podge. Buchholz, Kelly, Wade Miley, old friend Justin Masterson and Rick Porcello weren't exactly Lester and Lackey. The Sox plummeted out of contention and once again in last place. This time, grumblings about Farrell being replaced were louder as back to back last place finishes angered fans. Then Farrell was felled by a devastating strain of cancer and had to take a sabbatical from the team. In his place Torey Lovullo rallied the Sox to a respectable finish in August and September. Younger stars such as Jackie Bradley Jr, Bogaerts, Mookie Betts, Blake Swihart along with improved pitching by Porcello, Kelly and rookie Eduardo Rodriguez damn near brought the Sox out of last place. This was the clue that something was wrong because it appeared that Lovullo had been able to bring out the best in the youngsters that Farrell couldn't.

The team greatly improved in 2016 but the warts in Farrell's managing were exposed. The Sox had a great season, finishing with 93 wins and their first division title since 2013 but there were warts. His in game decisions were head scratchers but for the most of the season, casual fans didn't notice. The first sign of trouble was when he sent ace pitcher Steven Wright to pinch run in a National League rules game. Wright ended up injuring his shoulder and being lost for the year. The Sox may have won 100 games had that not happened. Also at the end of the season, the Sox lost 5 of the season's final 6 games and got swept out of the playoffs by the Cleveland Indians. It appeared that Farrell took his foot off the gas after the team won 11 in a row to take a stranglehold of the AL East and it carried over into the playoffs where they failed to turn the switch on.

By 2017 everything fell apart for Farrell as the Sox endured their most frustrating season in 25 years. The Sox had arguably the best pitching staff in baseball and arguably the worst offense. Every game was a grinding struggle where the offense would average 5 hits while other teams including the Yankees would average 5 runs or so. Also Farrell had absolutely no idea when and where to pinch hit playrs, completely disregard scouting reports when it came to his pitchers and rode ace pitcher Chris Sale to death until he had nothing left. For example, Matt Barnes was struggling pitching on the road and Farrell kept sending him out there to fail. Xander Bogaerts took a fastball to the wrist and everyone in the country knew he wasn't the same but Farrell went on record saying Xander "Needed to play through it" rather than sit him down to let the wrist heal. Bogaerts didn't hit effectively again the rest of the year. Mookie Betts and Hanley Ramirez stats both went to hell because they were swinging for the fences on every pitch to replace the retired David Ortiz. Rather than sit them down and tell them to play their game and not try to be Ortiz, Farrell let them go and neither one of them contributed much by the end. It became apparent by the end of the season that there was something wrong between Farrell and the younger guys on the team. Then it came crashing to a halt because once again the team stumbled to the finish line, backing into the AL East division title. This time they at least won a game in the ALDS against the Houston Astros, but Farrell made a grand exit when he was thrown out of the final game he ever managed for the Red Sox.

So what happened? Many say that when he was hired, he was taking over a veteran team with pitchers he was familiar with when he was pitching coach years earlier. Once the transition happened from the 2013 Bearded Brothers to 2017's version, those pitchers were gone and Pedroia was the only veteran left. Its become apparent Farrell couldn't get through to Andrew Benintendi, Xander Bogaerts, Mookie Betts and Rafael Devers. All those guys have the potential to be all-stars and we've seen Betts and Bogaerts play a lot better. Those four could be a force if handled right and hopefully the next manager can get them to play to their potential. As for the pitchers, that's where the concern is. Even though Chris Sale ran out of gas he was Pedro Martinez-esque in the first half, Drew Pomeranz had a hell of a breakout season, the bullpen was about as lights out as it got. Farrell did have a track record of getting the most of his pitchers, so that's a quality that may not be duplicated by his replacement. The bottom line is he had to go, but whoever they bring in better be able to get through to everyone that Farrell couldn't while maintaining the pitching staff.