John Farrell should not lose his job, but he will if Red Sox continue to flail
COMMENTARY
I do not believe the Red Sox should fire John Farrell. I do not believe Ben Cherington would want to fire John Farrell even if the Red Sox went 0-for-the-rest-of-June.
But the blunt reality is this: If the Red Sox, hopelessly lethargic except for when the inept starting pitcher is bickering with the manager in the dugout, don’t turn this around immediately, John Farrell will have to be fired, seasons sooner than anyone could possibly have imagined in October 2013.
Blaming him for this pile of hot garbage that is broadcast nightly in between 95 or so commercials on NESN would not be fair, just as giving him all the credit for the World Series victory less than two years ago would also be inaccurate.
He’s a manager. And like most managers, his actions move the needle marginally at most in either direction. There are very few Earl Weavers (good) and Bobby Valentines (not good, makes a fine sandwich).
It’s just that when expectations go unmet over a prolonged period in baseball, someone has to go. The manager isn’t always the first to be shown the door. Pitching coaches, for example, make fine initial scapegoats. But the manager is on the short list of those who pay for underachievement with their jobs. It’s part of the gig.
And the Red Sox — the last-place-again Red Sox — are such a consistent and colossal disappointment that eventually, if the performance doesn’t change for the better, the manager will be changed. Because something will have to, and that’s the easiest one to make.
I do hope it does not come to that. Farrell is a work in progress as a tactician, and his track record (just one winning season, albeit a wonderful one) does not match his reputation as a bright, versatile baseball man.
He’s been good enough to win a World Series, and yet I’m still not sure if he’s any good at all, if that makes sense. But there is no obvious and appealing replacement, no inspiration for a think-piece pondering whether Arnie Beyeler could be to the ‘15 Red Sox what Joe Morgan was in ‘88.
He’s getting a lot of grief today for appearing to put up with Wade Miley’s dugout bitchfest without bouncing the lousy lefty off a wall, and it’s easy to interpret Miley’s behavior as the embodiment of team-wide disrespect for the manager. But that’s trite talk-radio fodder, and it’s probably far from the truth.
I would wager that Farrell lit up Miley behind closed doors like … well, like the Orioles lit up Miley, who allowed three homers in four innings and was apparently pissed that he wasn’t allowed to give up a fourth and maybe even a fifth.
I suspect we’ll learn more about the postgame interactions between Farrell and Miley in the coming days. The Red Sox are lethargic, but that is not a reflection of the manager.
Farrell may be flawed, but he is low on my list of grievances with this team, and he should be low on yours, too. The Red Sox, save for that false-start sweep of the A’s, have played like fools, and leaving us to feel like we’ve been played for fools.
There are 100 games remaining in this season, plenty of time to repair the flaws, and yet my skepticism of the present and future leave me wishing I’d been more skeptical of this roster construction in the first place.
The potential success was so enticing that it was easy to overlook all of the potential problems — that David Ortiz would hit like a 39-year-old, that Hanley Ramirez would make us long for Manny Ramirez’s comparative defensive wizardry in left field, that Mookie Betts would require an adjustment period, that extensions for Miley and Rick Porcello before they ever threw a pitch for the franchise would prove terribly premature, that Rusney Castillo would prove maddeningly raw for a 27-year-old, and on and on, right on down to the bottom of the roster and the bottom of the standings.
Perhaps some of those problems will find solutions in the coming weeks, if not the coming days. But time is running low. The disaster that is the 2015 Red Sox is not all John Farrell’s fault. But what should most trouble him is this: Should the various and assorted real faults prove irreparable on his watch, his own job status will eventually become one of the changes.
What if the Red Sox were all homegrown?
[bdc-gallery id=”115311″]
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com