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Surely a New Face in the Dugout Will Help Our Guys Hit Justin Verlander And/Or Clayton Kershaw

Sports seems so quiet the first few days after the end of the baseball playoffs. Of course, the same thing goes for the first few days after the Super Bowl and the NBA and NHL playoffs. Where's all the noise, all the tension, all the splendid drama? We know sports seasons have to have beginnings, middles and ends, but to return to sports in their middles and beginnings creates the classic post-holiday letdown.

Maybe that's what's affecting the Dodgers' front office. It's been five days since they lost the seventh game of the World Series, and they still haven't fired manager Dave Roberts.

Come on guys. Don't you want to be trendy? That's been the hot new thing in the national pastime in 2017. A team has a swell year where they make the playoffs, then as soon as they're eliminated, they can the skipper who helped get them there.

John Farrell of the Red Sox. Gone. Dusty Baker of the Nationals. Gone. Weirdest of all, Joe Girardi of the Yankees. Gone. That's three out of the nine teams which made the postseason but didn't win it all. That's three teams whose decision-making doesn't breed confidence for their chances in 2018.

Baker's is the easiest firing to understand, which is hardly the same as to justify. The Nationals have won four NL East titles in the last six seasons, including the last two, and have never, ever, gotten out of the divisional round. The natural insane levels of frustration this generates in everyone from fans to ownership is the sort of thing that gets managers fired, whether or not they deserve it. Since baseball is not devoid of cosmic cruelty, the same level of frustration, which believe it or not is felt by Nationals players more than anyone, also inhibits their performance in winner-take-all situations. Trying harder while fear of failure sits in one's head breeds two out, two on popups and gopher balls.

The Nationals might win it all next season. They're plenty good enough. But that will only come when the players enter the post-season with a healthy "fuck it, it's just another ballgame" attitude. There have been about five managers in my lifetime who've been able to install that mindset in their players through force of will, and the chances the Nats' next skipper will make it six are low.

The most inexplicable firing is clearly Girardi. Nobody in New York from GM Brian Cashman to the many ferocious and knowledgeable baseball beat writers there, have been able to state a coherent, let alone convincing, rationale for his departure. Was it the Steinbrenner's sons homage to dear old Dad? That makes as much sense as any other suggestion.

So a team that wasn't supposed to make the playoffs sees a number of young players blossom into stars, gets within one game of the Series and immediately decides the manager is superfluous to requirements? Makes no sense. I and I suspect many others have worked for organizations where employees felt management had lost the plot. It did not generate the serenity now associated with phrases like "28th World Championship." A bright Yankee future is now hazy, industrial pollution haze at that.

John Farrell's case falls between those two extremes. Yes, Red Sox ownership, fans, etc. were frustrated with two straight divisional losses. But only the most deluded among them could possibly have associated those losses with anything any manager could do.

The Sox lost to the Indians in 2016 and the Astros in 2017 because their highly vaunted and even more highly paid starting pitchers got their jocks knocked off.  Put John McGraw, Casey Stengel and Earl Weaver in the dugout and they couldn't come up with a solution to that dilemma. There isn't one.

And if that's all there was to Farrell's situation, I doubt he'd have been fired at all. Truth is, a significant portion of the Red Sox community was after the guy even during the regular seasons when the team was winning its division. Every show on the Sports Hub was after Farrell's hide during any three-game losing streak. It is a mistake to think talk radio sets the agenda. It reflects the sentiments of its audience in order to attract and hold it.

Truth be told, my opinion was that Farrell was an average major league manager. He was no McGraw, but he was no Bobby Valentine or Grady Little either. And in 2017, he was well above average.

The 2017 Red Sox had the very same 93-69 record as the 2016 Sox. The 2017 Sox did not have David Ortiz in the lineup. They were without the 2016 AL leader in doubles, RBI, slugging percentage and OPS. To win the same number of games minus that Hall of Fame level production from the middle of the lineup is a major accomplishment. Among less paranoid, defensive and entitled fan bases, it might've been seen as such.

It wasn't. And I doubt new skipper Alex Cora will be given any slack in his managerial debut. Already one hears the question, "does he have what it takes to make it in this market," a commentators' phrase meaning "can Cora put up with assholes like me."

Why should he? Maybe what Alex Cora needs isn't a veteran bench coach (a particularly silly demand coming from fans and media who've been second-guessing managers all their lives), but the ghost of Billy Martin to inspire him as he faces the world.

Maybe what Red Sox Nation needs is a manager it's afraid of for a change.

posted by Michael Gee @ 10:20 AM