Stone's Throwing of Shade at Ricky

[SonofaRoache]

1 hour ago, mqr said:

The Twins and Indians certainly aren't having as easy a time dealing with them. 

Lucky for those two teams, the Tigers and Royals won't make the post season. And to be honest, I don't want to be the Twins who know they are getting swept every year no matter how good the roster is. 

Edited September 15, 2020 by SonofaRoache

[southsider2k5]

4 minutes ago, Green Line said:

Wow.  It feels like too long.

And that is including the one season with the Cubs.

[ptatc]

2 hours ago, oldsox said:

Makes no difference.  All it takes is one.

And it made no difference last night. Even if they would have given him the in the park HR, the Sox still win 3-2 not 3-1.

[ptatc]

59 minutes ago, Green Line said:

This makes no sense at all.  Its burying your head in the sand because things are going well, ignoring the fact that our manager is making awful decisions along the way.  Yes, the guys are playing well IN SPITE of bone headed decisions from the manager.  There is no "statistical evidence" of anything there.  Cease has been incredibly lucky this year.  So have many other pitchers in the bullpen.  What you're saying is to ignore all of this because things have been going right over the past 30 or so games.  Mind boggling.

Maybe they are playing well BECAUSE of the manager but winning in spite of his bad in game decisions. There is more to being a manger than in game decisions. In fact I still contend that those decisions are the least important part of a baseball manager's job.

[SonofaRoache]

58 minutes ago, Green Line said:

This makes no sense at all.  Its burying your head in the sand because things are going well, ignoring the fact that our manager is making awful decisions along the way.  Yes, the guys are playing well IN SPITE of bone headed decisions from the manager.  There is no "statistical evidence" of anything there.  Cease has been incredibly lucky this year.  So have many other pitchers in the bullpen.  What you're saying is to ignore all of this because things have been going right over the past 30 or so games.  Mind boggling.

Bingo. We all want Ricky to succeed as it is in the best interest of the team. We know Ricky is a great clubhouse guy, motivator, and how much the guys love him. But top notch winning organizations have high standards for their players and managers and don't settle for consistent mistakes that are blatantly obvious. This doesn't mean every decision Ricky makes fail or that he hasn't made any great moves. If I had to grade him overall it would be about a C or C-. If the FO goal is to win multiple championships and to compete long term, your manager has to be better than that. Sure with the talent we have a bad manager can have winning seasons, but there is a big difference between being the Twins/A's and being a multi champion. 

[ptatc]

59 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

Renteria, to me from afar, seems like a heck of a guy. A guy who grinded the minor league managing jobs for 10 years - which is a shitttttttty career - to get a shot in the big leagues. Earned a chance with the Cubs after 15+ years coaching, then gets handed a shit roster and develops some young guys... nothing bad ever said about him or his clubhouse. Then the Cubs get good and can the guy. He then comes to the Sox, shit roster, never complains - no fighting in house, and everyone likes each other despite years of terrible terrible performance. Team gets good, guys swear by Ricky, he deflects all credit and all attention to the players; guy is literally crying after the Giolito no hitter because of how hard he knew Giolito fought and how much he loves his guys.

People call me a Renteria stan, and while I hate plenty of decisions just like the rest of fans because I'm an "expert" too, you're right that I respect Renteria the coach and would have loved to play for a guy like him as all his players seem to love. That's what matters to most players, but I get why fans overlook something like that - which in baseball, means so much more than anything else.

I think this is what most fans miss. It may be that you need to spend time in the clubhouse to see the actual dynamics. There is a lot of downtime in baseball and players spend a lot of time together on the road. There are more important aspects of a baseball managers job. Baseball managers have little control over the game compared to most other sports. They really don't mean much in the way of strategy, especially with analytics departments taking over lineup construction. where the managers matter the most is with the players.

[JoshPR]

1 hour ago, Green Line said:

Worst manager in Sox history.. other than Ventura.

You never saw Terry Bevington or Jerry Manuel

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

3 minutes ago, ptatc said:

I think this is what most fans miss. It may be that you need to spend time in the clubhouse to see the actual dynamics. There is a lot of downtime in baseball and players spend a lot of time together on the road. There are more important aspects of a baseball managers job. Baseball managers have little control over the game compared to most other sports. They really don't mean much in the way of strategy, especially with analytics departments taking over lineup construction. where the managers matter the most is with the players.

And managers really having no say over roster construction; for example, if he wanted to move on from Edwin it wouldn't be his choice and while he's there I'm sure there's directive to play him out of his struggles. 

Bottom line, the stuff fans think matters so much because they watch it just doesn't matter that much. A guy who is not the 100% right choice will still work out as the right decision 48-49% of the time. In some seasons, the non-optimal thing will actually work more than optimal one. The margins we are discussing on a bullpen move or lineup decision is like .01% each time. Sure over 162 games it might impact a game or two over a sample size 10,000 seasons big, but in reality each decisions right and wrong choice with professional ball players involved has a difference of expected outcome so small that b****ing about it and focusing on it as the main deciding factor in how good a manager is simply is wrong imo.

[Green Line]

Just now, JoshPR said:

You never saw Terry Bevington or Jerry Manuel

Yes I did.  I love Jerry!

[almagest]

I don't know why you're all spending time arguing about this. Colome just needed a new, unique way to make the 9th inning stressful.

[ptatc]

3 minutes ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

And managers really having no say over roster construction; for example, if he wanted to move on from Edwin it wouldn't be his choice and while he's there I'm sure there's directive to play him out of his struggles. 

Bottom line, the stuff fans think matters so much because they watch it just doesn't matter that much. A guy who is not the 100% right choice will still work out as the right decision 48-49% of the time. In some seasons, the non-optimal thing will actually work more than optimal one. The margins we are discussing on a bullpen move or lineup decision is like .01% each time. Sure over 162 games it might impact a game or two over a sample size 10,000 seasons big, but in reality each decisions right and wrong choice with professional ball players involved has a difference of expected outcome so small that b****ing about it and focusing on it as the main deciding factor in how good a manager is simply is wrong imo.

The same applies for Mazara. People were freaking out the other day when Renteria let him face that lefty from Detroit when they had a 3 or 4 run lead. The obvious choice for the isolated at bat would be to pinch hit Engel. However, in the larger scheme with that lead, the team wanted to see how Mazara would do against a tough lefty. In last night's game when it mattered in a tie game Engel got the at bat.

[chitownsportsfan]

Winning leads to chemistry; chemistry doesn't lead to winning.

[mqr]

10 minutes ago, chitownsportsfan said:

Winning leads to chemistry; chemistry doesn't lead to winning.

You’re right. But losing begets a shattered clubhouse and they’ve done A LOT of losing with these guys. 

[35thstreetswarm]

I have never been a RR fan and I wanted him fired before the season.  That said, I am willing to reserve judgment and reconsider given the stellar results, even if he keeps making decisions I find questionable.  I do this in recognition of the fact that, as a guy watching the games on TV, I don’t really know anything.  It’s possible—very likely actually—that RR is doing things I can’t see or appreciate that contribute to the positive results.  I hope everybody approaches this and other Sox hot topics with a dose of humility and flexibility befitting our lack of qualification here.  I hope the proof of the pudding really can be in the eating.

Message boards cause people to write their positions down for all to see during fixed moments in time.  An unfortunate result of that is that we feel compelled to defend those imperfect positions to the death rather than take the more flexible mental approach available had we not gone “on the record”, thereby joining a contest of sorts and inserting ego into the equation.  

In other words:  Scoreboard, Baby!!! Ricky Prove Me Wrong!

[chitownsportsfan]

3 minutes ago, mqr said:

You’re right. But losing begets a shattered clubhouse and they’ve done A LOT of losing with these guys. 

True, and to his credit Renteria never threw guys that weren't that talented under the bus (at least in public).

I'm always reminded of the Ozzie quote: Good teams win games, horseshit teams have meetings. Well, we're to the point where we're going to have a lot of meetings.” - Ozzie Guillen.

[hi8is]

34 minutes ago, chitownsportsfan said:

Winning leads to chemistry; chemistry doesn't lead to winning.

You should start a book of original chitownsportsfan quotes, with this being the first.

[chitownsportsfan]

5 minutes ago, hi8is said:

 You should start a book of original chitownsportsfan quotes, with this being the first.

It's hardly an original thought.  Did the team have much "chemistry" when Dallas called their asses out?  Hard to say, can't really measure it.  Here's another non original quote that I like: if you can't measure it, it's not important.  That quote is often misinterpreted to mean "if you can't measure it, it doesn't exist", which is entirely different and not the conclusion.  The conclusion is if you can't measure it -- don't worry about it from a management perspective.

Sure "Dancing for Dubs" might have some positive effect on how Mendick stabbed that liner against the Tigers, but so far nobody has been able to quantify it.  Until we can, I'll go with that the dubs produce the dances, and not other way around.

Edited September 15, 2020 by chitownsportsfan

[hi8is]

2 minutes ago, chitownsportsfan said:

It's hardly an original thought.  Did the team have much "chemistry" when Dallas called their asses out?  Hard to say, can't really measure it.  Here's another non original quote that I like: if you can't measure it, it's not important.  That quote is often misinterpreted to mean "if you can't measure it, it doesn't exist", which is entirely different and not the conclusion.  The conclusion is if you can't measure it -- don't worry about it from a management perspective.

Sure "Dancing for Dubs" might have some positive effect on how Mendick stabbed that liner against the Tigers, but so far nobody has been able to quantify it.  Until we can, I'll go with that the dubs produce the dances, and not other way around.

It was a joke.

[chitownsportsfan]

1 minute ago, hi8is said:

It was a joke.

 I know.  Thing is, I'm here for discussion about things I find interesting like the epistemology of winning ball clubs.  I don't really find talking about other posters interesting so rather than give you an Internet Sticker for something I really didn't find that insightful (or humorous) I decided to try and engage.  Clearly, my mistake.  I'm too old for this shit man.  My 20s are long gone.  I'm here to talk about concepts and the Sox -- the trolling and shit a lot of posters engage in (and I did years ago) just doesn't do it anymore for me.

[South Side Hit Men]

Stone with Laurence Holmes on the Score now.

[mqr]

 

1 hour ago, 35thstreetswarm said:

I have never been a RR fan and I wanted him fired before the season.  That said, I am willing to reserve judgment and reconsider given the stellar results, even if he keeps making decisions I find questionable.  I do this in recognition of the fact that, as a guy watching the games on TV, I don’t really know anything.  It’s possible—very likely actually—that RR is doing things I can’t see or appreciate that contribute to the positive results.  I hope everybody approaches this and other Sox hot topics with a dose of humility and flexibility befitting our lack of qualification here.  I hope the proof of the pudding really can be in the eating.

Message boards cause people to write their positions down for all to see during fixed moments in time.  An unfortunate result of that is that we feel compelled to defend those imperfect positions to the death rather than take the more flexible mental approach available had we not gone “on the record”, thereby joining a contest of sorts and inserting ego into the equation.  

In other words:  Scoreboard, Baby!!! Ricky Prove Me Wrong!

yup, my thought process is Ricky has a ton of ill will banked for reasons that were mostly out of his control. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, mostly because we don't have a choice. I'm pretty firmly of the belief is that the good things that a baseball manager can do is almost entirely behind the scenes. But the one thing he did that absolutely drove me insane was all the bunting, and that's been entirely stopped until the other day. So has long as things are going well, and the team seems happy, I see no reason to litigate his position every day. 

Edited September 15, 2020 by mqr

[hi8is]

1 hour ago, chitownsportsfan said:

 I know.  Thing is, I'm here for discussion about things I find interesting like the epistemology of winning ball clubs.  I don't really find talking about other posters interesting so rather than give you an Internet Sticker for something I really didn't find that insightful (or humorous) I decided to try and engage.  Clearly, my mistake.  I'm too old for this shit man.  My 20s are long gone.  I'm here to talk about concepts and the Sox -- the trolling and shit a lot of posters engage in (and I did years ago) just doesn't do it anymore for me.

I'm all for talking shop but after circling the same bush 50 times, a little break is fun. Otherwise, maybe just saying "42" some more will answer everything.

[SonofaRoache]

I will give Ricky credit for today's lineup. Great job and it needs to be our playoff lineup. 

[chw42]

2 minutes ago, SonofaRoache said:

I will give Ricky credit for today's lineup. Great job and it needs to be our playoff lineup. 

Ricky finally got the balls to put his 2nd catcher at DH.

[YourWhatHurts]

2 hours ago, chitownsportsfan said:

Winning leads to chemistry; chemistry doesn't lead to winning.

Sure.

Except in the case of the chemistry between a SS and a 2B.

Or except in the case of Giolito and McCann making each other better.

Or except in the case of Ozzie helping to bring the team together in 2005, or Rowand and AJ getting Joe Crede to take the next step mentally to become a better player.

Or except in the case of guys like Jose and Yoan and Robert pushing each other, making Eloy's work ethic better, etc.

And except in countless other examples too.  But hey at least it sounded clever!