In-season managerial changes a risk, BUT

[Balta1701]

Well then, let's look at the Sox roster with the consensus Soxtalk opinion of each player:

Eaton..shouldn't be leading off. Shouldn't have received an extension. Bad

Melky...one of the worst hitters in the league

Abreu...a hair above average, the league caught up to him

LaRoche...awful. Adam Dunn II

Garcia...horrible fielder, should crash and be a negative WAR guy

Alexei....old and done. Get rid of

Gillaspie...Hahn made a mistake by not getting a 3B this past winter

Flowers...needs to be cut immediately

Micah/Sanchez.......not ready with the glove for one, not ready with the bat for the other

 

Soto...godawful

Beckham.........we know what has been said about him. Unfortunately he made the team

Bonifacio.......what's his purpose

Shuck........he needs to go.

 

 

Sale.....what's wrong. If he isn't throwing his slider a lot he isn't an ace

Samardiza......horrible. Big mistake trading for him

Q...flash in the pan is lacking an out pitch

Danks.......nothing needs to be written

Noesi.....see above

Rodon......can't throw strikes. Won't be any good unless he has a change up.

 

Jennings......bad

Putnam....flash in the pan

Petricka.......OK but nothing special

Carroll......DFA candidate, should be in Charlotte

Duke.......should never face LH hitters

Robertson.....good, but yet some have concerns

 

 

So the manager has a roster where, at least if you ever read a gamethread, at least 84% of it, is just plain bad. How can losing be on the manager?

I agree with you, you have made an incredibly strong case that Rick Hahn should be fired immediately. He blew $50 million of his bosses' money on this **** show.

[LDF]

Well then, let's look at the Sox roster with the consensus Soxtalk opinion of each player:

Eaton..shouldn't be leading off. Shouldn't have received an extension. Bad

Melky...one of the worst hitters in the league

Abreu...a hair above average, the league caught up to him

LaRoche...awful. Adam Dunn II

Garcia...horrible fielder, should crash and be a negative WAR guy

Alexei....old and done. Get rid of

Gillaspie...Hahn made a mistake by not getting a 3B this past winter

Flowers...needs to be cut immediately

Micah/Sanchez.......not ready with the glove for one, not ready with the bat for the other

 

Soto...godawful

Beckham.........we know what has been said about him. Unfortunately he made the team

Bonifacio.......what's his purpose

Shuck........he needs to go.

 

 

Sale.....what's wrong. If he isn't throwing his slider a lot he isn't an ace

Samardiza......horrible. Big mistake trading for him

Q...flash in the pan is lacking an out pitch

Danks.......nothing needs to be written

Noesi.....see above

Rodon......can't throw strikes. Won't be any good unless he has a change up.

 

Jennings......bad

Putnam....flash in the pan

Petricka.......OK but nothing special

Carroll......DFA candidate, should be in Charlotte

Duke.......should never face LH hitters

Robertson.....good, but yet some have concerns

 

 

So the manager has a roster where, at least if you ever read a gamethread, at least 84% of it, is just plain bad. How can losing be on the manager?

 

i will acknowledge this, you did a lot of hard work in this. thank you.

 

but i still have faith in this team and lets see how this list looks like at the end of the season.

 

but for your question, these players were not all that bad coming into this season. so a rhetorical question. where did it all fall apart.

 

if you really can't come up with a real viable, believable answer, then it is the manager, lost of faith in the manager, and the org.

[Dick Allen]

I agree with you, you have made an incredibly strong case that Rick Hahn should be fired immediately. He blew $50 million of his bosses' money on this **** show.

Well the same people who have these opinions of the players also at least thought Hahn had a spectacular offseason. .

[LDF]

Well the same people who have these opinions of the players also at least thought Hahn had a spectacular offseason. .

 

nice....

 

then who is at fault?? who should be blame??

[Dick Allen]

nice....

 

then who is at fault?? who should be blame??

The players are at fault. Firing Robin or firing Hahn isn't going to make them play better. It would be like firing the guy painting your house because you don't like what the landscaper did to your bushes.

[Balta1701]

The players are at fault. Firing Robin or firing Hahn isn't going to make them play better. It would be like firing the guy painting your house because you don't like what the landscaper did to your bushes.

Then we did a horrible job of choosing the players to bring in and we need someone else to do the job of rebuilding this debacle.

[Dick Allen]

Then we did a horrible job of choosing the players to bring in and we need someone else to do the job of rebuilding this debacle.

The players have talent. They haven't played up to the talent. Most likely they will at some point. But fire, fire, fire. That's a meathead approach.

[Balta1701]

The players have talent. They haven't played up to the talent. Most likely they will at some point. But fire, fire, fire. That's a meathead approach.

And doing nothing with this franchise is a ".389, .451, .442" winning percentages are awesome statement.

[LittleHurt05]

The players have talent. They haven't played up to the talent. Most likely they will at some point. But fire, fire, fire. That's a meathead approach.

 

Can I get an upper management position in your organization? What a cush job. It's always the workers' fault, don't sweat it.

[fathom]

The players have talent. They haven't played up to the talent. Most likely they will at some point. But fire, fire, fire. That's a meathead approach.

 

Then how does this get fixed? This is 3 straight years of terrible baseball in almost every aspect. To me, the biggest area for improvement is in the development of players from the farm system. Nearly everyone that's been called up the last couple of years has looked like they have no chance. Just once, you would think someone would overachieve as a Sox prospect.

 

[Dick Allen]

Then how does this get fixed? This is 3 straight years of terrible baseball in almost every aspect. To me, the biggest area for improvement is in the development of players from the farm system. Nearly everyone that's been called up the last couple of years has looked like they have no chance. Just once, you would think someone would overachieve as a Sox prospect.

How would firing the major league manager fix that? And just to show how little someone actually thinks about this, some have mentioned Cooper as a interim replacement. 13th in the AL in ERA with Sale, Samardzija, Q, Robertson, Rodon. The self proclaimed manager of the pitching staff. If you are about accountability, how does promoting him show that?

[fathom]

How would firing the major league manager fix that? And just to show how little someone actually thinks about this, some have mentioned Cooper as a interim replacement. 13th in the AL in ERA with Sale, Samardzija, Q, Robertson, Rodon. The self proclaimed manager of the pitching staff. If you are about accountability, how does promoting him show that?

 

You know I've been someone who's been critical of Cooper for the massive underachieving of the pitching this year. I'm actually ok with Ventura finishing the year, as I don't think anything would change in terms of win-loss record, as too many players came out of the gates slow this season.

[Balta1701]

You know I've been someone who's been critical of Cooper for the massive underachieving of the pitching this year. I'm actually ok with Ventura finishing the year, as I don't think anything would change in terms of win-loss record, as too many players came out of the gates slow this season.

The entire organization needs turned over. Coaches, GM, minor league staff, all of them. This failure comes from every single one of those levels.

 

[aboz56]

I think Robin seems like a nice guy, respect the hell out of him as a player, but this just isn't working. This team should be better than what it is. Ultimately, the manager has to be responsible, right? If this team was winning, he would be getting a ton of credit, so it's fair to criticize and question him for what's currently transpiring. We're past Memorial Day and this team is nowhere near contending. I suppose there is still time to "figure it out," but sometimes there's a case to be made for shaking things up and trying something different. I don't think he's a terrible manager by any means and I'm not confident that someone else would do any better, but this season is going nowhere fast and it's incredibly frustrating to watch.

[Dick Allen]

One thing I read yesterday that was interesting, but it was Cowley so who knows if it really is true, that in 2011 KW fired Walker after Walker had to be restrained from going after him, and before Ozzie fled to Miami, KW fired him as well. JR vetoed both.

[Eminor3rd]

In that case, the team's general manager vastly overestimated the talent available on his team because some of them had made it look too easy last year and invested $50 million this season based on that overestimation. The team's General Manager then has completely failed at his job by any reasonable standard, costing his employer a huge amount of money. He should be replaced.

 

Balta, I love you man, but this response completely missed the entire point of the part you bolded in my post.

 

When it comes to roster moves, a GM makes his money by making predictive decisions. The reality is that every decision you make that is predictive needs to be viewed, essentially, as a probability. For example, every player in baseball, in a given season, comes with a small chance of becoming the best player in the entire league. They also come with higher likelihoods of being average or whatever, but there's no way to prognositcate what is going to happen ahead of time. It's all a deal from the deck, and the GM's job is to stack that deck in his favor as much as possible.

 

So let's take Chris Sale, who has posted a 4.29 ERA so far. Heading into this season, we could expect that there's a tiny chance he'd bust and be the worst pitcher in the league, a larger but still small chance he'd win the CY Young, a larger chance he'd hit the DL for the whole year, a and so on with other outcomes -- but the most likely single outcome was that he'd put out a star-level season as one of the top 20 or so pitchers around. That is the outcome that Hahn expected and should be judged on putting out. Unless you think Chris Sale is a true talent 4.29 ERA pitcher and shouldn't have been considered the ace of a contender, you have to be comfortable with Hahn expecting more.

 

Yet, here we are. Our ace has, on average, pitched like a #4 guy. That's how the cookie crumbles, though, there was ALWAYS a chance that would happen.

 

When you look around the roster, you see a LOT of that to varying degrees. A ton of dudes who are performing below what consensus expected. But the only thing strange about is that it's all happening at once. Individually, they're all realistic, if not necessarily the most likely outcome. And then, when you look around the league and realize that half the teams have to lose every day, even that it's all happening at once doesn't seem strange. Yes, it MIGHT be a coaching problem or a player dev problem or something else that is theoretically fixable -- but from where you and I sit, we have NO evidence to suggest that or anything else in particular. Occam's Razor demands that the most likely outcome is the dudes are just s***ting the bed. Half the guys in the league do it every year.

 

I disagree strongly with the desperation that everyone is feeling regarding the roster. If you look at the preseason predictions thread, you'll see me predicting a roughly .500 record, and yet I adored the offseason that Hahn had. This is because I think he did an EXCELLENT job of balancing short and long-term interests. When I look at the 25 man, the only boat anchor I see is John Danks. I see a team that's due for some bounceback in a lot of areas and is going to retain long-term flexibility in others. Yeah, Samardzija is likely not going to provide value going forward, but that's the cost of doing business. There's no point in running a team if you aren't going to try to win, and the cost was very reasonable. Again, I think we can all agree that the most likely outcome for Semien was much worse than reality and the most likely outcome for Samardzija was a much better one -- but there was ALWAYS a chance it would turn out this way. He traded a guy with a 10% chance of hitting like a star for a guy who had maybe a 50-60% chance of remaining one. Those are rough, oversimplified estimates, but you get my point.

 

If you want to claim the GM failed, you have to judge him on the decisions he made at the time he made them. When the outcomes all fall in the realistic range, sometimes it's just the luck of the draw. You can make a claim about a systemic problem with coaching or scouting, but you need some real good evidence to back it up, and it's very difficult to come up with any from where you and I sit.

[Balta1701]

I very strongly disagree with the concept that you should not judge the GM based on the results of their decision rather than how the decision looked at the time. It's an excuse that leaves us with a losing franchise.

 

If a person makes decisions that constantly look correct at the time and blow up in their face every single time...then it is absolutely time to reevaluate that decision making process and that's where we are right now. The assumptions behind those moves are simply incorrect.

 

We're ignoring defense. We're ignoring fundamentals. We're continuing to push people too aggressively. We thought we had a team (both this year and in 2013) that was ready to compete and we spent a whole lot of money based on that assumption. We are totally failing to understand this roster, this team, or how to build a competitive team.

 

If every decision looks fine and they completely implode, then we need to reevaluate how we're judging these decisions.

 

Either that, or every decision we made did work out, and the coaching staff completely failed in their job of getting those players ready to go. Take your pick. I'm going with "both". neither is not an option unless you're ok with winning 45% of your games.

[kitekrazy]

My pick would be Don Cooper. I don't think he'll be part of the next managing regime, unless he is the manager himself, so might as well give him that chance now. He deserves it after all these years in the organization

 

There's a good chance he's a disaster, which is fine by me. No different then what is going now. At best, his fiery personality could light a fire under this team.

 

His personality will be good to grab some much needed headlines even when we stink. Keep us somewhat relevent. Similar to Ozzie in that regard.

 

Maybe he should be fired as pitching coach. I'll take Ventura over Cooper. In some professional sports when you criticize the fan base like Cooper does, you are shown the door.

 

[Balta1701]

Maybe he should be fired as pitching coach. I'll take Ventura over Cooper. In some professional sports when you criticize the fan base like Cooper does, you are shown the door.

This pitching staff has absolutely earned themselves a new pitching coach with their early season perfomrance.

[kitekrazy]

I very strongly disagree with the concept that you should not judge the GM based on the results of their decision rather than how the decision looked at the time. It's an excuse that leaves us with a losing franchise.

If a person makes decisions that constantly look correct at the time and blow up in their face every single time...then it is absolutely time to reevaluate that decision making process and that's where we are right now. The assumptions behind those moves are simply incorrect.

 

We're ignoring defense. We're ignoring fundamentals. We're continuing to push people too aggressively. We thought we had a team (both this year and in 2013) that was ready to compete and we spent a whole lot of money based on that assumption. We are totally failing to understand this roster, this team, or how to build a competitive team.

 

If every decision looks fine and they completely implode, then we need to reevaluate how we're judging these decisions.

 

Either that, or every decision we made did work out, and the coaching staff completely failed in their job of getting those players ready to go. Take your pick. I'm going with "both". neither is not an option unless you're ok with winning 45% of your games.

 

Rumor has it he doesn't have the control like most GMs. These things you mention are similar to KW running the show.

 

[kitekrazy]

Unfortunately firing Ventura probably comes a replacement inside the organization. It will be rinse and repeat.

[Balta1701]

Unfortunately firing Ventura probably comes a replacement inside the organization. It will be rinse and repeat.

I'm expecting Thome.

[kitekrazy]

I'm expecting Thome.

 

The new rinse and repeat, popular player, ability to manage not required. Maybe Ron Kittle well get a shot some day.

[SCCWS]

The entire organization needs turned over. Coaches, GM, minor league staff, all of them. This failure comes from every single one of those levels.

 

Training staff has done a good job of keeping guys healthy. I think they should be retained

 

[SCCWS]

I'm expecting Thome.

 

I think Tom Thibedeau will get the nod. He will be available and is a stronger personality than Robin.