The Red Sox's pitching staff has a 4.86 ERA, the highest in the American League and 29th worst in MLB. ... The starters' ERA is 5.54.
A replacement has not been named.
Reading through the SoSH thread, many media members are seeing Nieves as a scapegoat.
Ken Rosenthal @Ken_RosenthalEarlier this week, on May 3, Ryan Hannable tweeted:
#RedSox announce firing of pitching coach Juan Nieves. Suggestion: Find better pitchers.
Pete Abraham @PeteAbe
#RedSox fired pitching coach Juan Nieves, team announces. There’s one fall guy.
Jason Mastrodonato @JMastrodonato
Juan Nieves, the fall guy? Red Sox have fired their pitching coach.
Dan Sostek @dan_sostek
Scapegoating Juan Nieves for the staff's issues is pretty ridiculous. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.
Maureen Mullen @MaureenaMullen
Can't fire a pitching staff so Red Sox fire pitching coach Juan Nieves instead.
Farrell indicated he's maybe done more 1-on-1 work with the pitchers than he's done in the past given the early season struggles.
6 comments:
Maureen Mullen @MaureenaMullen:
Farrell: not sure "connection was made with current group" of starting pitchers by Nieves
Rob Bradford @bradfo:
Cherington: 'Nothing happened specifically recently that precipitated this' (in regards to Nieves dismissal)
Rob Bradford @bradfo:
"Perceived inability by Nieves to get through to current group of starters like he had with previous rotations seems biggest issue"
Tim Britton @TimBritton:
"Farrell: "The biggest thing is the [next] pitching coach has to have the ability to connect and adjust.""
Scott Lauber @ScottLauber:
"Farrell on Nieves: "The ability to affect change when needed or adjustments required, that wasn't the same as we saw two years ago.""
Cherington:
"John and I simply got to the point where we felt that, in order to continue to push forward and make improvements, we needed to make a change and have a different voice in that particular position."
"Maureen Mullen @MaureenaMullen
Can't fire a pitching staff"
Is she aware that we pretty much just did this?
A lot of these tweets are completely lazy on a Dennis and Callahan level. It's right up there with, "The front office doesn't care about winning! They just want to sell bricks!"
It's a heck of a presumption that Nieves is simply being fired to be the "fall guy." That would mean that after his firing everyone pats themselves on the back for cleverly throwing the hounds of their trails, and have absolutely no plans to address the pitching problems beyond the firing of Nieves. I don't think that's going to happen.
Isn't it possible that they saw many problems with the pitching staff, AND that Nieves wasn't maximizing their potential? Isn't it possible for both things to be true at the same time? Of course we are a society that doesn't do well with nuance. There has to be black and white good guys/bad guys in every situation.
Even if we go with the assumption that Nieves had nothing to do with their poor performance and that pitchers can only perform to their level, doesn't that cut both ways? Doesn't that also mean that he's basically extraneous and serves no real function?
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