[Dave] Dombrowski was strangely circumspect in Wednesday's press conference to announce [John] Farrell's dismissal. He repeatedly avoided specifics and declined to get into details as to his reasoning for recommending the move.
A source familiar with Dombrowski's thinking, however, suggested that Farrell was being evaluated for the entirety of his tenure since Dombrowski arrived ...
The same source indicated Dombrowski was unhappy with some of the clubhouse dynamics, and, in particular, the incident with the Baltimore Orioles early in the season.
Dombrowski loudly confronted Farrell over his handling of the team's comportment after Manny Macahdo's takeout slide – from the sloppiness and ineptitude of the on-field response, and Dustin Pedroia's on-camera message ("It's not me; it's them") — didn't speak well for team unity.
Farrell was further cast in a negative light by the David Price-Dennis Eckersley incident where the manager seemed uncomfortably caught in between a petulant player's overreaction to Eckersley's color analysis ... Farrell understood that publicly calling Price out for his behavior could jeopardize the manager's own standing in the clubhouse.
One baseball source suggested that while Henry had long been a backer of Farrell's, that support began to waver this season as the team underperformed for stretches, and Henry, who is intensely driven by analytics, began to join the chorus of those who found fault with Farrell's tactical moves.
Recently, Henry scoffed when someone suggested that the team's dismal performance in the first two games in Houston in the ALDS was not something that could be blamed on Farrell. In retrospect, losing Henry's confidence may have been the most obvious signal that his days were numbered.
Players believed Dombrowski and Farrell didn't get along. Whether their disagreements were worse than those between other president/GMs and managers, the clubhouse perception was that the head-butting had reached advanced levels. Once players form such a narrative among themselves, it becomes a problem. And it was.
Dombrowski might say he had a good working relationship with Farrell. Maybe he believed it in some sense. But between the clubhouse perception, the weirdly vague press conference, and the manager not mentioning his former boss by name in his post-firing statement (only thanking "two front office groups") saying the two saw eye to eye starts to sound like a stretch ...
Deciphering exactly how Dombrowski viewed Farrell at the end isn't completely straightforward, however. Two discrepancies stand out.
The first was Dombrowski's recent proclamation that his manager had done "a great job" in 2017, only to turn around Wednesday and say "John did a nice job for us." (I heard at least one person in the know suggest this was the one question Farrell asked when Dombrowski summoned him to Fenway to reveal his fate on Wednesday.) ...
There was a sense that this was not the atmosphere of a first-place team for most of the year. And that's not coming from a media that only sees glimpses. This is from those on the inside. And, according to those who would know, this was at least in part because of the cloud hanging over the upper-management/manager relationship.
Except for a few outliers, the communication concerns that some had zeroed in on between Farrell and his players weren't a deal-breaker between the manager and the clubhouse. Farrell wasn't typically a jokester and wouldn't be classified as a manager who was going to lighten the clubhouse mood. But the players understood his strengths and weaknesses. ...
Farrell was caught in between. He never quite attained a my-way-or-the-highway bully pulpit, but he also failed to exude a come-in-for-coffee vibe. ...
The bottom line was that you had an intense manager and an omnipresent president who made more road trips than any of his predecessors. As the players can attest, it wasn't a good combination.
A lot of people from the ground to the upstairs boxes felt that he was tired, that there was a lack of energy around the team and the clubhouse. In his defense, this 2017 Red Sox team had holes; they were last in homers, their 4-5 spots in the order had the worst OPS in the major leagues, there were vital injuries to Dustin Pedroia and others, Hanley Ramirez included. ...
One of the Red Sox executives who was in on the interviews after the 2012 season, called [Brad] Ausmus' interview the best he'd ever seen; had Farrell not gotten free of Toronto, he'd have been the manager. Brad grew up in Cheshire, Ct. a Red Sox fan. ...
Alex Cora's name is going to be discussed. He, too, is exceptionally smart, and while he hasn't got major league managerial experience, he has managed in winter ball and the World Baseball Classic ...
This is an important decision. The window here closes soon, where the Yankee window is just opening. The good young Red Sox players are soon going to make big coin. According to MLBTraderumors.com, Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley, Jr., Tyler Thornburg, Xander Bogaerts, Eduardo Rodriguez, Joe Kelly and Drew Pomeranz stand to make between $30-35M in arbitration this winter. If so, they will take the payroll within $20-25M of the luxury tax threshold. ...
Then Sale and Craig Kimbrel are up after 2019 and 2020. They will need to start making baseball trades in lieu of shopping for free agents at Tiffany's and draining the farm system, which they're going to need in the next two years. ...
There are probably two more seasons before the window starts closing ...They need to look at Cleveland, see their pro scouting (Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, Trevor Bauer, (Mike Clevinger, et al), and copy. They need to continually deal for undervalued 40 man roster players. ...
Bringing back the feel of winning three World Series in a decade is going to require more than a managerial search, it requires a long, hard look at every part of what the Boston Red Sox have become.
After seeing the pantomimes in the Yankee dugout this year and hearing that the Sox didn't have the atmosphere of a first place team, I'm beginning to wonder whether forced mirth isn't being institutionalized as part of the players' job description. The only thing worse than the players acting as fun police when their opponents are enthusiastic would be watching teams mimic obligatory joy as a marketing tool.
After seeing the pantomimes in the Yankee dugout this year and hearing that the Sox didn't have the atmosphere of a first place team, I'm beginning to wonder whether forced mirth isn't being institutionalized as part of the players' job description. The only thing worse than the players acting as fun police when their opponents are enthusiastic would be watching teams mimic obligatory joy as a marketing tool.
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