Too dumb to manage.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

well, Hahn would have to get the OK from KW who'd have to get the OK from JR. sooo, not gonna happen.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

I know he doesn't have much to work with, but you can't manage your pitchers out of fear. He went one batter too long with Noesi. Made the textbook move to the lefty when Putnam was real good. And then the lefty pitched scared to Davis anyway. Another pitching change to a guy who got himself in a bad count and was overmatched vs. Cruz.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

This has become a recent problem. Someone was looking to move minor league pieces 2 weeks ago.

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

Too bad the Sox don't have the young bullpen arms like the Cubs.

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

James dont be so negative.

Wait until next year.

If anything, the Braintrust has shown they can find pitchers that have been discarded, to do well. Even without having the magic of don cooper in a bottle.

Now they just need to start keeping these same pitchers.

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

Toss in wise ass Coop

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I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

Coop is the quintessential guy who is baffled by his own brilliance.

It was a rare treat listening to Rongey defend Ventura last night. Admittedly the callers I heard were braindead. Like Caller Les who wanted the Sox to walk Cruz with the bases loaded. Once the AAA pitcher had his 2-0 count on Cruz it was already too late.

The first big mistake was trying to squeeze an extra couple outs out of Noesi when he was clearly lucky to get through the seventh. Rongey defended Ventura on that by saying the bullpen is worn out. But the way he is doing things isn't helping them be less worn out. I guess Robin's method for saving the bullpen is to get the game into extra innings and use up all the relievers so Leury Garcia can pitch in a tie game.

The second big mistake was pulling Putnam who looked to be cruising to play lefty/lefty percentages against Davis. That would be fine if your lefty was going to come at Davis. But he pussy-footed around him and gave him what amounted to a non-intentional intentional walk. If they were going to do that, it would have been smarter to just let Putnam walk Davis and go after Cruz. If Davis hits one out it's only 4-3. And why are we so terrified of Chris Davis who strikes out as much as Dunn and Baez?

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I agree. Ventura was bad last year, and he has been pretty bad this year. Even when they were winning (like earlier this year and in 2012), a good chunk of games were won despite Ventura's moves.

I don't care if he is lefty or not, Scott Downs has no business being on an MLB roster. 0-2 5.32 ERA, 39 base runners allowed in 23.2 IP (1.56 WHIP), -0.2 WAR. Just awful. What the fuck good is a lefty specialist who can't get a lefty hitter out?

_________________

that's what Hawk was suggesting as well

I'm sure I'm crappin' myself here, because I can remember thinking "NOT HIM!" quite often when Ozzie would make pitching changes, but a manager can't really be afraid to use any guy in his bullpen in this era of baseball.

And granted, the quality of guys Guillen was dealing with was far better than these bums even when Ozzie's pens were at their worst. But Guillen's philosophy seemed to be that this guy is on my roster, my GM has given him to me, I have to be able to use him. If he can't get the job done that's not my fault.

You can't manage your pen from a place of fear. Of course you'd rather have Arthur Rhodes as your lefty specialist than Scott Downs, but if Downs is your guy, I don't think you can treat him any differently than you would treat Rhodes if you had him. You only have so many guys. You have to be able to use them.

So I don't have a problem with bringing in Downs to face Davis philosophically. It's what Downs did once he was in there. He was more concerned with not having Davis make it a 4-3 game than he was with getting him out.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

They kinda suck. Just not a good team at all.


Managers dont really matter. I think we get worked up when our team is average or below, thinking they could be something better than what they are.

You know I agree with that. Over the season it doesn't matter much at all. No manager ever made a shitty team good.

I just find Ventura's management of his pitchers very odd. And people say, "Oh, Coop handles all that", but I don't think that's right because the differences between what Guillen did and what Ventura does are clear.

Take Downs last night for example. Maybe I'm way off here and he is just such a turd he couldn't throw a strike, but I don't think so. I think he was pitching to Davis the way Ventura and Coop wanted him to.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I understand your frustration and Ive been through the same thing.

Its probably more accurate to say Managers cant make you a lot better than what you are

I think its more true on the upside. At best I think a LaRussa type might steal 7 games in a season. But a bad manager can lose a bunch

I agree. But in a situation like last nite when you have Putnam in there and he gets two quick outs leave him in for the 3rd out. Its not like he walked a guy, got behind in the count, and two guys hit laser beams that happened to be right at an outfielder. These were two lazy fly balls to CF. Up 4-0, no speed on the bases, Putnam in a groove, let him try and get the lefty out.


I agree with that overall. But there are examples like the one I posted above where a manager's decision is the direct result of the outcome. Maybe Putnam gives up a grand slam too, maybe Belasario comes in and blows the lead again in the 9th....obviously we'll never know. But give how Putnam was chucking last night, and seeing that Downs has given up over 30 base runners in his 23.2 innings of work, I liked the Sox chances better with Putnam than going to other guys last night.

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Let's see if Rick will start a war on two fronts with a defense of Ventura.

I love Ventura and I hated the decision to hire him since Day 1.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

There is no defense of Ventura.

He hasn't gotten even the slightest bit better from day one.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

1. Cooper is a miracle worker.
2. Ventura is a terrible manager.
3. OG was a good manager up til the very end there.
4. I'm thinking a manager is worth plus/minus 5 games or so.

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

At least they cut Downs.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

What has Anne Sullivan done over the last couple of years????

_________________
I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

If he hasn't gotten better since day one and he isn't good now then he wasn't good on day one, which means it wasn't a good hire. dolphin wins!

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

He was in no way a good hire.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Were there any Sox fans that thought Ventura was a good hire? Can't imagine there were many.

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

I did. I knew he was inexperienced but I thought he would turn into a good manager.

I doubt he even watched the Fred McGriff video with how little he improved.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

BR I didn't think it was good, but I didn't think he would be this bad either.

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This is Terry Bevington like

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I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

...but you said the manager didnt really matter?

This move by the Sox shows a level of aloofness throughout the organization, that whatever they do is right and they don't intend to correct it, no matter what it is.

And at this point, my guy Hahn takes just as much blame as Kenny on this one, as even though kenny and jerry wanted him resigned, they still allowed Hahn to give final approval on this one.

_________________
"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

I believe that "final approval" is the real life equivalent of a band leader being told either his signature or his brains will be on the contract

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

The Robin Ventura contract extension simply gave him a nice parting gift when he is fired.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

He really does need to be fired.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul