Bobby V Running Thread

[Evil Bastard (aka Chris_L)]

Bobby V career .490 MLB winning percentage.

Sorry, but it's .510. He was at .490 w/the Rangers.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/managers/valenbo02.shtml

So that makes him slightly better than the Herm Edwards of baseball managers

Did Herm get to two conference title games?

C'mon. Bobby has his faults, but he's never needed the baseball equivalent of an assistant coach to manage something as remedial as keeping track of timeouts.

Something remedial as say pitch count for a guy making his 2nd career start? 111 pitches. Even Grady Little thought he left Bard in too long.

Link?

http://bit.ly/IZ8hKa

 

[cranberry]

And he's lost his clubhouse everywhere he's managed.

Everyone loses the clubhouse at the end.

Or, in this case, seven games into his first season.

Little early to say that.

And it's the same clubhouse and the same festering issues that caused last year's implosion. The Red Sox put a band aid on a gaping gunshot wound.

Caused? There's not a player in the Red Sox clubhouse who believes "clubhouse chemistry" was even remotely responsible for their collapse at the end. Fried chicken! Beer! While the game was going on! My God!

 

[imjustagirl]

Mike Scioscia .548

 

[cranberry]

Bobby Cox .556

 

[Evil Bastard (aka Chris_L)]

Eric Estrada .357

 

[Zeke12]

John .316

 

[BYH]

And he's lost his clubhouse everywhere he's managed.

Everyone loses the clubhouse at the end.

Or, in this case, seven games into his first season.

Little early to say that.

And it's the same clubhouse and the same festering issues that caused last year's implosion. The Red Sox put a band aid on a gaping gunshot wound.

Caused? There's not a player in the Red Sox clubhouse who believes "clubhouse chemistry" was even remotely responsible for their collapse at the end. Fried chicken! Beer! While the game was going on! My God!

Oh look, cranberry is leaping to the defense of players. This is the most surprising thing to ever happen at SportsJournalists.com.

I'm not saying clubhouse chemistry ruined the 2011 Sox. But SOMETHING was amiss from within. Something was toxic. Maybe it was as simple as some guys getting old at the same time (Youkilis/Beckett) and some guys ill-suited for Boston (Crawford/Lackey). Maybe it was Adrian Gonzalez' bad shoulder. Maybe it was just poor conditioning that turned the Sox into turds after Labor Day.

But it wasn't Terry Francona. It was the players purchased by Lord Theo Epstein--who, of course, beat it the hell out of there. If the Red Sox suck this year, it's going to largely be the fault of the players who contributed to the giant collapse last season.

 

[Azrael]

Terry Francona .529

 

[Evil Bastard (aka Chris_L)]

BYH - management ****ed the team last year. They went into the season without giving Francona an extensions so he basically was a lame duck and the players knew it - which is one reason they felt comfortable with fried chicken and beer. The "leaders" on the team were also without contracts - Ortiz, Wakefield and Varitek were all on the last year of their deal. They easily could have given all three players extensions and still come out ahead of what they ended up having to pay Ortiz through arbitration. This has John Henry's and Lucchino's fingerprints all over it.

Which is the main reason why Theo fled the town for greener pastures.

 

[cranberry]

And he's lost his clubhouse everywhere he's managed.

Everyone loses the clubhouse at the end.

Or, in this case, seven games into his first season.

Little early to say that.

And it's the same clubhouse and the same festering issues that caused last year's implosion. The Red Sox put a band aid on a gaping gunshot wound.

Caused? There's not a player in the Red Sox clubhouse who believes "clubhouse chemistry" was even remotely responsible for their collapse at the end. Fried chicken! Beer! While the game was going on! My God!

Oh look, cranberry is leaping to the defense of players. This is the most surprising thing to ever happen at SportsJournalists.com.

I'm not saying clubhouse chemistry ruined the 2011 Sox. But SOMETHING was amiss from within. Something was toxic. Maybe it was as simple as some guys getting old at the same time (Youkilis/Beckett) and some guys ill-suited for Boston (Crawford/Lackey). Maybe it was Adrian Gonzalez' bad shoulder. Maybe it was just poor conditioning that turned the Sox into turds after Labor Day.

But it wasn't Terry Francona. It was the players purchased by Lord Theo Epstein--who, of course, beat it the hell out of there. If the Red Sox suck this year, it's going to largely be the fault of the players who contributed to the giant collapse last season.

OK, I can agree with most of that, anyway. It definitely wasn't on Tito.

But if the Red Sox don't win this year the blame will be shared by a front office that failed to sufficiently upgrade, injuries to key people like Ellsbury and Bailey, and Bobby Valentine for losing the clubhouse.

 

[BYH]

Something remedial as say pitch count for a guy making his 2nd career start? 111 pitches. Even Grady Little thought he left Bard in too long.

I wouldn't have left him in that long, especially when he's throwing seven straight balls to end his afternoon. But maybe Bobby thought, at 0-0, it was Bard's game to win or lose and that being given that opportunity was important in his development. Perhaps Bard will end up hurt and this will be proven to have been a bad decision on Bobby's part. It is worth pointing out Joba Chamberlain didn't exceed 100 pitches until his fifth big league start and look where it got him.

As for newly converted relievers throwing in excess of 100 pitches: Neftali Feliz threw 108 pitches in his first start this season.

 

[cranberry]

Something remedial as say pitch count for a guy making his 2nd career start? 111 pitches. Even Grady Little thought he left Bard in too long.

I wouldn't have left him in that long, especially when he's throwing seven straight balls to end his afternoon. But maybe Bobby thought, at 0-0, it was Bard's game to win or lose and that being given that opportunity was important in his development. Perhaps Bard will end up hurt and this will be proven to have been a bad decision on Bobby's part. It is worth pointing out Joba Chamberlain didn't exceed 100 pitches until his fifth big league start and look where it got him.

As for newly converted relievers throwing in excess of 100 pitches: Neftali Feliz threw 108 pitches in his first start this season.

Shall we get Rob Dibble's viewpoint?

 

[Evil Bastard (aka Chris_L)]

BYH - I'm assuming you saw the game yesterday. It was clear to everyone that Bard was gassed.

Well clear to everyone except Super Genius Wile E. Valentine

 

[BYH]

BYH - management ****ed the team last year. They went into the season without giving Francona an extensions so he basically was a lame duck and the players knew it - which is one reason they felt comfortable with fried chicken and beer. The "leaders" on the team were also without contracts - Ortiz, Wakefield and Varitek were all on the last year of their deal. They easily could have given all three players extensions and still come out ahead of what they ended up having to pay Ortiz through arbitration. This has John Henry's and Lucchino's fingerprints all over it.

Which is the main reason why Theo fled the town for greener pastures.

That Francona was a lame duck is a matter of semantics. The Sox had options on him for 2012 and 2013. If they were planning to let him go, wouldn't Farrell have stuck around? He looked like the heir apparent for years. I'll agree that Farrell wouldn't have actively tried to backstab his good friend. But if the Sox had this plan to nudge out Francona, wouldn't they have made sure to make it worth Farrell's while to stay?

I don't doubt that Lucchino and, especially, Henry thought Tito was a country bumpkin and that anyone off the street could have done a better job. But if everything went as planned last year, the thought of dumping Francona doesn't enter anyone's mind.

As for extending Ortiz, Wakefield and Varitek--Wakefield and Varitek were done, completely done. Maybe Varitek could still be of value as a personal catcher for Beckett, but that's certainly not worth signing him to an extension before the season. Signing them to extensions would have made the 2012 team worse. Ortiz was 35 and coming off three decidedly non-peak years. The Sox were absolutely correct in exploiting his position, or lack thereof, and making him earn a contract, on their terms, by putting up a pretty good year. Any other team would have done that.

 

[BYH]

BYH - I'm assuming you saw the game yesterday. It was clear to everyone that Bard was gassed.

Well clear to everyone except Super Genius Wile E. Valentine

I already said I agree I wouldn't have left him that long and especially after he could no longer find the strike zone. Just saying maybe Bobby thought it was pivotal to his development. He could certainly be proven wrong in the form of a Tommy John surgery. Which might have happened anyway. Joba Chamberlain didn't exceed 100 pitches until his fifth start in 2008 and we all know how that turned out.

(Edit: Crap. I thought I'd deleted the Joba info from the first post. My bad.)

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Valentine has always struck me as a pretty good manager who has a desperate need to be the center of attention, which undercuts his abilities significantly. Publicly criticizing a player, slumping or not, in April is just foolish. It does no one any good. But Bobby was on a sports news show, so he felt an uncontrollable urge to make news.
It's also been widely reported (unsourced) that Valentine wanted to keep Bard in the bullpen. This makes me wonder about yesterday and if there were subconscious ulterior motives.

 

[Evil Bastard (aka Chris_L)]

Michael - that's actually a very good point about Bard and Valentine.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

Youkilis made it pretty plain in the offseason he wanted eventually to play in his hometown of Cincinnati. That might be sooner than later.

 

[Gator]

I understand why you don't criticize players publicly, especially this early in the season, but these athletes are bunch of insensitive pussies. Last year, after the collapse, Sox Nation begged to get a manager in there who wasn't going to be buddy-buddy with them. That obviously didn't work with Terry Francona, the world's best bridge partner.

So Bobby laid into a guy a little when he's batting .200 and has three RBIs in the cleanup spot. So what? Why are all these athletes so ****ing sensitive? They were babied last year and it got them nothing but grief. You can say all you want about Valentine wanting to be the story, but maybe this is what needs to be done to light a damn fire under these players.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

I understand why you don't criticize players publicly, especially this early in the season, but these athletes are bunch of insensitive pussies. Last year, after the collapse, Sox Nation begged to get a manager in there who wasn't going to be buddy-buddy with them. That obviously didn't work with Terry Francona, the world's best bridge partner.

So Bobby laid into a guy a little when he's batting .200 and has three RBIs in the cleanup spot. So what? Why are all these athletes so ****ing sensitive? They were babied last year and it got them nothing but grief. You can say all you want about Valentine wanting to be the story, but maybe this is what needs to be done to light a damn fire under these players.

He wasn't criticizing Youkilis' production. He was questioning his commitment. That's pretty insulting for any professional, regardless of what their job is.