MLB Discussion - 2012 Season

[RevDMV]

Game 7

Go Giants!!!

[tomalak301]

Vogelsong brought it this LCS series with two awesome starts. Great win for the Giants tonight and looking forward to Game 7 tomorrow. Of course knowing this, I'll probably get called into work another night shift which will suck.

[Timby]

I've been thinking more about the Red Sox today, and I'm starting to think there might be something more going on beneath the surface, because I'm not sure at all what their strategy is at this point.

They cleared a ton of money off the books in that Dodger trade by giving up Gonzalez to move Crawford; I think it knocks their guaranteed commitments in 2013 from $108 million down to $60 million. This upcoming free agent market is pretty awful in terms of its ability to fill their needs. I'm not all that convinced the Red Sox are going to re-spend all the money they just saved, considering that they continue to nickel-and-dime Ortiz with those one-year deals, which is eventually going to stop, giving the team another $15 - 20 million to spend (or not) in the market.

One could very easily theorize that ownership is getting ready to cash out soon, especially with owning a very costly soccer team which has been losing fistfuls of money as of late.

[Skywalker]

I'm kind of expecting ownership to cash out sooner than later, too. Recently it was reported that John Henry was looking to bring in a minority owner as some of his non-sports related ventures have been hit pretty hard this year. Could be a precursor to eventually selling the team completely.

As for John Farrell, I think he'll do a good job in Boston (certainly can't do much worse than Valentine), and I'm really glad they didn't waste any time in bringing him in. Now he's got time to put together his own coaching staff (a luxury Bobby V didn't have). I'm not a fan of trading for managers; I think if a manager wants to leave, they should be allowed to. But I didn't think Mike Aviles was going to be around next year anyway, so whatever.

[Timby]

The thing is, though, that a manager's effect upon a team is incredibly overrated. Look at the Texas Rangers: They have done very, very, very well over the last few years, despite Ron Washington being a very, very, very stupid manager. Good players play well, shitty players play, well, shitty, and that's entirely independent of the manager.

Farrell did not display any aptitude for developing young players during his two years in Toronto, and beyond that, pitching coaches rarely do well as managers. I'm kind of excited to see just how deep the Boston blow-up goes.

[Skywalker]

The manager's effect is overrated, yes, but just having someone there whom both the players and the upper management know and trust is important. Maybe Ron Washington is a strategic dumbass, but if he's successful at the most important part of the job (keeping the clubhouse together), then who cares?

I really don't think things are going to turn out as badly as you're expecting them to.

[Ar-Pharazon]

I always thought of LaRussa as a manager who had a tremendous effect. Even when half the team (Cardinals) was on the DL, they were still usually right up there in the standings.

Now he's gone and they still did well this year, even thought they're about to be eliminated.

So that gives more credence to the "organization as the major factor".

[Flux Capacitor]

Three more outs!

[SmoothieX]

This is one World Series I'll watch when it gets to a possibly decisive game. Other than that, absolutely no interest.

[Flux Capacitor]

The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!

[RevDMV]

Said three times...

Go team, my boy's and I were jumping around having a good old time with this one.

[Flux Capacitor]

Three times typed out just seemed like it'd be obnoxious.

[Saito S]

Congrats to the Giants! What a way to finish. Up nine-zip and with the rain pouring down.

Despite being in the Bay Area, I'm still torn on who to root for. I'm kind of a Tigers fan at the moment.

[Random_Spock]

Flux Capacitor wrote:

---

The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!

Congrats! This should be one interesting World Series.

[Danny99]

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2012/10/2...farrell-again/

Lester is happy; he can go back to eating chicken wings and knocking back a few beers in the clubhouse.

This team needed a disciplined teacher and that's not what they got in Farrell. His two years in Toronto, though the last one marred by injuries, were less than spectacular. Nice guy, but you knew he was checked out when the Escobar gay slur came up and he responded to it as if he had got a parking ticket.

As for the Jays, I hope they bring in someone like about disciplined teacher. We have young talent that lacks leadership and someone that could harness that skill and teach them how to be level-headed every day players, we could have something here.