Terry Francona: HOF

All I know is Francona managed the shit out of that game last night.

 

HOF performance by Francona. Now leaning toward Indians cap.

 

With the C or with Chief Wahoo.

 

Managed the fuck out of it, while Lord Theo's $184M toy sat on the bench for eight innings.

Have we noted how many players Tito is missing from a roster put together on a K-Mart budget? What a manager. What a year he's having. Hope he manages two more wins out of it.

 

Lackey is a horrendous human being. He's OK as a supporting cast member w/a strong support staff, like he's had in St. L and Chi. But let a schmuck like that run the show--while pitching to a 6.41 ERA, for crying out loud!--with easily impressionable people like Buchholz (and apparently Lester, which had to be one of the great disappointments of Francona's career) and shit like 2011 happens.

Beckett is a good dude but headstrong. Once you tell him no, he'll only do what you told him not to. At some point, Lord Theo had to realize Francona was no longer getting thru to Beckett, step in and be a parent. But he was too busy crafting the narrative of his exit.

Adrian Gonzalez was a terrible acquisition. Charmin-soft in a big market. Ditto for Crawford. That was a bad team with bad people/bad pieces. It sure as hell was more the GM's fault than the manager's, no matter how much the GM tries to tell the world NESN made him do it.

 

Gonzalez was well within his strong career norms as a Red Sox. It was spending all the money on Crawford that was that winter's real disaster.

 

Giving up Rizzo for Gonzalez was just as bad.

Theo occasionally failed at finding players who had the right persona for the market. Renteria, Lugo, Drew (although he did come through in some clutch situations), Crawford, Gonzalez, Gagne ... That's one thing Cashman has been almost masterful with over the years.

 

Epsteins done a really shitty job with the Cubs. They aren't set up for long run at all.

 

They recovered nicely from losing Brantley, but it really is amazing to see them make this run without Carrasco and mostly without Salazar.

 

As of one inning in tonight, Indians have allowed less than 25 runs against three of the top five offensive clubs in baseball. Francona is a terrific manager, but pitching like that would make Danny Ozark and Butch Hobson look smart.

 

No doubt, but Francona deserves some credit for shuffling those pitchers in and out to cover for all of the injuries. It isn't as if he has just been able to roll his starters out there.

 

Every expert I heard was giving the Cubs the advantage in this series because of their pitching. Just sayin'.