Try Hating Farrell For Right Reasons

February 28, 2013; Bradenton, FL, USA; Boston Red Sox manager John Farrell (53) talks with the media prior to the game against the Boston Red Sox at McKechnie Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY SportsI’m not going to try to tell any fan of the Toronto Blue Jays why they should or shouldn’t hate John Farrell. I’m just going to give my opinion on why I think he should be hated.

You can hate Farrell for wanting to go to Boston if you want. But really would you rather have that incompetent *insert your favorite curse word* stay and still manage the Jays?

As far as I was concerned any scenario where Farrell was no longer the manager is great. If he wanted to punch me in my chest as hard as he can 4 times in a row in exchange for not being the Jays manager I would have been fine with it. If that’s what it would have taken to never see him wearing a Blue Jays hat ever again.

The fact that he wanted to go to a team that happens to play in the AL East makes it look worse. If his “dream job” was in Arizona there’d probably be a lot less hostility towards him.

I also find it hard to hate on someone for wanting to pursue a dream even if it comes at another teams “expense”.

But it’s not like Farrell was a good manager that we lost to a division rival.

He’s a bad manager. That’s why Blue Jays fan should hate him.

However many wins the average manager costs a team with bad decisions Farrell has to costs the team 8 times more. Exaggerating? Probably, but it’s got to be more than the average manager. His inconvenience on the Jays is now the Red Sox problem.

Farrell was a bad manager in every way possible.

You can start with his lineup construction. He wouldn’t set the lineup according to how good the hitters are like having Ben Francisco hit ahead of Brett Lawrie. He would have a righty/lefty/righty/lefty lineup even if it wasn’t the best lineup order. Or it would take him way too long to make a lineup change when the offense wasn’t clicking. It took him way longer than it should have to move Edwin Encarnacion into the 4th spot in the lineup then it should have last season. He had Adam Lind hitting 4th as recently as a few days before he was demoted to the minors.

His misuse of the bullpen is mind blowing considering he was a pitcher in the major leagues and a pitching coach. He’d bring in relievers to face lefties that have bad numbers against lefties or vice versa. He’d take a reliever out of a game after throwing just 5 pitches even if there was no reason why they couldn’t keep pitching.

Then there’s the base running. The base running! Stealing bases and taking the extra base is a great tool if you have the players to do it with. Aaron Hill, Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Bautista, Eric Thames, etc are not those kind of players. So surprise surprise there going to get thrown out a lot if you tell them to steal bases when they shouldn’t be. Not only would Farrell have the wrong kind of players stealing bases he’d have them doing it at the wrong time. Like stealing 3rd base when you’re down 5 runs with 2 outs.

So now when you see Farrell making bad decisions for the Red Sox whenever they play the Jays you can laugh and laugh and laugh out of the pity that you’d never thought you’d have for the Red Sox.

In my opinion you should hate Farrell for being a horrible manager. You can hate Farrell for wanting to go to Boston if you want. Or you can love the Red Sox for taking him off our hands.