{"id":9437,"date":"2017-10-11T12:46:59","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T16:46:59","guid":{"rendered":"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/?p=9437"},"modified":"2017-10-11T13:23:51","modified_gmt":"2017-10-11T17:23:51","slug":"red-sox-fire-john-farrell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2017\/10\/11\/red-sox-fire-john-farrell\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Sox Fire John Farrell as Manager"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Though the <a href=\"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/mlb-teams\/boston-red-sox\/\" target=\"_self\">Boston Red Sox<\/a> were handed an early playoff exit by the <a href=\"lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/mlb-teams\/houston-astros\/\" target=\"_self\">Houston Astros<\/a>, many a Sox fan&#8217;s fondest wish came true Wednesday morning. Despite winning the American League East title for the second year in a row, manager <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=farrejo03,farrejo02&amp;search=John+Farrell&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">John Farrell<\/a><\/strong> was fired by team president Dave Dombrowski. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/espn\/now?nowId=21-40004953-4\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The decision was actually made on Tuesday<\/a> after a meeting with the baseball ops staff, but Dombrowski spoke with the team&#8217;s ownership goup before calling Farrell to inform him. The process of finding a new manager has already begun.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/RedSox?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#RedSox<\/a> announced today that John Farrell will not return as manager in 2018. A search for a new manager will begin immediately.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Red Sox (@RedSox) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RedSox\/status\/918105967316828162?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 11, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Red Sox Fire John Farrell<\/h2>\n<p>Though his decisions often irked fans, to the point that they called for his head loudly and often over the past few seasons, Farrell enjoyed a great deal of success during his tenure as manager. He took over the helm of the Red Sox in 2013 after <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/v\/valenbo02.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bobby Valentine<\/a><\/strong>&#8216;s disastrous 2012 season. In his first year, propelled by the emotion of the Boston Marathon bombing and the indomitable will of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/o\/ortizda01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">David Ortiz<\/a><\/strong>, Farrell led Boston to an AL East crown and its third World Series title this century.<\/p>\n<p>However, Farrell&#8217;s Red Sox finished at the bottom of the division in both 2014 and 2015, and the inevitable calls for a change in leadership began. He led his team back to the top of the division in 2016, but a sweep in the first round of the playoffs all but erased the good will that earned him. In fact, it seemed support for his ouster only increased.<\/p>\n<p>Fans would often cite Farrell&#8217;s bullpen management and linuep configurations when arguing in favor of removing him. In 2017, Farrell won 93 games and an AL East title for the second year in a row, but those same complaints remained. Though he enjoyed a relatively high amount of success (Farrell is the only manager in team history to win three division titles), every few games it seemed he would make a decision that would cost them a win and leave fans dumbfounded. Those moments lost him the support of the crowd. In Boston, that usually signals the beginning of the end.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Farrell finished last two years in a row and survived. He then won the AL East two years in a row and was fired.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/PeteAbe\/status\/918107255685435392?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 11, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>While the Red Sox did avoid being swept out of the playoffs this year, they never really looked like a match for the Astros. That isn&#8217;t necessarily Farrell&#8217;s fault; his starting pitchers under-performed and his lineup, devoid of power all season, just couldn&#8217;t keep pace with Houston&#8217;s. Yet, when any team fails, the manager is always first to bear the blame. The denizens of Fenway consider anything less than a title to be failure. When the Red Sox left the playoffs early for the second year in a row, it felt as though this decision was a foregone conclusion. Today, that was proven true.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"DYVus1RcR9x4MsWbHNRvAQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/859432756\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'DYVus1RcR9x4MsWbHNRvAQ',sig:'NkQsHAoV_vRlPuxdSzmJrn_YjNXTC9ugS5qfx1ZPS8U=',w:'594px',h:'401px',items:'859432756',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Though the Boston Red Sox were handed an early playoff exit by the Houston Astros, many a Sox fan&#8217;s fondest wish came true Wednesday morning. Despite winning the American League East title for the second year in a row, manager John Farrell was fired by team president Dave Dombrowski. The decision was actually made on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":807,"featured_media":9438,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1071,35],"tags":[68,240,475,474,69],"class_list":["post-9437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-redsox","category-mlb","category-news","tag-baseball","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-dave-dombrowski","tag-john-farrell","tag-mlb"],"modified_by":"John Jackson","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/807"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}