Effectively Wild: A FanGraphs Baseball Podcast - Effectively Wild Episode 673: The Red Sox Pitching Coach Kerfuffle

Episode Date: May 8, 2015

Ben and Sam talk to Providence Journal Red Sox beat writer Brian MacPherson about the Red Sox rotation and the firing of Juan Nieves.

Change is now, change is now, things that seem to be solid are not. All is now, all is now, the time that we have to live Gather all that we can Keep in harmony with love's sweet path Good morning and welcome to episode 673 of Effectively Wild, the daily podcast from Baseball Prospectus, presented by the Play Index at BaseballReference.com. I am Ben Lindberg of Grantland, joined by Sam Miller of Baseball Prospectus. Hello. Hello. We're doing a second Red Sox

podcast of the week. We didn't plan it that way. We didn't plan anyway, but this is what's happening because the Red Sox fired their pitching coach, Juan Nieves, and so that is news, and that gives us tentpole to peg in episode two, and we are going to talk about this move and other Red Sox-related things with Brian McPherson, the Red Sox beat writer for the Providence Journal. Hey, Brian. Hello. How are you? All right. So you are off today. The Red Sox are not playing and you are pressed into service to write about a pitching coach being fired. And I'm sure that you have followed the general reaction and the general reaction so far, it seems, is the same as the general reaction to any manager or coach firing,

which is, what was he supposed to do? The players weren't good enough. It's not his fault. He's being scapegoated. Or maybe even some stuff about how the Red Sox aren't really as bad as they've been. And yes, they have the worst DRA in the American League, second only to the Rockies in the major leagues. You can always count on the Rockies to be at the top of that second only to the Rockies in the major leagues. You can always count on the Rockies to be at the top of that leaderboard or the bottom. So that's the general reaction,

the scapegoating, as if they were just looking for someone to fire to blame for this bad performance. I am guessing there is quite a bit more to it than that, but you tell us. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there's some element of that. I mean, it's hard for us on the outside to know what coaches, what sort of impact coaches have. You know, same with managers. And, you know, it's hard to quantify, so we try and ignore it. But, you know, certainly it exists. Pitching coaches would not exist if they did not have some sort of impact. And you look around baseball and you see someone like Ray Searidge in Pittsburgh and you see what happens when you have a really good pitching coach

or at least someone who we sort of perceive as a really good pitching coach. The Red Sox were kind of getting the opposite reaction to that. John Farrell today in a conference call talked about how the primary goal, there are two primary goals for the pitching coach. One is the game plan for each game with the starting pitcher and the catcher, and the other is recognizing where each pitcher is in need of improvement and communicating that and developing a plan for that improvement with each pitcher. You could see ways in which there were failings in both of those areas.

Certainly, the pitchers themselves have a lot to do with this, and you could say that there's some message here that you fire the pitching coach first to put the pitchers on notice that they could be next. Not that Rick Porcello, for example, is too concerned about being next to the four-year contract extension. But I think there is an element of – looking back on it now, especially with the benefit of knowing that the Red Sox were point. We knew it wasn't going to be a great rotation, but it seemed like it could be an average rotation, at least like a decent placeholder until they make a trade. And it has been worse than that. At least maybe you can make a case that the peripherals are better than the runs allowed. But do you have any specific ideas of what went wrong exactly or what didn't go right, at least?

So the first thing that came to mind when I was thinking about this was Joe Kelly. John Farrell keeps talking and talking about how he wants Joe Kelly to incorporate his secondary stuff. Because he throws 98, and he loves throwing 98. And it seems like there have been several starts where he's just thrown fastball, fastball, fastball. There have been several starts where he's just thrown fastball, fastball, fastball. And Juan Nieves has said that he doesn't care about pitch selection as much because he believes a well-executed pitch, the pitcher throws a pitch with conviction and executes it. It doesn't matter what the pitch is. The pitcher will still win.

So in hindsight, you kind of see a little bit of a difference in opinion there. And if what Farrell wanted and what Ben Sheridan wanted was to see Joe Kelly use his curveball and use his changeup and use some of that secondary stuff to get some swings and misses because even throwing 98, he wasn't getting swings and misses with that fastball. So, you know, that's one example. You know, some of that's going to be on Joe Kelly too, but, you know, I think if you're looking for somebody to have to share a message with the pitching staff, you know, that's one example. Another one, the big one that sort of I look back at about two weeks ago, Baltimore, you know, again, you don't think about this in the context of the pitching coach until he's one example. Another one, the big one that I look back at about two weeks ago in Baltimore. Again, you don't think about this in the context of the pitching coach until

he's fired, but Wade Miley's got the bases loaded in Baltimore. One of his goes to the mound. This is the third inning. He goes to the mound. Wade Miley's just walked a guy. He goes to the mound, says whatever he says. I don't know if it was mechanical. I don't know if it was attitude, whatever it was. And then Wade Miley comes back and walks Adam Jones on four pitches to force home a run. I mean, the whole game falls apart from there. So, you know, again, a lot of that's on Wade Miley. You know, you can't walk Adam Jones on four pitches with the bases loaded because walking Adam Jones is hard enough as it is. But if Juan Nieves is out there and if he's communicating his, whatever the message was supposed to be effectively, perhaps there a slight you know perhaps there's a different result there you know how extreme

you know how different we don't know but that's certainly not what you're going for you know with a pitching coach in terms of an in-game adjustment yeah if he recommended that he walk him on four pitches that that seems like a suboptimal strategy i'd probably let him go for that was it two weeks exactly because maybe actually they did give him two weeks notice, right? It was more like 10 days. It was Sunday afternoon. But yes, I could certainly see that. Yeah, they let him know then say, you know, we're gonna let you finish this thing out. But the off day, the off day, that's it. We can't bring you to Canada with us. So John Farrell was the pitching coach, of course, before he went to be a manager and before he came back. And one of the hopes or optimistic hopes when he came back was that he would bring back his pitching magic, his pitcher whisperer.

Because he was seen as one of the great pitching coaches and particularly with the staff that he knew. And so, of course, I don't know how he's a manager. He's very busy. There's tons of things to keep him busy. And I would imagine that he is both unable to do any of the roles of a pitching coach and yet also perhaps more attuned to what the pitching coach is doing and perhaps more critical of the pitching coach than a typical manager would be. So during these couple years, two plus years, a typical manager would be. So during these couple years, two plus years, I don't know, what is your sense of how involved Farrell has been from the coaching side or from,

I don't exactly know which side, but how involved is he with the coaching of the pitchers and that sort of thing? So mechanically, in terms of pitch selection, it doesn't seem like it's that much. And like you said, when you're the manager, you can only do so much with that element of the game. But it seemed like when he was hired, they'd had four pitching coaches in the previous three years. And especially post-2011, the perception was that this was a pitching staff that didn't care, was out of control or whatever, beer and chicken, all that stuff. And some of it, it seemed like it was personality. That Farrell was the sort of guy who could get Clay Buckles back in line, who could get John Lester back in line, who could make those guys focus, who could kind of get in their face,

give them a kick in the butt if they needed it, that sort of thing. And it seemed like for a time that kind of worked. I mean, there was always going to be a partnership there. Certainly, you don't hire a former pitching coach manager and tell him to never talk to the pitchers. He had a long history with Juan Nieves. They talked about consistency of message. They thought the message would be very consistent. And certainly when they won the World Series in 2013 with a pretty good pitching staff, Lester Buckles, Sean Lackey, Jake Peavy, it seemed like that worked pretty well. One thing that sort of, again, the benefit of hindsight, we didn't really think much of this at the time, but the benefit of hindsight allows, I look at this comment

from John Farrell a couple of days ago, I went back and looked at what he'd said, because somebody had actually asked him a similar question was, you know, now that you're a manager, you know, it's been two plus years, you know, how much interaction do you have with the pitching staff? And he said, there have been a few more opportunities of late, you know, to have some of these conversations with Juan Nieves. And, you know, maybe, I don't know that we should have necessarily interpreted that to say that he's looking at the pitching staff more than ever, and thus might be a little more dissatisfied with Nieves' performance. But I think with the benefit of hindsight, that certainly sounds like

what he was saying. Well, I was going to ask about Kelly, actually, before you brought him up, just because he has kind of looked different this year just you know you mentioned they want him to throw more secondary stuff or and he has to some extent I mean he's thrown sliders more often and fewer sinkers and and he's striking out guys now I mean he's struck out 31 in 28 innings and his ground ball rate is down. So he's, and he's, you know, one of the Red Sox starters with just the giant gap between his ERA and his FIP or other defense independent stats. So is the sense that this is who he can be possibly that he can be like a

strikeout artist type that he's not sentenced to having the 98 mile per hour fastball and not getting strikeouts somehow. So I was at the Sunday night game. I was covering it. So I wasn't listening to the broadcast. But the sense I got on Twitter from the broadcast was that they were just all about Joe Kelly. And there's certainly the tools are there. And you're right.

He has struck guys out. The FIP is much better than the ERA. One thing, it's been a weird year for him just because it almost seems like he should have even more strikeouts. And you're right, the strikeout rate is way higher than it ever was in St. Louis. But part of his challenges have been that he hasn't finished guys off.

Like, it seems like he goes to two strikes in every hitter, and then it's a seven-pitch at bat that ends in, you know, sometimes a hit and sometimes not. And sometimes it's a strikeout, but not usually. And then, you know, then there have been games where he struck a bunch of guys out, but he certainly struggled to kind of put guys away when he's been ahead of them. And that's another, you know, potential game plan area that maybe a better pitching coach, you know, helps him work through. I don't know if that's part

of the mission, but yeah, he's, you know, this is certainly why the Red Sox made the trade for Joe Kelly. They traded, that was a weird trade to begin with. It always was. Lackey, you know, who they had for the major league minimum for Alan Craig, who had been really good, but was a huge question mark given the way he played that season. And Joe Kelly, who had kind of fallen out of favor with the Cardinals, and that's potentially a red flag. But if Joe Kelly is the sort of guy that if he can use the secondary stuff better, I think their hope is that he can miss some bats. He can keep guys from just kind of waiting on that fastball. You know what they say about major leaguers hitting 98 if

they know it's coming. It seems like there's a chance that, yeah, he could be closer to that upper threes ERA that his FIP so far this year says he should be rather than, you know, having an ERA over five that he actually does. So it's very interesting what I hadn't really thought about that, but what kind of Ben said, I mean, I didn't have high expectations for Joe Kelly coming into this year. I mean, he seemed like a serviceable guy, but, you know, he seemed like maybe Nathan Eovaldi-esque, where the numbers never matched the velocity. He never seemed like he was really going to be a great starter. And if you had told me that he was going to be kind of eh, I would have been like, yeah, that's about right. And it's like, it's like whatever Boston did to make him a strikeout guy now makes me think he

should be a thousand times better. And like, it's almost like Nieves is the victim of, of that in a sense, right? I mean, like if Joe Kelly just sucked, that wouldn't really seem weird. It's that Joe Kelly is sucking despite having 10 strikeouts per nine and having like this insane line when the bases are empty but then getting completely blitzed when runners are on and the hard hit balls and all these things make it seem like there's something more disappointing about Joe Kelly than there should be.

And I don't know, maybe it's the same way with Clay Buchholz. I mean, I had low expectations for Clay Buchholz coming into this year and he's had a couple of really amazing starts, which makes me think that he should be really amazing. And he's got a really good FIP, which makes me think he should be really good. And the fact that he's not is both totally not surprising, given everything we know about the rotation that they put together, and yet more surprising than it would have been three weeks ago, because I've seen Clay Buchholz be really good this year. It's weird. Yeah. And I think, you know, if you have, if it's just Joe Kelly in the scenario you outline, probably, probably one of you still has this job. And I think it's

just, it's the whole group across the board. It's just, you know, Wade Miley was supposed to be reliable and dependable and he didn't have to be, you know, an ace. You know, that's, that's been the buzzword of Boston Boston basically since the middle of last season. He didn't have to be that ace, but he had to be decent. And he's been terrible. And the ERA says he's been terrible anyway. And like a lot of the other guys, the FIP says he's actually been okay. It does make you wonder how much of this is still small sample and how much of this is just reactionary because they have to do something because it's Boston, because you have to do something and it's not acceptable, et cetera, et cetera. Because half these guys have five starts.

The other half of these guys have six starts. It's so early. It's not, other than Buchholz, you know, Nieves hasn't worked with most of these guys. So basically, he got basically five starts to work with Joe Kelly. You know, he got five starts to work with Wade Miley, and it's such a small sample. You know, I'm sure if I'm Juan Nieves, that's what I'm thinking,

is that, you know, this is still a process. We were still working through this stuff. I was learning these guys. There was spring training, but you only learn so much. I guess Kelly was around in the second half of last season, but still, someone like Miley, he's coming over from a new league. He's trying to figure things out. They're trying to figure out what's going to work. I don't know. It's hard to tell because going back to the original question, we don't really know what the real role of the pitching coach is all the time. We don't see behind the scenes.

We don't see what he was supposed to be doing that he's not doing. And maybe that makes us say, well, he's just a scapegoat, and they're just sending a message, or they're just picking on a guy because they can't fire the players. But on the other hand, you've got basically an entire rotation across the board, except for Porcello, who seems to have put it together after not-so-good first four starts. The other four guys are all underachieving relative A to their peripherals and B to what you sort of would hope they would be doing. And, you know,

that's sort of where it ends up coming down on the pitching coach. Do you get the sense from watching these guys that they are having bad luck or is there something that the stats are not showing about how well they've actually pitched because you know the other day we talked about Betts and Bogarts and I was talking about batted ball velocity and how hard Betts has hit the ball even though his numbers weren't so great and then a couple nights later he hits a couple home runs and it's like oh okay well that seems like what he should be doing if he keeps hitting the ball that hard and you can kind of play that same game with the pitchers Wade Miley has allowed the 11th lowest batted ball velocity in the majors this year, right around guys like Granke, Kershaw,

Garrett Richards, Arrieta. He's right in that range, and he has a 7 plus ERA. So is there something that those sorts of stats are not showing or do you get the sense that these guys are just getting babbitt to death or having unlucky sequencing people in boston are gonna hate this because they hate that this guy always uses this as an excuse but clay ball colson particularly looks like he's getting babbitt to death there was a start earlier this year where he gave up i think 12 hits and he really pitched pretty well and there were a whole bunch of ground balls through the left side and up the middle, and you could easily see that. I mean, it was interesting because he actually got lucky in a way

because he gave up 12 hits and only gave up two runs. But you could see that having gone the other way. He's a guy that seems like he's dealt with a little bit of bad luck. I think part of the problem is the control and command with guys like Miley and Masterson, both of the guys who are walking more than four per nine. Masterson walks six just on Wednesday night against Tampa Bay. And even Masterson said that he was hearing Harry Doyle in the back of his head while he was on there. He threw 10 straight balls and he was saying to himself, ball four, ball eight, ball 12, which is never really a good sign. So the fact that, and then that Miley four pitch walk to Adam Jones with the bases loaded that I referenced before, those are the sorts of moments that, you know, there's nothing

bad luck about that. Like that's, these are, that's a fundamental thing a pitcher has to do. You have to be able to throw some strikes and Masterson couldn't do it, couldn't make whatever adjustment he had to make. You know, he said afterwards he was over-rotating, couldn't get it fixed. And, you know, like everything else, some of this is still on the pitcher, but that's where you look at, you know, these are fundamental things the pitchers these pitchers have been unable to do kelly is throwing strikes kelly's the guy whose command i was worried about whose control i was worried about more coming into the season he's been okay there but miley and masterson in particular you know the control has just not been there yeah i think i've seen

all of buckholtz starts or maybe five of, and he looks dominant. He looks like he has completely refigured it out. And then there's always one four-batter sequence where, or maybe sometimes longer, where sometimes things get away from him. But he looks super good to me. His OPS with runners in scoring position is literally double what it is without runners on base. It's 11.59 to 5.80. The BABF with runners in scoring position

is 600. It's 5.83. I guess I didn't need to expect 5.83. So he is a guy who you could, like with the smallest amount of research, you could convince me that he's actually been good. But Joe Kelly, it seems like everybody, I haven't seen Joe Kelly starts and everybody who has seems

to think that he is deserving of everything he's gotten and worse. There's just a hard-hittedness of everything he allows. And so, I don't know, you can probably make the cases in both directions. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Not a question. The Red Sox are an organization that you sort of get the feeling they don't do anything accidentally or without thought or without really, they don't do anything accidentally or without thought or without really, you know, there's nothing undeliberate about it. But I don't know if there's anything about the pitching coach role that they have tried different or that they might try different. Do you have any sense of whether they would or they plan to or they have in any way reimagined what the pitching coach's role is? Or is their pitching coach doing just about all the

same stuff that a pitching coach would have done for the Red Sox in 1987, and, you know, in more or less the same way? Well, the big change recently, in recent years, was going from Farrell to Kurt Young in 2010, 2010 into 2011. Farrell had been the pitching coach for four or five years. They'd, you know, won a World Series with him, him then a generally good rotation and he'd helped develop lester and those guys feral leaves to become the manager of the of the blue jays and kurt young replaces him and kurt young's the guy who oversees that chicken and beer pitching staff that you know that that collapsed in september and that he was kind of a laissez-faire sort of pitching coach you know that that was sort of his his style was especially the veteran guys and he had worked mostly with young guys in Oakland,

and he came over and had a very veteran staff, and he sort of let them do their thing, and it worked for a long time because that 2011 team was really good for most of the season, but it didn't work in September. Everything kind of fell apart. He becomes the fall guy for that, and there was a lot of talk about how that style didn't really work. Bob McClure, the guy that had the next year year wasn't quite so laissez-faire. There

were issues there because he was one of the many coaches who didn't really talk to Bobby Valentine, so that didn't really work either. In a way, when they brought in Nieves, he's not sort of that classic square-jawed tough guy that John Farrell is, but the hope was that he and Farrell, given their history, would have a similar message. I wonder if they do kind of want to get back to that guy a little bit because Nieves was still a little more easygoing, a little more optimistic about just the way everything was going. You ask him about any of the pitchers and he'll tell you why they're on the verge of breaking out. Maybe that's not quite the guy they want. Maybe that's not what they want. Maybe they want now a little more accountability because that really hasn't – it's hard to know.

I mean we'll see when they hire the guy they hire. It sounds like they're targeting – I think it's Carl Willis with the Cleveland Indians AAA team as one external candidate. They've got internal candidates as well. We'll see when they make that hire and explain why. But I could see them trying to go back to somebody who's going to demand a little more accountability, especially for these guys that are not all really established, consistent year after year veterans. The Red Sox had a good pitching staff with Nieves. They won a World Series with Nieves. And I don't know whether he was ever at the Searidge level of coaching guru, but he was

a disciple of Don Cooper, who kind of is at that level and had a positive reputation coming in. So is it just a matter of the personalities? It's just, it works with one group of guys and doesn't work with another, even if the coach is consistent throughout. I mean, it's just, it's hard to know because, you know, when people say like, what else could he have done? We don't know, having not seen it, we don't know what a really good pitching coach would have done. Like maybe he notices in some way that Joe Kelly's throwing his breaking ball or some way that Justin Masterson's rotating fixes that. But, you know, yeah, they liked that Nieves had worked with Don Cooper, who's another one of those, you know,

obviously highly thought of pitching coaches. But, you know, another one of these quotes that was fascinating to go back and look at from the conference call when Nieves was hired, that Farrell gave Nieves some credit for these pitchers that have flourished in Chicago, while Nieves was the bullpen coach there. And he mentioned Sergio Santos, and he mentioned Phil Humber as two of the guys that you can point to. Sam's favorites. Sam's ears just perked up. So in retrospect, that those were the two names they were hanging their hat on, it probably didn't bode well for for nieves in that way how much does the turnover matter because it's like almost an entirely new rotation and not only that but the catching crew is also entirely new i was

really looking forward to a season of christian vasquez and that got pulled away right before spring training was over and then they had to bring in someone new, and now Hannigan is hurt, and they called people up. And that probably doesn't make it easier. I don't know if it explains anything, but is that a factor? Oh, it's got to be a factor, and that's why I guess I'm surprised. I'm sure a lot of people are surprised it happened this quickly just because it's so new. How many times has – Blake Swihart hasn't caught any of these guys basically before this week except in spring training and just once in spring training because none of them were in spring training with the Red Sox the previous year. Yeah, everything is otherwise dominant.

You don't know if that's him choosing the pitch, that's the catcher choosing the pitch. But even Clay Buckholz, who's the veteran on staff, is throwing to a new catcher. So yeah, there's a lot of newness there. And you would think normally, and I mean normally it would get a chance to work itself out but the red sox coming off of i mean i'm sure i think if they haven't finished last in two of the last three years and look like they're sinking like a stone already this move doesn't happen i'm sure it doesn't they they can afford to wait on this you know even with you know the urgency they always talk about in boston but you know the fact that they've finished last in two of the last

three years this is a team that has been non-competitive at the end of the season, two of the last three seasons. And I think their nightmare is spending $200 million on this team, adding Sandoval, adding Ramirez, and still finishing last or being non-competitive in September. So that's probably what prompts this sort of move, even when there's so many small sample or so many newness reasons to believe that the pitching staff could turn itself around on its own yeah i was gonna ask you about that because it seems like this is what we were saying at this time last year or later last year like this team projects to be good these players should be good and it was a big

question all year about why why they weren't good and so yeah maybe it seems like history is repeating itself a little bit and that make them a little more skittish or anxious to do something before that continues all year again yeah and i mean this this isn't pitching but now the big talk is about hitting with runners in scoring position and that was the big theme last year they just went i think they're four for their last 45 with runners in scoring position and the impulse there is usually to say well you their four for their last 45 with runners in scoring position. And the impulse there is usually to say, well, you know, as long as you've got guys in scoring position,

this is the sort of thing that evens out. You know, you'll cluster things together. You'll have those innings as long as you're getting guys on base. But that was the theme all of last year, too, that they weren't executing with guys in runners in scoring position. So, you know, I'm interested to see what happens on that side because they do feel that urgency now. And it's harder to say these things will work themselves out. Dustin Pedroia was very vehement last night. These things will work themselves out. But when you've just gone through a year of it not working itself out, it's a little harder to believe in that.

So the Red Sox pitchers have allowed 5.1 runs per game. I think by Pakoda, we expected them to allow 4.6. And so that's about a half a run extra per game. You can imagine why they fired the coach. Their hitters were expected to produce five runs a game and have been producing 4.6, which is four-tenths of a run per game that they're underproducing. Should Chili Davis update his resume? Well, we've still got a tenth of a run to go, certainly before Chili Davis is updating his resume, which I'm sure he will be happy to know that he's got that tenth of a run. I mean, part of it with Chili Davis, too, is that he just got there with all this newness. I think some of it, some of the Juan Nieves stuff has to be carryover from last year. And you look at one of the other

aspects of the job is helping young players develop and transition to the major leagues, which has been a big theme for the Red Sox. And Alan Webster and Ruby De La Rosa and Brandon Workman and Anthony Granato basically all were busts last year for the Red Sox. And you look around the league at so many of these young starters being good, and the Red Sox basically had none of their guys pan out. They've got another wave coming. So that's part of me wonders how much that has to do with it. Whereas Chili Davis just got here. They like him a lot. They went to great lengths to get him. They had already had him at AAA Pawtucket for a year. It's weird. Some of the stuff with the offense is weird. Mike Napoli especially, his OPS is 542. He hasn't done anything all season. Last year, he righted off to injuries. This year, they insist he's healthy.

So you just don't know what to make of that. They've got a couple of black holes. You're not expecting to get anything from Ketcher this year. Whatever Blake's white heart gives them is great. Right field's an issue because Shane Victorino's been hurt. Ruzny Castillo hasn't come up yet. Xander Bogarts continues to struggle. Mookie Betts has been great, but Bogarts kind of has carried over that slump from last year, not hitting the ball hard. I think that's going to be the big point of emphasis with Davis is can he help Xander Bogarts become the hitter that they think he can be? That might be part of why Greg Colburn didn't come back.

They let their, they didn't fire him, but they let their, they parted ways with their pitching, their hitting coach after last season, after that. So I think Chili Davis, I know you're being a little bit facetious. Chili Davis certainly has a longer leash than Nieves, but the offense is, you know, as much to blame for the way this team has started as the pitching staff. Which pitcher is on the wobbliest chair right now? I mean, they've only had the five guys start. Who gets the shortest leash before someone is called up or a trade is made or something happens? It's got to be Masterson, in part for contractual reasons. He's the only guy they don't owe money to after this season, I guess, other than Buckholz, but they hold an option on him. So I'll count that. Whereas they've got some money devoted to Wade Miley. Masterson also has a

history in the bullpen. He's the guy with the lowest velocity that you could hope maybe will play up in short stints. He had, for a while, he was their best starter, which was sort of awkward because of all the reasons I mentioned. He always felt like he came into the year like he was on the wobbliest chair, but it wasn't until, it hasn't been until the last two and especially Wednesday night, you know, six walks is just, you don't want to make too much out of one start, but he looked awful. He did. That's, that was his worst start of the year. And at a time when they need a change or potentially need a change, you know, it's not a good time to have your worst start of the year be the most recent one because they've got some guys in the minor leagues eduardo rodriguez being at the front of the line probably that they could come up and potentially be that young impact

starter that so many of these other teams are breaking in all right well by the time people are listening to this maybe the red sox will have a pitching coach probably not yet does it does it mean anything that they fired the guy without having a replacement? Like they actually decided we are better off going without a pitching coach for a day or two? It must be because they're really looking hard at external candidates because it would be awkward to go try and get an external guy while they still have someone there, whereas now they can actually conduct a search even if it's going to be rushed. And having Farrell as the manager probably helps them feel better about going a couple

of days without a pitching coach. But yeah, I think if they were going to promote someone internally, they probably would have done that today. Okay. All right. Well, Brian McPherson and Tim Britton at the Providence Journal have been covering this story and all Red Sox stories. You can find Brian on Twitter at BrianMACP and read his stuff in the projo.

Thank you, Brian. Thanks for having me, guys. All right. So that is it for us this week. We will welcome your emails at podcast at baseballperspectives.com. Join the Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash effectively wild. Ratings and reviews and subscriptions on iTunes are appreciated. wild. Ratings and reviews and subscriptions on iTunes are

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silently coughing is Sam i was i was guessing hi brian