Thursday, October 18th, 2007 by Adam Wagner
Another Candidate (And a Better One)
Boston Red Sox pitching coach John Farrell is reportedly in the running for the Pirates’ managing job. Farrell, whose Red Sox pitchers have been terrible in the American League Championship Series, has connections with General Manager Neal Huntington dating back to Cleveland, where Farrell was the Director of Player Development until last season.
Before being hired by Boston, it was believed by many that Farrell (and not Neal Huntington) was on the fast track to being hired as some team’s general manager. He has much more front office experience than on-field experience, as he was at Oklahoma State from 1997-2001 and then Boston this season, but has been in the front office otherwise.
When Theo Epstein hired him for the Boston job, he stated that:
“We wanted someone who could take a very broad view of the job and be able to make a real impact on our pitching staff in terms of wins and losses . . . John has a really good feel for what makes pitchers succeed from a mental standpoint as well as a physical standpoint. He’s faced a lot of those challenges himself both as a player and as a collegiate coach and as a farm director. He’s well-qualified to work with our pitchers on making the adjustments necessary to succeed.”
Farrell has had extensive experience with young players and played an integral role in building up the Indians’ farm system. He seems as if he would be a better candidate than Joel Skinner because he and Huntington are similar enough and have enough experience together that they more than likely view each other as equals. It would be good for Huntington to have someone who has already rebuilt a farm system to bounce ideas off of as he tries to accomplish the same feat.
Also, Farrell’s extensive experience with young players could be vital to the success of the Pirates, as the team will obviously need to rebuild through youth. Josh Beckett has had one of his best seasons this year in Boston, at last developing into the big game pitcher that he has been touted as for years. If this has something to do with Farrell, it could be greatly beneficial to aces-in-training Ian Snell and Tom Gorzelanny to be under his tutelage.
The only area where Farrell is lacking is in managerial experience, something that he has from his Oklahoma State days, but does not have on a professional level. That could prove detrimental, as Skinner and Trent Jewett, the only other names associated with the job to this point, both have extensive AAA managing experience.
Despite this small obstacle, Farrell is by far the most interesting name to this point, considering what he accomplished in Cleveland and nearly accomplished this year in Boston (even though he still seems as if he could be a better general manager than Huntington).
The Rockies’ Dave Holliday, uncle to Matt, has been linked to the Pirates’ scouting director position. This hire would be interesting, considering that the Rockies have gone about building their team the right way, through the draft (Francis, Tulowitzki, Atkins, Hawpe, Holliday) and free agent signings in Latin America (Jimenez, Morales).
Frank Coonelly and Neal Huntington seem to have a knack, to this point, for targeting success and borrowing parts from it, as Farrell, Skinner, Dave Holliday, and even Huntington himself were all parts of teams that advanced at least as far as their leagues’ championship series this year. So far, so good . . .
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