John Farrell Hired by Boston Red Sox as Manager
After one of the most tumultuous seasons in franchise history, and a long, public search process, the Boston Red Sox are bringing John Farrell back to the organization to be their new manager, according to MLB.com.
"OFFICIAL: @redsox agree to 3-year contract with manager John Farrell. INF Mike Aviles goes to @bluejays in trade for RHP David Carpenter.
— MLB (@MLB) October 21, 2012"
The Toronto Blue Jays will receive infielder Mike Aviles as part of the deal that will make John Farrell the next manager of the Boston Red Sox.
Rob Bradford of WEEI.com reported the following:
"According to a baseball source, Red Sox infielder Mike Aviles is slated to be sent to the Blue Jays as compensation for hiring John Farrell as the Sox' new manager. The Jays will still have to send a player or cash to the Red Sox to complete the deal. No party directly involved in the negotiations would confirm detail of the trade.
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Farrell spoke to the media and sounds very happy (via Pete Abraham of The Boston Globe) to be returning to the Red Sox after his time in Toronto.
"Farrell: "I’m extremely excited to be returning to the Red Sox and to Boston. I love this organization."
— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) October 21, 2012"
Farrell, who has managed the Toronto Blue Jays for the last two years, has the task of following Bobby Valentine, who was basically run out of town the second he was hired. With a 69-93 record and last-place finish in the American League East, the Red Sox had their worst season since losing 100 games in 1965.
Valentine was an obvious scapegoat for all the problems the Red Sox had, but they had a rash of significant injuries—David Ortiz, Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia, Will Middlebrooks—and poor performances—Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz, virtually everyone in the bullpen—that contributed to their downfall.
The good news is that, thanks to the Los Angeles Dodgers taking all of the bad contracts off their hands, the Red Sox have a lot of financial room to play with this offseason if they so choose.
And Farrell will be the man at the head of the table, working alongside general manager Ben Cherington to get this franchise back to the postseason for the first time since 2009.
Before taking the manager's job with Toronto in 2011, Farrell spent four years as Boston's pitching coach under Terry Francona. He knows the organization and pitching staff, particularly Lester and Buchholz, extremely well, which likely helped his candidacy.
Now that the Red Sox have found their next manager, they can start building a system that will get this franchise back to the level at which it expects to play.
