Red Sox Fans fill in the blank. Bobby Valentine will be fired __________

[NightWatcher]

I'm taking "by Friday"

[Chan790]

1. Not soon enough.

The problem is that Larry Lucchino who needs to be fired along with him for foisting Valentine on GM Ben Cherington won't be fired. The team is a mess and it's Lucchino's fault. Not Valentine's and not Cherington's.

The issue isn't Valentine's management, it's the operations-heading Lucchino interfering in the job of the FO on personnel decisions, player decisions and managerial decisions. The GM needs to pick the manager because he needs to work in cooperation with the manager. If you give that authority to the GM (and the Red Sox did); you can't go behind the GM's back, recruit new candidates, intentionally submarine the guys the GM wanted, then hire the guy you recruited that can't get along with the GM over the GM's objections.

Well, I guess you can...but IMO you should be fired for it when it blows-up in your face definitively-proving the GM was right and you were wrong.

[NightWatcher]

2. But Bobby's trashing of Rich Youklis in the media

was very unprofessional. If you wanna bench a guy for lack of focus or effort, that's fine, but a good manager doesn't take his complaining to sports talk radio.

Bobby is terrible at "managing" the different personalities on all the teams he's been with. He even rubbed the other espn guys the wrong way when he was an analyst.

[Chan790]

3. Sure, that's part of it.

But it's nothing new, Valentine and Cherington were at each other's throats all spring over personnel decisions because they can't work together, they don't even have a shared philosophy. Valentine was talking guys up as key members of his lineup the same day that Cherington was demoting them to AAA for more work. Valentine's always been a guy that goes to the media to air his grievances, he did it all spring and used to do it as Mets manager too.

Are his comments about Youk inappropriate? Yes, that's not a way to handle your key players, especially one that works his game as hard as Youk does...it's not like calling out a guy for being lazy or failing to hustle, you don't call out a guy who works his ass off when all that work isn't leading to results. He knows he's not getting results and he doesn't need to hear it in the press.

But it's part of the bigger organizational problem.

[flvegan]

9. Is Rich Kevin's brother?

Shouldn't talk about player's family in an ugly way, I guess.

[NightWatcher]

10. Dude, I've been on so many painkillers today

I'm just glad the gist of my post got through. I've really got to stay away when... Hey it's time for an oxy. Buh bye.

[bluedigger]

4. after the season.

[RiffRandell]

5. Not sure, but we had free NESN this weekend.

We watched the games Sat/Sunday...Directv was trying to lure customers to buy the baseball package. No sale. The football package to watch the Pats is expensive enough, and the year we did invest in the baseball package the Sox immediately tanked for the season.

[benld74]

6. Ya got an Over/Under Date????

[jobycom]

7. Often. nt

[edbermac]

8. OK...so who's gonna replace him?

Johnny Pesky?

[bluedigger]

11. Bring Tito back!

[Chan790]

12. I'd be happy to consider any of the six other people who interviewed for the job.

Except Dale Sveum who isn't available and frankly based on some things he said in interviews seems like kind of a dick.

Actually I'd consider just about anybody, I thought Bobby V was a shit choice when they hired him. Thus far, he's proving me right on my theory that he's not a very good manager and a bit of a narcissist.

[RedCloud]

13. from a cannon!