Former manager Bobby Valentine believes he could have had similar success to John Farrell if he was given a second season with the Boston Red Sox.
“I’d like to think that if I came back for my second year that, given the changes and improvements, I would have been able to do the same thing,” Valentine told Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe. “Ben [Cherington, Boston’s general manager] did a great job this off-season rebuilding the team.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it before. Usually a team will go after one or two free agents and hope they work out. When you’re signing seven or eight guys and they all work out and blend in together as well as they did, that’s amazing to me. The entire organization should be very proud of what they did. They should take a bow. It was amazing work.”
While Valentine has been thoroughly impressed with Boston’s personnel decisions, he believes Farrell has played a significant role in the turnaround.
“He’s obviously done a great job,” Valentine said. “I haven’t heard one negative thing. I haven’t seen anything weird. I really enjoyed watching the two managers in the ALCS. John is this new-wave guy, but when it came to playing Jonny Gomes, he stuck with him because Gomes gave him a better look. I love that. [Tigers manager Jim] Leyland is supposed to be the old-school guy and old-school guys usually leave their pitchers in a long time. Yet he took Max Scherzer out of Game 2 after 108 pitches. So I found it interesting watching that.”
The Red Sox fired Valentine after one season but he did not appear bitter and still finds himself rooting for his former players.
“I picked them to win the division, the ALDS, the ALCS, and now the World Series,” Valentine said. “I’m rooting them on. The [12] guys left on that team that I managed were all good guys. I enjoyed all of them, so why wouldn’t I root for them?”
The 12 players that Valentine managed include Jon Lester, Clay Buchholz, Felix Doubront, Franklin Morales, Junichi Tazawa, Craig Breslow, Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Daniel Nava, Will Middlebrooks, and Jacoby Ellsbury.
The Red Sox finished in last place in the AL East in Valentine’s lone season in Boston.
