Anthopolous makes the best of a bad situation in releasing Farrell

John Farrell wasn't the best manager in AL.  In fact it would be difficult to say he was even a good manager.  He finished with a slightly better record than Bobby Valentine and we all know how that ended.  There was some criticism of his handling of young players by some of the veterans on the team.  There were rumours of friction between Farrell and Anthopolous.  In fact an argument could be made for firing him. 

But I've always said the Farrell situation should be the Blue Jays call.  He was under contract for one more year and its obviously he wanted to walk away from that obligation if possible to return to Boston.  That puts the Jays in the difficult position where their manager doesn't want to manage here any more.  So all things considered why not make a deal with Boston.  In the end Anthopolous got something for nothing.  That doesn't happen to often.  John Farrell can easily be replaced.

It's hard to understand why the Red Sox are so hot on Farrell.  Of course he is a known entity in Boston and knows the clubhouse politics there.  But he was a good pitching coach and his ability to manage is still questionable.  Can they afford to make another managerial mistake?  This sounds like one of those situation where a move was made to appease the fan base.  Like bringing back Wendel Clark over and over again.

If the reports are accurate then Farrell gets infielder Mike Aviles and send Adam Lind with Farrell over to Boston.  Aviles is a cheaper version of Kelly Johnson, a mediocre second baseman.   But by replacing Johnson with Aviles and moving Lind's contract, Anthopolous has cleared up $9 million is salaries.  Will the tight wads at Rogers let him spend that money to improve the team?  You hope so.

I hope Anthopolous isn't forced to replace Lind with another mediocre hitter who is just cheaper.  And we need starting pitcher.  So do a lot of teams so Rogers better pony up the money.

UPDATE:  It seems Adam Lind is not going to Boston but rather David Carpenter.  It seemed to good to be true.  We will never whether there was a rift between AA and Farrell or whether veterans were not seeing eye to eye with their manager.  What we do know is that Farrell's heart was in Boston so the Jays really had to let him go.