Boston.com – David Ortiz suspected from the start that the Red Sox eventually would hire John Farrell away from Toronto Blue Jays as their next manager. General manager Ben Cherington, Ortiz knew, wanted somebody who would command respect in the clubhouse and work effectively with the front office to change the direction of the franchise after a 93-loss season. Farrell, the team’s former pitching coach, had those qualities. “There is something that they see in him,” Ortiz said Sunday after learning the Red Sox had signed Farrell to a three-year contract. “Ben got his guy and he has things lined up to make the ball club better. He wanted Farrell to be part of that.” The 50-year-old Farrell had a year remaining on his contract with the Blue Jays and extricating him from that deal took 10 days of high-level negotiations between the teams. The Red Sox eventually gave up their starting shortstop, Mike Aviles, as compensation. It was only the sixth time in major league history a manager under contract was essentially traded to another team. Compensation talks occurred primarily at the ownership level, Red Sox team president Larry Lucchino speaking frequently with Beeston. The discussions were not without some rancor, the Blue Jays growing angry about media coverage of the situation. “There was a lot of, to be completely candid, gamesmanship and a lot of things that went on from a negotiating standpoint. Not on our end, just a lot of things that were coming out that were completely false,” Anthopoulos said. “We’re pretty good in terms of not putting things out there in the media and leaking things or saying things. The upsetting part for me were how many false reports were out there that I didn’t think were fair to John or to myself or to the organization.” “It probably didn’t go as smoothly as we think it could have,” Anthopoulos said. The Red Sox will have a news conference early this week at Fenway Park. But statements released on Sunday made clear their joy.

First of all I love how the Blue Jays are surprised that the negotiations with Lucchino didn’t go smoothly. Really? That surprised you? You didn’t understand what the One Eyed Bandit does? He leaks shit. He backstabs. He plays dirty. He’ll throw mud in your eye and then say somebody else did it. That’s what we do here in Boston. You sleep with dogs you get fleas. Period.

But more importantly I feel like I’m on some sort of bizzaro planet with how badly the Red Sox wanted John Farrell. Like am I nuts or was he a disaster with the Blue Jays? Didn’t they come in 2nd to last both years? They were 85-77 the year before Farrell arrived. They dropped to 81-81 in his first year. And then dropped again to 73-89 this year. Like imagine if this is how people in the real world were hired? The worse you get the more somebody wants you? Strange.  Again I don’t think past records necessarily matter for managers (see Tito or Joe Torre) but the Sox are acting like this guy never lost a game.   Facts are he sucked plain and simple in Toronto.   The only reason I’ve seen anybody give as to why they like him so much is because he gets along with Lucchino and will follow orders.  Just not sure that’s the best reason to hire a guy.