Terry Francona

Terry Francona never gets enough credit with what he does with the teams he's handed. While he has been blessed with some great pitching and the occasional stroke of complete idiocy, all in all he's not a bad manager. He's a guy that even when he does make a stupid move, he'll at least explain himself and make you say "okay I see what he was thinking....but still stupid" It's not like with Grady where he'd make a move and not even explain it. In 2004, Tito showed to his true managerial chops when push came to shove. He made basically all the right moves through out those 14 games in October that the Red Sox played(a few minor lapses here and there but nothing huge). I think that he seems different as a manager now than then is because in the playoffs it's balls-out all the time. You don't need to satisfy anybody's egos and you really don't need to rest your players because they're all gung ho and will play till their arms are falling off or until the end of their run in the playoffs. If not, then they don't belong there. With the regular season, you need to juggle not only the mangerial tactics, but injuries, callups, egos, rest, slumps and streaks...you have a lot of things to factor into your mind and sometimes you're not gonna satisfy everybody. Besides, anybody who helps guide a team like the 05 Red Sox(deeply flawed and injured) to about 95 wins is pretty good in my book.

And now I'll stop blabbing....