NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. -- Like it or not, Boston Red Sox fans, you will have manager John Farrell to kick around for two more years.
The Red Sox opened the winter meetings here on Monday by announcing they will pick up the 2018 option for Farrell, a target of unrelenting scrutiny for fans on social media and sports-talk radio over the past year.
The team didn't have to make a decision on Farrell until 10 days after the end of the 2017 season, but in settling his future now, the Red Sox will avoid having him go through an entire year as a lame duck.
"It puts stability with our staff going into spring training," president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said.
But by providing Farrell with security beyond next season, Dombrowski and Red Sox ownership sent a clear message: Regardless of the dissenting opinions of outsiders, they believe Farrell is a good manager.
Dombrowski inherited Farrell when he took over the Red Sox's baseball operations in August 2015, at which time the 54-year-old skipper had just begun undergoing chemotherapy treatment for non-Hodgkin's Burkitt lymphoma. The Red Sox were on their way to a second consecutive last-place finish, and cynics believed Farrell kept his job only because of the potential public-relations fallout from firing him while he was sick.
But Dombrowski had a full season to evaluate Farrell, and the Red Sox won the American League East for the second time in four years before getting swept out of the division series by the Cleveland Indians. Dombrowski said he was impressed by Farrell's "solid presence" and the players' response to his leadership, qualities that outweigh in the mind of the team's decision-makers the in-game strategy blunders that tend to get so much attention.
"John has done a real fine job for us," Dombrowski said. "We had a very good year last year. Thought he did a good job in handling the club, being in a position where we had a good working relationship. I find him very open-minded when we have conversations, the give-and-take people talk about. I think he's done a very fine job."
Farrell insisted he wouldn't have managed differently had he entered the season without a guarantee for 2018. And there is precedent for the Red Sox going through a year with a lame-duck manager. Terry Francona managed all of 2011 without having his 2012 option picked up.
Having already committed to Farrell in 2017, it only made sense to pick up his option, especially after bench coach Torey Lovullo, always perceived as a manager-in-waiting, left last month to manage the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Dombrowski declined to address Farrell's option after the Red Sox were eliminated from the postseason. He explained away his hesitation, claiming the club had other pressing matters, including general manager Mike Hazen's defection to the Diamondbacks and Lovullo's ensuing departure.
But Dombrowski finally met with Farrell on Sunday in Maryland and told him face-to-face of the team's decision.
"I appreciate his confidence," Farrell said. "We had a conversation [Sunday], where it got a little personal [about] where he walks in and he's inheriting a manager and a chemo plan. It has a chance to work itself out, where we win a division title. We addressed and faced a lot of challenges throughout the course of the season, whether it was injury, whether it's a little bit of a dry spell that the team went through from a performance standpoint, and we all came out of it in a better place."