Yeah, the Philly writers obviously don't know much about what Kapler has done as development director, what involvement he has in the front office overall, or even why LA almost hired him instead of Roberts. But I think injury prevention and psychology are the new cutting edge of analytics. The market inefficiencies and imbalance of the old Moneyball days are largely gone now, especially since Statcast. I think that's a lot more important to his portfolio than his workout ideas.
If they hire Farrell he will have said all the right things, and it's not like Boston wasn't a forward-thinking organization (if less so under Dombrowski perhaps). I do kinda wonder though, if Klentak was happy to move things along and MacPhail encouraged him to give Farrell the last-minute interview. That's total conjecture of course, and even if there's something to it Klentak was still the one who had to move him to the final round.
I don't think there's any scenario where Stairs had any insight or knowledge into the managerial selection, how would that work exactly, you think Klentak would have revealed even the slightest hint to him? I bet he didn't even call the Phillies before taking the job, they'd made everyone's status clear (and took care of Bowa immediately). Nor does Stairs have any real working relationship with Wathan besides one spring training and September, for all we know Wathan would want Rende (or an outsider).
