Admit it, Red Sox Nation.
The trade of the Boston Big 3 (Gonzalez, Crawford and Beckett) scapegoats
made no sense and reveals that the Boston brass don’t know what they’re doing. We get it—money is no issue for Boston. They didn’t
know what they were doing when they signed John Lackey or Crawford, honestly, to
ludicrous long deals. Dice-K makes Harry
Houdini seem omnipresent. They probably
miss Adrian Beltre. They may have underestimated what they had in the cupboard when
they let Papelbon walk. But to trade a
healthy, albeit underperforming, Adrian Gonzalez, (.301-15-85) who for many
years was considered the Red Sox’s
birthright shows a lack of vision and at worst, a misconstrued reality of who
the Red Sox are, what division they play in and what their fans will tolerate.
The Red Sox front office seems to think “let the young guys
play and grow” approach is going to work in Boston. Truth is, it is going to get everyone
fired. Fenway isn’t meant for small
ball; it’s meant for guys to get on base hit moon shots that are outs
everywhere else and pitch just well enough to win 9-6 slugfests with New York
and Tampa, to a lesser extent. But that
reality, the reality that served them so well in 2004 and 2007 was ignored or
forgotten. Maybe those histories of
those teams were rewritten, misleading the faithful into believing those were “homegrown”
squads. Yeah, right. The Red Sox are at their best with healthy
speed at the top and mashers in the middle; everyone needs to be able to draw a
walk and play defense.
Even a more telling failure of leadership is Boston’s
devil-may-care approach to crafting a pitching staff to shut down opposing
lineups. The 2012 Red Sox suck because they give up the second most runs (625)
in the American League (Minnesota is last with a whopping 675, odd considering that it is a pitcher’s park). They are actually decent in defense (76
errors as of 8/30 – good for middle pack in the AL) but they can’t pitch (4.44
ERA-11th in the AL) no starters with an ERA under four-and-a-half, and
they probably didn’t solve that problem with the acquisition of Rubby De La
Rosa (coming off Tommy John) and a prospect that went 6-8 at Double AA (Allen
Webster). In a division where either
teams can mash (New York, Toronto) or prevent you from mashing (Tampa, Baltimore) you better be able to do at
least one of them. Boston, by pulling out on their all-ins on A-Gon and CC have
now hampered their ability to do both.
Admit it, Red Sox nation.
The trade was a reactionary, cathartic, ham-handed attempt to placate either
a prickly, not-really-proven-that-he-can-build-long-term manager or a fan-base that
has a sense of misplaced nativism. The
Red Sox, again, work best when they address starting pitching and keep the
offense stacked with veterans. Small
ball didn’t work in 2010 and it won’t work in the future.
Oh where do I start....
ReplyDeleteFirst, adrian gnozalez being involved in the "big trade" was a necessary evil. While the dodgers were doing Boston a favor, they aren't running a charity. If you want to get something of value, you have to give up something of value. In this case the sox are getting addition by subtraction in the form of dumping a huge amount of payroll. This does a few things. 1) allows them a chance to sign jacoby ellsbury ( a thought that was almost impossible given the luxury tax penalties). 2) gives them money to get pitching which, as you pointed out, was terrible. 3) eradicated the clubhouse of the Debbie downer that was josh Beckett. His influence on the good young pitchers on the staff was a huge problem for a few years now.
In order to get the dodgers to assume the financial responsibility of all those contracts, you got to give them something. Did I want to see Adrian go? Of course not, but the dodgers don't make this deal without him and the other guys needed to move on
Next topic....
Bobby valentine was brought in just to alienate players. It was a test to see who we're the real problems in the clubhouse. And it worked. Everybody with an undesirable attitude is gone. Not that Carl was a problem but he was never gonna justify that salary and , let's be honest, that fan base would never let him live it down. The sox are just buying time until John Farrell becomes available and that should be after next year.
Finally,
The idea isn't to play small ball, it's to build a farm system with value so trades can be made for more pricey veterans. Teams aren't going to trade away high talent players if all there getting in return is AA level prospects. I know rays fans think you can just take every player who gives you a problem and trade them for a teams best player, but that's not how real baseball works. Value is what's going to get teams to part with their talented guys. While there were some big name free agents, let's not forget all the home grown talent that went into those two championships (Nixon,Lester,pap,ellsbury Varitek, bronson arroyo, wakefield, pedroia, youk buckholz).... Point is you need a mix of talent and young prospects. As much shit as the Yankees get for buying teams, you can't ignore the fact that some of their bst talent was home grown (jeter, posada, cano, Rivera...etc).
You should consult me before blogging about the sox, I'll fill you in on all that your missing :)
-DJ Heavyweight