Spring training for the Sox is just around the corner, and I have to admit that I don’t feel any more comfortable with this team than I did when Bobby Valentine was shown the back door. I don’t have any hope for this team because the people who are running it aren’t giving me anything to hope for. This season looks like another year of poor patch work because the owners won’t let GM Ben Cherrington do his job.
The news is out there; Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez and John Lackey were all deals to help salvage TV ratings and they were all forced by the owners. The “baseball minds’’ of the team were not completely sold on any of these ideas. This sounds familiar with the John Farrell signing. The Red Sox owners bullied their way into getting what they wanted. They bullied the Toronto Blue Jays and they bullied Ben Cherrington. John Farrell is a baseball guy with extensive knowledge about how the game should be played, however, that doesn’t cure my suspicion of him being hired so that the owners could save face with Red Sox Nation like we are the hot girl at the big dance. It appears to me that the owners don’t trust Ben Cherrington, and they have even hired two babysitters for him.
The hiring of Jason Varitek and Pedro Martinez reeks of a loss of faith and the owners are trying to win back the public the wrong way. Read “The Prince” by Niccolo Machiavelli; he says the way a young prince succeeds is by earning the faith of the public and the military. The Red Sox owners don’t have the faith in the clubhouse and they certainly don’t have the faith from the public. The arbitration deals that they have handed out tells me they don’t have faith in their players either.
If the Red Sox are not going to sign Jacoby Ellsbury to a long term deal, they need to get rid of him now. They need to package a group of players that will be major contributors to a ball club and get the most they can in return. I have said it before: center Ellsbury around our four top prospects and go get Felix Hernandez. If that happens, then the restoration process can begin.
For two years, the organization has said that Jose Iglesias doesn’t have a big league bat that is ready—well how long are we going to wait? Package him and Ellsbury and the deal is half done. Baseball is becoming a “winning now” sport and not a “build for the future” sport. If you don’t believe me, look at the St. Louis Cardinals: they never have to rebuild and how many players are home grown? Stockpile the pitchers mound, not the position players. If you still don’t believe me, look at the San Francisco Giants.
Until the owners get their hands out of on field operations, I don’t have a lot of faith right now in this team. The only time I want to see or hear them is at a press conference introducing a new player. The only time I want Ben Cherrington to talk to them is when he needs a check to stockpile the bullpen. Let Cherrington sign Saltalamacchia to a three or four year deal. He is not a great hitter, but he has been with the team for two years and working hard with the pitching staff; now he has Farrell over his shoulder. The Sox never signed Varitek for his hitting, they signed him for his knowledge and relationships with the pitchers.
The Red Sox owners look like the guys who didn’t get the prom queen as a date for the big dance. So, they show up with last year’s second runner-up to save face instead of showing up alone and doing the best they can on the dance floor. They’re not fooling anybody. We’re Red Sox fans, we are baseball fans, and we know that Jonny Gomes and Shane Victorino aren’t going to be crowned king and queen at that big dance in October.