Boy, after yesterday's whining, I was happy to read something refreshingly honest and reasonable from Tony Massarotti of the Boston Globe today. Of course, the Boston faithful are sick of hearing it, though.Given the resources with which the Red Sox operate, we all know that they forever will have options, and Theo Epstein rarely fails to have an alternative plan for virtually every scenario. So long as the Sox have a big payroll and a productive farm system – kudos to the baseball operations department for this – they will have wherewithal to enhance the big-league roster with signings and trades. Still, given the amount of dead money the Sox now have on the roster -- Ortiz, Lugo and Drew will earn a combined average of $36 million per season, this year and next -- it now seems downright silly that the Sox may have lost out on Teixeira for as little as $2 million a year, especially when Teixeira would not have required a forfeiture of talent like that they sacrificed in, say, the Josh Beckett deal (Hanley Ramirez).
Maybe Teix was never really interested in Boston other than as a stalking horse for the Yanks. Maybe he was sincerely torn. We'll never know, unless he shares his thoughts once his playing days are over.
Many of us don’t regret the Beckett move and never will. But the point is that the Red Sox might have had Teixeira for nothing more than money, which now seems like an even better deal at a time when the Sox have some wasted money on their payroll.
But Mazz's comments are true; the only cost for a free agent is money (and a draft pick) and for a team with the financial prowess like Boston, falling $2M short given their other expenditures seemed shortsighted. True, the Yanks might have upped their offer again, but that's another thing we won't ever know for sure.
But, I'm happy to let this stuff pass under the bridge at this point. Whining doesn't help. Enough of the handwringing.
Sox fans, you guys are 6-0 against the Yanks so far this season after the 7-0 shutdown last night. Yet your beat writers are still obsessing about Teix as the 'one that got away'. Strange, no?
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
A reasonable voice in Boston
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3 comments:
I think all Red Sox fans (myself included) are used to this from all the Boston-area sportswriters. They are the worst (at least since Gammons went to ESPN). As much of a fan as I am, I don't think I'd ever want to play for the Sox just because of how much the journalists control the team's image this way.
No, not strange. It's the local mediots' job to be vectors for insecurity and woe. It used to be a joke that they'd all prefer it if the Sox had never won in '04 (Shank at the top of that list), but I'm not convinced it isn't half true. I have no doubt these people find more inspiration from misery than from contentment.
Yeah, we're 2 and a half months into the contract. We should probably let it go a bit farther before we damn Epstein for not getting Tex.
Also, weren't we proclaiming Delgado's death at this point last season? Not that these things happen repeatedly, but Ortiz did hit a home run last night and has a .903 OPS this month. Maybe a just a small sample size or his wrist feeling better?
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