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Transition Team ! ! !
The Hot Stove League Heats Up!
Red Sox Dismantled!!!
Boy Wonder Theo Epstein Retires: Transition Team Members Can’t Cope
Rule by committee screws up championship team!
The Hot Stove League really heated up this week with the annual winter meetings, where deals are made and MLB teams GM’s swap and trade. It seems like the Red Sox CEO Lucchino, and his money managing cohorts, are dead set on reconfiguring the team, cutting out it’s heart and soul. The losses continue to pile up, and the team that won the World Series just 13 months ago is now virtually unrecognizable.
The Mt. Hope contingent of RedSox Nation says goodbye and good luck to catcher Doug Mirabelli. We will miss you Doug, and we know how much Wake will miss you. Mirabelli exclusively caught knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, and Wake went 16 -8, with Doug catching and 0 – 4, when someone else caught him – you must pay attention to the stats, to the track record. A winning combination should not be cast by the wayside.
Doug Mirabelli--Knuckleball Catcher--Team Player
Doug (the best hitting and defensive relief catcher—knuckleball catcher in baseball) was traded to San Diego for a journeyman 2ndbaseman. A unique talent traded for an ordinary talent, unproven in a high pressure market.
I guess we can say goodbye to Kevin Millar, the Cowboy-up guy (and main feel-good cheerleader—the Red Sox Pollyanna) and Bill Mueller our stellar (and thoroughly professional) third basemen. Shortstop Edgar Renteria was traded to Atlanta today-–he had one horrible season in red sox where he couldn’t adjust to the stress of playing in Boston’s pressure cooker environment. He is just one of many who could not perform when the chips were down. He should do better back in the National League [Summit] where he belongs.
Manny is on the block. Johnny D. has not yet been re-signed and may not be in red sox next year. Rumors have Trot Nixon being shopped around--TROT NIXON! David Wells asked to be traded to the west coast. Most of the starting pitching is being shopped around, save Wake and Schilling.
Time Wakefield is quoted in the Boston Globe as saying:
“The whole starting infield is gone. Manny [Ramirez] will be gone. If they don’t sign Johnny [Damon] he’ll be gone. If they trade Trot [Nixon], holy cow, the only guys left [position players] will be [Jason] Varitek and I and [David] Ortiz.”
Rule by committee is a disaster. A few years ago they tried a “bullpen by committee” and it was an abject failure. Still, mistakes are being made.
A team in transition moves players who are inept and can’t perform under the pressure of the bright lights, and it keeps players who have a proven track record of being able to perform when the chips are down, players who “get it” who understand “what it all means”.
Woe to the team whose committee leadership falls victim to hubris and false confidence, whose leaders have no experience in leading a team to victory. For those, failure waits in the wings.
Oh, that Boston’s own Frank McCourt, real estate developer extraordinaire, had been allowed to buy the Boston Red Sox instead of the cold hearted triumvirate of money managers approved by MLB.
Instead, our renowned McCourt owns the Los Angeles Dodgers. He would not be denied. And he would have been an owner from Boston who “gets it”. We could have had a dynasty.
Instead we have a gaggle of weak, effeminate egos striving for a reach that exceeds their grasp, acting out a histrionic soap opera like a dysfunstional family of orphaned sisters.
The Transition Team--nothing but a bad joke!
John Twomey
Posted at December 9, 2005 12:01 AM
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Posted by: John at December 9, 2005 12:07 PM