I love Orlando Cabrera, SS for the Angels. The Sox spent 32 million on Renteria instead of holding on to this guy, and defensively I don’t see how they compare at all. Really, even before Renteria even came to the Sox, I’d have rated Cabrera and Christian Guzman’s defense above his just to name two players that come to mind. Up the middle, you have to think about defense first and then work from there. Six million is a lot to pay, but to go from Nomar’s salary to 8 million x 4 years seems dumb to me when you’re also letting go of Pedro. I don’t think we went after Cabrera at all, so whether he’d have squeezed 6 million out of us is arguable. If he did, at least you could get away with a short deal on him. Renteria was the one who’d been on TV the most (hence his 4 year deal), Pedro complained too much for management, Kevin Millar had some decent anticdotes…we got swept by a team we’d have beaten last year.
All the buzz from finally winning probably hasn’t worn off for me just yet. Not until the playoffs did my Boston come smack me in the head. Surely not enough to make me critical at all realy. It was the lead the Sox held for all that time, with a strange feeling the whole way that something bad had happened. It’s the loss of Pedro that ties it all together for me. I understand they want to get rid of Manny as well. The thought being, ‘I’m running this team and WILL win because I’m smart enough to make up for lost tallent on the team’. This same mentality caused Dan Duquette to get rid of Roger Clemens. So now you have Schilling, who looked a lot like Randy Johnson’s looked – and Pedro’s got years left. Manny certainly has a number of solid years in front of them.
The problem Boston has with both Manny and Pedro is that they’re good enough to be difficult once in a while. Around all-star time it’s a yearly thing with both of them. I could care less about all that, but there’s this loud contingency around here that’s hard working, blue and white collar, both resentfull of their schtick. None of that matters though, or shouldn’t matter at least.
The facts are indisputable. Boston the first team to ever lead baseball in runs scored three years in a row, but clearly lost because of their pitching. They didn’t lose because Manny is a knucklehead or someone else was a diva. Clement-Wakefield-Wells was the best we could put out there. Schilling practically hobbled himself to finish last season. Manny is the best hitter we’ve had since Wade Boggs, and he’s going to put up those numbers year after year.