I think Bobby Valentine will prove to be a good manager for the Red Sox. All this blather about his being a lightning rod for controversy is silly. How much worse could it be than what we went through last September with Francona? Talk about lightning rods! Lose a nine game lead with a month to go.
But what disturbs me about the hiring of Valentine is the process. Clearly, Valentine with the top choice of Larry Lucchino from the start. Why on earth did he let his new general manager, Ben Cherington, go through the charade of interviewing a slate of non-Valentines, even to the point that Ben and his baseball people presented a choice, Dale Svuem, to ownership. This only makes Ben look weak, inept and impotent. What was the point?
This just strikes me as either bad management, or a deliberate beat-down so Ben (and everyone else) will know who is boss.
Lets see how the Winter meetings progress next week. I can see Scott Boras negotiating with Ben now. “Great. Did you run this by Larry yet?”
Comments
Yes! The process! It’s sad that Ben Cherington clearly has no power whatsoever.
At least we have A manager, regardless of how we got one. Now we can actually PARTICIPATE in the offseason. So… that’s something…
Yep. Definitely glad that the Sox have this wrapped up now. Valentine will probably be a real asset at the Winter meetings, too. He knows talent. Thanks for the comment!