I've really wanted to not write this... but I have to.

pky
There's really nothing i can do. my hand has been forced.

first of all, i think theo epstein is a good GM, and even more importantly, he's extremely lucky. idiots would say that's a bad thing. fools. nothing could be better. except when you're exposed.

take it back to the last offseason. the day the sox signed renteria, i specifically ranted to ep, trying to understand why we'd take renteria, who as we all know, sucked it up in the world series last year, over the OC. the incredible black hole in the defense, aka orlando cabrera, for the incredible black hole in the offense, edgar rentawreck.

ok i say, maybe renteria is better than I thought. then comes the issue with mientkiwicz vs millar. again, i turn to ep and tell him i want minky instead of millar. epstein trades minky for who knows what. ok fine, maybe. please. maybe not.

the OC and minky were brought in last year to fix gaping holes we had in teh defense. it worked. it worked DAMN WELL. and after it worked so well that the sox accomplished what no other sox team could accomplish in 86 years, they just liquidate the solution. one of the main solutions to our many problems was just eliminated. why? to bring in teh daunting edgar "the toughest out in baseball (IN THE NL...)" renteria. aka, the easiest out in the AL. the weakest bat in the AL. the weakest defense in the AL. the biggest bitch in the world. the weakest arm i've ever seen a player have. he lobs balls to first base. it's pathetic. maybe he's really left handed and like johnny damon, throws with his weak arm cause it's just satisfying enough to play with your natural throwing arm.

well big surprise, we have defensive gaps again. who would have thought that millar would still suck ass at 1B? no kidding. i know the moneyball philosophy on defense, and a good offense easily overwhelms bad or no defense. i understand and agree and believe that. but that's on the condition that you actually have a bat. in renteria's case, he doesnt. in millar's case, he DID, so i can UNDERSTAND why we gave minky away. i cant understand why francoma still puts millar out there, despite his recent "hot streak." (is it still considered a hot streak after 5 months of pure futility? HELL NO. it's called put up or eat a dick.) francona sucks. that's another issue.

the renteria/OC watch.
here's the straightforward/simple breakdown
career stats YTD
renteria-
OBP SLG OPS OBP SLG OPS
.345 .398 .743 .332 .380 .712

OC-
OBP SLG OPS OBP SLG OPS
.315 .403 .718 .309 .361 .670

ok, renteria has a decent advantage offensively over the OC. roughly 30 points better careerwise, 40 some points year to date... not bad, i concede, except when you take in the fielding percentage... be careful not to soil yourself or throw up all over your keyboard.

preface: in most cases, i disregard errors because i agree with the moneyball philosophy that errors are overrated. BUT...
RENTERIA- 27 errors YTD
OC- 5 errors YTD
that's 5 times+ more errors. granted, some maybe be opportunity errors, in that renteria forced a play that maybe most other SSs could not convert. lets be real. not 5x more though. this is a staggering difference. is 5 errors and .670 OPS worth it over 27 errors and the .712 OPS that renteria sports? YOU DECIDE. my vote is no. especially the contract that we signed him to. what happened to non emotional signings and not falling in love with players? what exactly did the front office see in renteria's play that ALL of NE missed last year in the playoffs? please. especially the world series. word now is that renteria DOESNT LIKE PLAYING IN THE COLD WEATHER... he cant seem to hit well in cold weather. i'm tearing up inside here. waaaaaaaaaaaah.

i say this all in hindsight because i didnt want him in boston to begin with. the OC would have taken less money, played better, and would ahve been a nice defensive stopgap. plus he settled in boston real well. he was dependable. basically.. the complete opposite of renteria.

why do i bring all this up? is it to tear into renteria? you better believe it. but i'm more of a big picture kinda guy. i like to do stuff for a reason. here it is. and this is what i've been struggling to avoid to say recently...
"Theo, you F-ed up real bad this offseason."
I SAID IT. what no one else is willing to say, or consider, because he's still teh golden boy. and that's fine. i like him too. but he screwed up real bad this offseason.

"but pky, the red sox are in first place!"
by my estimates, that's cause we've outslugged everyone, which is what's supposed to happen. i go into every year EXPECTING TO BE IN FIRST PLACE EVERY DAY OF THE SEASON. if you dont, you're crazy. our team SHOULD BE THAT GOOD, looking at how much money we spend on players. and incidentally, since you're wondering, OUR TEAM IS THAT GOOD. you're telling me things i already assumed. bear in mind, the yankees are a pathetic team this year. what's even more pathetic is that we've been just good enough to stay barely ahead of them. in a year where we're built to beat the hell out of teams by scoring 7+ runs per game, and seeing the yankees go 1-900 when they score 3 or less runs, we should be EASILY 10 games over. we should hav elocked the division by now. but it's not happened. why? well, if you havent figured that out yet, you're probably retarded too. think. we've allowed the yankees to linger.

here's a little more to consider. when "Manny just being Manny" happened, what did our front office do? first lucchino the idiot admits that the front office actually was trying to move him on Dennis and Callahan on WEEI. and then ignoring the REAL issue of STARTING PITCHING and PITCHING IN GENERAL (the biggest problems then, and now to this day...) they wasted time trying to deal manny for pennies on the dollar. big surprise, no one bit. we lost out on a HUGE opportunity to snag AJ Burnett and add an enormous arm to the rotation. lets think about this. is arroyo + prospects <, =, > AJ Burnett? YOU DECIDE. it's not a difficult decision, especially in light of how shaky arroyo has been all year. i understand that it was a HUGE buyer's market. I'm not even that convinced that we would have pulled off a deal for Burnett. BUT WE DIDNT EVEN TRY. after we heard that raw deal the marlins were tryign to pull by packaging mike lowell with burnett, we just gave up. for what? for nothing. FOR NOTHING. we did it for nothing. we wasted efforts to force a non trade, which shouldnt have been considered in the first place.

as for the other issue of bullpen problems, i dont know what the solution is. sometime shit happens, and you deal with it. we got thru it in 2003 when we still had teh shittest pen, or among the shittest pens in the majors, and miraculously they stepped it up BIG TIME in the ALDS, ALCS, etc. (there are other issues at play with the 03 season- "Grady the Little shit.") point being, there are only so many moves you can make before you are forced to deal with what you have. our bullpen is what it is. there's little to do with it. FINE. but we neglected the real issues at that point. at least we got cora, who at this point, I'll take over renteria. dont be tempted to tell me that renteria is that much better, because he's not. he's better, but not by much by my current no-BS estimation. and cora's defense is more solid. foulke got dealt a crappy hand, but it's his fault for not dealing with it in the offseason... oh and incidentally, since his knee scope, there's been little progress. why? his confidence is gone. his desire to dominate is gone. his interview on WEEI was PATHETIC TODAY. "I just wanna go home." WAAAAAAAAAAAAH. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. he really solidified his position today. he wont be on the roster come playoffs. and if we continue to play shitty, we wont even make it.

at this point, bring on craig hansen. yeah, he's a rookie, but he cant do much worse than letting in runs and walking men (like the rest of our BP). at least he'll be throwing 97 and missing at 97, instead of missing at *gasp* 87. wait, was that an 87? yeah. was it a changeup? dunno. was it a fastball? dunno. no one knows wtf foulke is throwing up there, cause it's all the same crappy ass pitch. real effective. i'm glad to see papelbon being used, and delcarmen looked good yesterday. yes,
i know they can get hit hard. we all saw delcarmen get knocked around in minnesota. again, it's the craig hansen argument. if delcarmen misses, he misses at 94, 95, not 89. i'll take that. any freaking day.

if there's anything else, i'll be sure to let you know. and i'm sure there will be. stay tuned for my thoughts on that piece of crap movie, Napoleon Dynamite, forever to be known as one of the shittiest movies of ALL TIME. yes, unlike the idiots in hollywood and all the other retards who jumped on the bandwagon, my analytical mind recognized the asscrap being spewed out by this movie and somehow..."resisted" the bizarre urge to call it a funny movie. dont embarrass yourself by trying to convince yourself or me that it was a good movie, funny movie, decent, hilarious, great movie. dont embarrass yourself, because it wasnt. by my absolute crudest and most unrefined estimates, the movie sucked pure stank ass. i'd say as bad as renteria, except renteria can do some stuff right... like get hit by the baseball to get on base at least. cheers.

[append]
one more thing. i keep hearing that dustin pedroia's coming up next year. well, he better not, because my boy TONY GRAFFANINO is tearing it up for us. this guy is amazing. credit where credit's due- and ep, you said it, theo made a great move getting graffanino. amazing find. this guy is so nasty it's ridiculous. reminds me of bill mueller and david ortiz.

i'm not sure what graffy's contract status is after this season, but if he still has a few years, good. my gut tells me that he's a free agent after this season, in which case, we better resign him. or have him play SS and move renteria to... the yankees. they need a 2B i hear =). robinson crusoe isnt cutting it. half impressive as a rookie, but please. renteria's the toughest out in the majors. IN THE BIGS. the yankees could use a renteria on their team.
[/append]