Which ex-Red Sox in the World Series would you most want back?
The Cubs and Indians are loaded with Red Sox players and personnel who got away.
COMMENTARY
Red Sox fans are often accused of making it all about us — “it” being any significant baseball event currently in the headlines, whether or not the local team is involved.
This, of course, is a cruel and unjust charge.
It’s only mostly about us, silly. What, you think we’re total egomaniacs around here?
Consider this stirring World Series between the Cleveland Indians and Chicago Cubs, a pair of franchises with a combined 178-year championship drought. It’s not just that it’s very easy for Red Sox fans to tell either fan base what it will be like when they finally win (presuming the earth doesn’t open up and swallow everything in the bottom of the ninth inning in Game 7, a distinct possibility I’m sure that we could definitely connect to the Red Sox somehow).
It’s that no matter which team wins, there will be — here it is — significant Boston ties either way.
Right, you may have heard that.
You may have also heard that these ties, facetiousness aside, are frustrating the living daylights out of Red Sox fans right now. Even though the Red Sox won a championship in 2013, there are 2-year-olds in New England who don’t know what it’s like for the Red Sox to win! Think of the children!
Worse, there are plenty of reminders on the Indians and Cubs of very real and lasting mistakes the franchise has made in recent years.
Here, then, is an all-about-us listing of those Indians and Cubs with Sox ties, ranked in order of how much we wish they were still here right about now. Enjoy the World Series, if you can, my fellow filthy egomaniacal Boston cliche …
Jon Lester: I like David Price. I believe he will be better in Year 2 than he was in Year 1, and I believe that he was more valuable in Year 1 than his many detractors care to acknowledge. I’m glad he’s on the Red Sox and I believe you will be too at some point. But I will also say this: The only thing he has on Jon Lester at this point is a better pickoff move. To recap, the Red Sox had a homegrown, respected, durable, All-Star-caliber, October-proven lefthander in their rotation. And so as he approached free agency they did exactly what you do with a player of that accomplishment and acclaim in that situation: You try to take advantage of his affection for this market and try to sign him at a team discount with an offer that is less than half of what he ultimately would receive on the open market. Brilliant. A year later, they ended up giving Price a spread of cash nearly three times what they initially offered Lester. If you’ve ever wondered why Larry Lucchino now spends more time in Pawtucket than Chico Walker ever did, here’s your answer.
Theo Epstein: Maybe, following the 2011 collapse and requisite nuclear fallout, he needed a change and would have soon moved along to his next challenge anyhow. Or maybe, had the Red Sox brain trust recognized his baseball acumen was more important to the health and perception of the franchise than the other talents and skills of Lucchino, they might have named Epstein team president and thus the phrase “Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine” never would have been uttered in horror or mockery. I think he probably was burned out here; he’s acknowledged as much, and hey, there have been some good times in his absence. It was the right move for him. Doing what he’s done with the Cubs has burnished his legacy, and don’t doubt for a moment that he’s aware of that. But as I warily watch the ongoing brain-drain in the organization as Dave Dombrowski consolidates clout and cements his way of doing things, I can’t help but lament, again, that the Red Sox became such a petty, political mess that Theo’s boyhood dream job became a nightmare. He’s the best GM the Red Sox have had and probably will have, and of course he should still be here. At least we can say this: Thank god Billy Beane backed out of the job all those years ago.
Terry Francona: My dad turns 76 years old on Christmas. The Red Sox have had two managers win the World Series in his lifetime. Tito, twice. And John Farrell. I’m not exactly sure what that means, other than that it’s probably more likely for a well-constructed team with a so-so manager to get hot in the postseason than it is for a team with a subpar general manager and a competent manager to ever win anything of note. Yes, that’s my justification for putting Theo ahead of Tito on this list, and no, the choice did not come easy, especially since my wobbly logic cites a team that Ben Cherington, not Theo, actually put together. I wish he were still here, a dozen years now after Theo hired him to replace confused grandpa Grady Little, even though that would be a hell of a long tenure for a manager in one spot. But I’d rather have a great GM than an equally great manager, all things being equal. Let me leave it at this: Tito is one of my favorite personalities, my favorite people, ever to be associated with the Red Sox. I hope he wins this thing. The Cubs are teeming with young talent. There will be other years, and what’s a 109-year wait after you’ve already waited the first 108? The Indians are on a magic-carpet ride, and I can’t imagine anyone better to guide them to their destination.
Andrew Miller: It blows my mind that this pitcher who is rejuvenating the entire concept of the relief ace had an 8.54 ERA and a WHIP of 2.35 in 32 innings for the 2010 Marlins. It’s the Red Sox who rebuilt him, recognizing that the former No. 6 overall pick in the draft was more suited to A) pitching from the stretch and B) pitching in relief. (It’s easy to forget now, but he actually started games, disastrously in one case, down the stretch for the imploding 2011 Red Sox.) While the Red Sox saw his promise and reaped some early benefits of their faith in him, no one expected him to become this dominant. Still, there is some frustration in watching Miller succeed elsewhere similar to that of watching Lester thrive with the Cubs. Both were dealt by the Red Sox at the July 31 deadline in 2014, and they tried to re-sign both in free agency, only to be outbid.
John Lackey: Oh, admit it. You like him. He may be from Texas, but at heart he’s a New England grouch/softie just like you. And in case you forgot — and I think some around here have — he pitched brilliantly in the World Series clincher in 2013, the second time in his career he’d won the final game of the season, having also done it as a rookie with the 2002 Angels. Maybe there will be a third, who knows. In an overlooked way, Lackey is collateral damage from the Red Sox’ decision to lowball Lester in spring training ’14. He was furious at the way the Red Sox handled Lester’s negotiations and made it clear he didn’t want to be here anymore, which led to one of the worst transactions in recent franchise history: Trading Lackey and his bargain contract in ’15 to the Cardinals for Allen Craig and Joe Kelly. I’m making a John Lackey you’ve-gotta-be-bleepin’-me face just thinking of that mistake.
Anthony Rizzo: Anyone who complains about the Red Sox’ trade of the Cubs’ slugging first baseman in December 2010 for Adrian Gonzalez is trafficking in hindsight sharper than Ted Williams’s vision. Rizzo has turned into a Cubs cornerstone: He just submitted his third straight 30-homer season, and his .928 OPS was a career high. But it took him a little bit of time and another trade to make it: He hit .141 in 128 at-bats for the Padres as a 21-year-old in 2011 before Theo stole him for pitcher Andrew Cashner. Red Sox fans wouldn’t have had the patience to watch him develop, and as annoying as Adrian Gonzalez could be (he was the valedictorian of his clubhouse law class), he also was a truly outstanding player here. Rizzo is yet to have a season as good as Gonzalez’s first year with the Red Sox, when he slashed .338/.410/.548 with 27 homers, 117 RBIs, and a league-leading 213 hits. Sometimes the reminder is necessary: Gonzalez wasn’t traded to the Dodgers because he was a bad, high-priced player. He was traded as the cost of getting rid of the bad, high-priced players along with him.
Mike Napoli: Nothing to lament here. He was essential to the good times in ’13 (his ALCS home run off Justin Verlander finally landed two Thursdays ago, if you didn’t see it noted in the Sports Log), fell victim to a championship hangover in ’14 (just 55 RBIs in 500 at-bats), struggled mightily before a trade to Texas last season, then helped bring the party to Cleveland this year (34 homers). In a way, he’s done for the ’16 Indians what he did for the ’13 Red Sox, and it’s been fun to witness it all again from afar.
David Ross: A statement and a question regarding America’s favorite graybeard backup catcher and Jon Lester consigliere. Statement: Joe Madden is cool and all, but I bet the Cubs would be in the same position if Ross were the manager. He’s that bright and well-respected. Question: How the heck was he never a full-time starting catcher? Ross has played 15 years in the majors, is dependable defensively, calls a great game, hits for decent power (21 homers in 90 games with the ’06 Reds, for instance) … and yet has played more the 90 games in a season once. Mystifying. Anyway: Wish he was still here. Maybe he can succeed Farrell someday.
Coco Crisp: He played superb outfield defense for the Red Sox in 2006-08 but never hit much. He crushed them with a two-run homer in Game 3 of the Indians’ ALDS sweep this season. But there wasn’t a moment in between in which Red Sox fans had wished he’d never left. In fact, Crisp’s improbable postseason heroics — he’s hit .219 since the start of the ’15 season, yet also had a huge homer against the Blue Jays — are one of the chief clues that his really might be Cleveland’s year.
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