Terry Francona: HOF

There will be no standing for Francona to go into the HOF as an Indian if they lose to the Cubs.

 

He's going in wearing a Phillies hat, you putzes!!!

(I actually think if he wins with the Indians, he's going in wearing an Indians hat. Especially if John Henry is still running the team when Francona gets elected)

 

Francona hates Henry and Lucchino. He'd do anything to piss off Henry. (No one cares about Werner except the folks at NESN.) Tito isn't all that fuzzy with Theo, either.

 

This is not nearly as well-known as it should be. Tito took all the blame for how 2011 fell apart and little Theo, who put that monstrosity of a team together, parachutes into Chicago less than a month later and somehow gets painted as the tortured genius who had to pursue his muse. What a joke that guy is.

 

What did Theo do that screwed up the team? He had Beckett stumble on the bullpen mound? He kept running Wakefield out there at the end when he was done? He made Bard crap the bed in September?

Theo should be responsible for the lack of starting pitching depth and Crawford. But it goes well beyond the GM when a team is 7 and 20 in September.

 

It stops at the GM when a team is so poisonously built. It's insane that Francona's reputation got dragged within an inch of its life while golden boy skated. But his PR skills are pretty good, even if he tries pretending he was never on a path to becoming one of us.

 

Has a guy entering his prime like Carl Crawford -- 28 years old coming to Boston, just hit .307 with an .851 OPS -- ever fallen off as quickly? Signing him and Gonzo were not mistakes at the time. Hell, Gonzalez was a monster that year. Crawford sucked in an epic way, and guys like John Lackey (6.41 ERA!) were backpacks of bricks, too.

 

Spending $140 million to sign a speed guy to play left in a ballpark where even a butcher (ok, not Hanley Ramirez) can play the caroms was absolutely stupid. Carl Crawford was no Rickey Henderson. And his personality was not suited for the market. Theo was the guy who pushed the Crawford signing, by many accounts.

 

In hindsight, Lackey was probably pitching hurt. Theo had a lot of trade busts: a guy who became a serviceable outfielder for a crap-master like Eric Gagne, bringing in Erik Bedard who was even more of a Dumpster fire down the stretch in 2011 ... I'd rather have 50-year-old Tom Bolton, Kevin Morton and Dana Kiecker than Bedard.

 

He's just a good looking boy genius who enjoys following people.

 

How was the team poisonously built? It just seems like an after the fact, purely subjective and speculative explanation. The stuff that came out was happening in the clubhouse. Lester and Beckett had won a World Series. Lester, Lackey, and Buchholz would go on to win one.