Red Sox to Hire Bobby Valentine as Manager

Now former ESPN Baseball Analyst Bobby Valentine has agreed to become the new Red Sox manager

God help us all. The Red Sox have agreed to hire Bobby Valentine as the new manager. Mike Lynch of WCVB-TV was the first one to report that they had reached a verbal agreement. ESPN's Karl Ravech reported earlier last night that Gene Lamont was out of the running for the position.

This team is either completely screwed or they have just made the best decision ever. There's really no happy medium with Valentine. Either things go perfectly and better than anyone could ever expect, or all goes to hell and Valentine ends up fired.

Valentine is one of the best analysts in the business, I have to admit that. He's got a great baseball mind and is one of the smartest guys ever to manage an MLB team. Hell, in case you didn't hear him a few months ago, he answered the question of why Crawford was doing so poorly. He basically said that Crawford's stance is too open and that he needs to get rid of that stance. He is truly brilliant, but his problem is that he can be a loose cannon and it's pretty much his way or the highway.

Now, the bad side. And when I say bad, I mean atrocious. His career winning percentage is .510. That's horribly mediocre. In 15 seasons as an MLB manager, he made the playoffs twice, won the World Series once (those god damn '86 Mets), and never finished higher than second place in the division. He then went to Japan, where he managed the same team on two seperate occassions and was fired from the same team on two seperate occassions. That's probably one of the worst resumes I have ever seen.

The upside? If he finds out about fried chicken and beer in the clubhouse he's gonna be taking guys into his office and beating the holy living hell out of them. He'd probably even throw haymakers in front of everyone. That wouldn't surprise me one bit. Also, the upside for me and the media is he's going to be extremely entertaining, and he's going to give me a lot to talk about.

Anyways, contract negotiations are taking place today I think. Or whenever it is Valentine gets back from Japan. They'll probably settle on like a two year contract or something, but don't ask me about money 'cause I have no idea what a manager is worth salary wise.

The Red Sox Are Going to Hell

So the Red Sox had one guy in mind to manage the team next year. It was Dale Sveum. And guess what former Red Sox GM and now Cubs President of Baseball Operations did today! He hired that exact same guy, Dale Sveum, to manage the Cubs next year.

Hey Theo, GFY.

This Red Sox team is going to hell now. They had a shitty list of candidates to begin with, but ever since he was hired, GM Ben Cherington and Red Sox ownership have been contradicting each other at every turn. First, he tells Felger and Mazz on the radio that the next Red Sox manager doesn't have to have previous managerial experience. Then, ownership comes out and says that the next manager does indeed have to have previous managerial experience. Then Cherington says that the Red Sox don't have any current plans to expand the managerial search. And of course, ownership comes out and says that they are going to expand the search and that they've reached out to Bobby Valentine.

Wait, what? Bobby Valentine? Are you shitting me? Larry Lucchino's best idea for manager is Bobby F'ing Valentine? What the hell is he on? I'm guessing some combination of rufies, ecstasy, and a couple of those Euro drugs that the Feds are keeping an eye on. The only good thing that could come out of hiring Bobby Valentine is that if he found out about beer and fried chicken in the clubhouse he'd throw friggin' haymakers.

But seriously, the guy managed for 15 years in the MLB and made the playoffs twice. Then he went over and managed in Japan and got fired twice from the exact same team that he managed out there. Sounds like a pretty shitty resume to me.

Hopefully ownership stops trying to use Cherington as their god damn puppet and lets him and the rest of his Baseball Operations staff do their jobs. Like it's ridiculous, ownership wants a manager who will follow every order given to him and will listen to exactly what "Carmine" says. What they SHOULD be looking for is a manager who will hear "Carmine says that (insert player's name here) will have good stats playing (insert position here) here." and responds with "I don't give a shit what your frigging computer says I want to know what the scouts have to say and you will listen to what I have to say."

I seriously would just love to get into this team and have my voice, the voice of reason and legitimacy and exactly what should be done, heard. They should be interviewing guys who would actually make good managers. So, without further ado, here's my list of candidates:

• Ryne Sandberg
• Dave Martinez
• Tim Wallach
• Don Wakamatsu
• Pete Mackanin
• John Farrell

Yeah yeah, I know that the Jays don't want to the Sox to talk to Farrell at all, but personally I'd tell Anthopolous to stick it and talk to him anyways. And Mackanin is out of the running already, but I have a feeling that was an ownership call, not a Cherington one, seeing as he was the first one they wanted to talk to.

Also, it sounds like the Sox are trying to hire former Mets GM Omar Minaya to some sort of special assistant role. Really? Omar Minaya? Jesus, just when you thought their personnel choices couldn't get any worse, you hear the name Omar Minaya. Good friggin' God.