It is Larry Lucchino who is in over his head – whenever he chooses to wear his baseball ops hat.

Ben Cherington is as well prepared a GM as anyone in the game. His career in Boston predates this ownership group. He has worked under Dan Duquette and Epstein – and served under the two interim and accomplished GM’s (LaJoie and Port) that the Red Sox have had under the Henry watch. Cherington has also been involved with virtually every level of the Baseball Ops department, including directing player development.

While I like the way Reddick comes to play the game, and he is better than average defender in RF with a very good arm, I agree with sabatimus – I just don’t think ultimately Reddick is the right fit in Boston.

Also, not to sound like a spoiled Red Sox fan, but this team is not as big of a mess as its made out to be. A HUGE DISAPPOINTMENT to be sure, but a huge mess is a tad to sensational a description.

Clearly a few players (one in particular) need to be shipped out come this off-season. And a good chunk of contract money will be eaten, but having cleared my head of the latest drama, I’m back to my more level headed belief that this team was a World Series contender for 5 months last season before the wheels came off.

And for a variety of reasons, after 12 months, they have yet to right the ship. But with the right manager and a couple of key roster tweaks – albeit at least one being of the major undertaking variety in clearing Beckett out of town – and this team will be right back at the top next year. There’s just too much talent on this roster.

Also, I would say by-by to the current S&C coach, who clearly has done worse than his predecessor – the latter of whom used to work magic.

http://www.boston.com/?refresh=true

According to Sean McAdam of CSNNE.com, Cherington also said that any decision on surgery will be based on the well being of the player, not the team’s place in the standings.

Cherington’s Inner-Dialog:
Certainly getting Carl healthy for 2013 is paramount. . . . and we are ready to concede the season. BUT, not before we give Papi some additional time to return and have a chance to pass Beckett through waivers and make some transactional magic happen.

We still feel this team is poised to make a run. Even though we in the GM’s office have known for quite some time that that line of thinking is fool’s gold.

In any event, we look forward to continuing to improve our team where we can as we head into the September stretch drive. Who said I can’t write comedy? Afterall, they say all good comedy is drawn from painful experiences.

They still think they have a chance in Boston. They are deluded. The standings tell me that they don’t have a snowballs chance in hell. Tampa is in it, Baltimore isn’t going anywhere. The Yankees will win the division. The Red Sox can’t even pull off a 3 game win streak.

Let Crawford get his surgery. I think it sucks that they are waiting on this, but they own him. Here again guaranteed money rears its ugly head, but in a very different way than what we are used to. He won’t miss a paycheck and they feel he can still hit so they tell him to play. He’s fucked and it’s sad.