Baseball In The Trade Time: Just Shoot Me Right In The Dick

So of all the days I could pick to stroll back by the House, I have to go with this one. The one when my favorite baseball team decides to part ways with one of the twenty best hitters in the history of wood bats, and in exchange get...Jason Bay.

Jason Bay. He of the Canadian national team in the World Baseball Classic. Where he was a teammate of Stubby Clapp, don'tcha know. Proud veteran of zero postseason at-bats. That Jason Bay.

But wait, there's less! Your defending World Series champions also traded away Craig Hansen. Hansen is a reliever on a team whose biggest weakness is getting bullpen outs. They also shipped out promising young outfielder Brandon Moss and agreed to foot the bill for the $7 million in salary that Manny Ramirez is still owed this season. And there's still a little paperwork left to do and some physicals to be passed, but I think Tommy Lasorda gets to come fuck my wife next week. Sweet trade.

You can find all the details on this monstrosity on this little thing I call The Google. What you need to know is this: the Red Sox wanted to get ManRam off their roster very, very badly. You could compare the deal to the one Theo Epstein whipped up back in '04, when Nomar Garciaparra's dog shit attitude and prima donna persona were poisoning the clubhouse. That deadline trade netted Orlando Cabrera (essential to the Series-winning effort) and Doug Mientciewicz (have you seen my baseball?). Bay is better than either, but this trade still blows.

Take a random sample of 100 pitchers, managers, front office executives and broadcasters. Ask them this: Late inning situation, playoff game, tied up, two on, who do you want to face? Manny or Bay? I think 100 would go with Bay. Heck it may be 106. Point is that trade sucks.

Theo picked the wrong day to start sniffing glue. Or start, I never remember how that joke goes. Was the point to improve clubhouse chemistry? Manny is not vehemently disliked among the Sox, not like Nomar was (or Kevin Youkilis is now). Teammates tend to hang with a guy who wins a lot of games, and Manny won a lot of games. He won two rings in a town that hadn't seen a title in 86 years. What I'm saying is, that's an awful trade.

Was it time for Manny to go? Probably, but not under these circumstances. Look, I know Manny is a loon. He takes vast stretches of the season off, he has the emotional maturity of a second grader, he treats the press and the fans with utter disdain. I get it. He loafs. His appearance is revolting. He's often blatantly insubordinate with the gentlemen that pay him $20 million a season to play baseball. He can't come around on a fastball like he once could. All of it true. Still, bad trade.

Almost all of my past apologism regarding Manny has evaporated. I used to defend his defense, saying he knew the Green Monster as well as anyone and had underrated reflexes. That's all hogwash, of course, Manny's no good in the field. He takes bad angles and throws like a bitch. But two rings is two rings, and a career OPS of .990 is among the best of all time. Horrible trade, Theo.

I'm just sort of taking it as a given that this is now a lost season, thrown away to prove a point to a weirdo with three-foot-long dreadlocks. The weaknesses of this team were not addressed. Jason Varitek is hitting .215, Pudge Rodriguez was available, and he went to the Yankees. The pen is porous, Damaso Marte was available, and he went to the Yankees. The starting rotation is a little shaky, the centerfield platoon of Jacoby Ellsbury and Coco Crisp is turning sour, and we're now relying on J.D. Drew. Let me say that again. Red Sox fans must count on production from J.D. Drew to have a successful season.

Let me leave you with one last thought before I bury my face in a bucket of rye. The Dodgers just traded for Manny Ramirez, and didn't give the Red Sox anything (a LaRoche brother and some pitcher went to Pittsburgh). Theo couldn't have extracted one player from a Dodger roster that is absolutely loaded with productive players under 27? No Russ Martin? No James Loney? No Chad Billingsley? No Jonathan Broxton? No Andre Ethier? No Matt Kemp? The Sox should have ended up with Kemp and Ethier, if for no other reason than to force LA to start the world's most overpaid outfield--Manny, Andruw Jones and Juan Pierre. Now that would have been a good trade.