A word of warning: What you are about to read here is a rant. It may not completely make sense to you all, but, of course, that is the purpose of a rant. I'll probably have a coherent response to this news once Spring Training begins, and I have cooled off.
Anyway, in this developing piece of absolutely revolting news, Big Jim Thome has officially signed a one-year deal with the Minnesota Twins- the hated, reviled, disgusting, rotten, putrid, wretched, absolutely loathsome, Minnesota Twins- worth $1.5 million, plus another $750,000 in incentives. As much as I utterly despise that franchise, I would like to wish the big man the best of luck. He has always, and will forever be, one of my all-time favorite players to watch, regardless of the uniform he's in, and him donning a wretched Twins jersey will not change that one bit. However, the thing that absolutely made my blood boil was not the fact that he's on the Twins, but it is the fact that the Sox did not even try to bring him back!
The first thing that really got under my skin was seeing that the Sox did not plan on bringing Thome back, despite him expressing an interest in returning. Thome appeared to be very willing to come back at a hometown discount, and knowing that the Sox have a glaring hole at DH, his return would have been a very good move for the club. Well, I guess signing Thome would have made wayyyyy too much sense to Ozzie Guillen and Kenny Williams. He would have been more than adequate at filling their hole in that part of their lineup. Meanwhile, Ozzie continues to spew this garbage about being a more flexible team, while their biggest rival (and defending AL Central Champion) just added more depth to an already explosive lineup. If you knew the Twins were interested in Thome, and if you knew that you still had a large hole to fill in the lineup, why on earth did you not try to bring him back?
So what now? What is it that Sox fans can look forward to at the start of the season? Well, they can look forward to having a rotating DH featuring Andruw Jones (who has not had a productive season since 2006), Mark Kotsay (who is nothing more than a back-up outfielder), and Jayson Nix (who is okay, but someone I'd rather not see in the lineup more than once per week). This problem is just one among several in a lineup that is already full of question marks. Some of the other problems in their lineup include whether or not Carlos Quentin can stay healthy and whether or not Alex Rios will ever become productive again. Those two guys need to be healthy and producing if the Sox want a shot at the division title. Konerko cannot carry this offense by himself anymore like he did in 2004-2005; he needs help. If he is not going to get help from the DH hole, and if Quentin and Rios are not healthy and producing, where is he going to get help from?
I'd never thought I would say this about this team, but for the first time in a long time, I am not confident about their starting lineup heading into this season. Also, I never thought that a decent offseason would be negated by such a stupid move (or lack thereof) until now. I was confident that the Sox would bring back Thome at a discount, but now I have to look forward to the triumvirate of garbage at the DH hole. Ozzie and Kenny better know what they are doing with this year's team.
No comments:
Post a Comment