First things First

Sporting Goods

There are a number of key personnel decisions that need to be made in the Red Sox off-season, and if I can keep my energy up and find the time I'll try to go through them one by one during the off-season. But before any major player decisions are made, the Sox need to make a big decision and make it soon: resign general manager Theo Epstein or let him go.

I think that Theo certainly should get either some, or a lot, of credit for putting together the pieces that won the Sox the title in 2004. I am almost tempted to say that is enough for me. But he has received a good deal of criticism over the last few months, and I think there are three particular areas where people have pointed:

1. The moves he made acquiring new talent were not the right moves:

Whether they worked out completely or not, was anyone really complaining about the signings of Clement, Renteria, Wells, Mantei, the low-risk/high-reward signing of Wade Miller, and the random roster fodder like Petagine, Jeremi Gonzalez, etc.? I remember doing some runs scored / runs allowed analysis of this team in pre-season and seeing 100 wins on paper.

Theo also traded Dave Roberts for Jay Payton. I know everyone loves Dave Roberts, but Jay Payton had a very good year...with Oakland. Had the Sox found playing time for Payton, this would have been a good move. Had the Sox had that playing time to give around, they would have kept Roberts on the roster in the first place. Maybe they just should have found this playing time, giving Ortiz some time at first and getting Millar's warning track power out of the lineup a bit more often. Theo's fault? Tito's fault? Probably a bit of both.

2. He didn't make the right decisions with his existing personnel:

The Red Sox chose not to re-sign Cabrera, Lowe, and Pedro. Cabrera is a great little player, but on paper the move to Renteria was a true upgrade. Nobody shed any tears when Derek Lowe left, post-season heroics aside. And all the people who say "it would have been so nice to have Pedro this year" are completely right. But the flipside of that is that he was not let go because the Sox didn't want to pay him this year and next, it was for 2007 and 2008 that the Sox were not willing to pony up the big cash.

The big move they did make was re-signing Jason Varitek and making him captain. This is a move that may be looked at retrospectively as a bad one if Varitek's late season decline is an omen for the future. Old catchers do not hold up well. But I think it was universally agreed that the Red Sox did the right thing here.

3. He didn't make a big splash during the season to bring in the missing pieces:

It is very hard to prove a negative. But what I do know is that I've never been more excited about the young guys that the Sox have groomed to hopefully make an impact in the next two years. Papelbon, Hansen, Hanley Ramirez, Pedroia. I think the one complaint I could make is that we still have Kelly Shoppach, who does not hold a ton of value for a team that has two solid catchers, one of whom is signed through 2008, and he would probably offer more value as trade bait.

Yes, this team needed some relief help. And they tried out arms like Mike Remlinger, and those experiments failed. But I would not have wanted to give up a Papelbon or Hansen or Declarmen to get a guy who would pitch a total of 15 innings for the Sox.

My biggest complaint about what the Sox "could have, should have" done is tried out more of the unproven players sooner and more often (the aforementioned young pitchers, Petagine), and cut bait on Embree, etc. before they did irreparable harm. But really, these are things that probably cost them the division title, not the LCS.

Verdict: I think it is obvious where I am going here, and that is that I think Epstein should be brought back, and if anything with a bit more power. He had trades pulled out from under him (Larry Bigbie) because I think he might have a few too many people to answer to. I also think that there should be more top-down management, as Tito has a tendency to play "his guys" despite their performance. But, this all comes with a big caveat.

I think their needs to be a confirmation hearing where Ted Kennedy asks Theo (imagine it in your best Mayor Quimby voice), "Will you or will you not try to trade Manny Ramirez, one of the greatest sluggahs of all time?" Yes, we need a "Manny litmus test." Bring back Theo. And Theo, please, pretty please, don't get rid of Manny.