Dear Theo & the Trio:
Red here. Just a quick note. See that guy in the photo above? Whatever you do this offseason, do not trade him. Under any circumstances. I’m beggin’ ya.
So the guy will occasionally leave the field mid-game to take a whiz. So he sometimes forgets how many outs there are. So he’ll slag off on the basepaths from time to time. If this was Bernard Gilkey we were talking about, I’d say tie him to a raft and set him loose in Boston Harbor. But Manny is one of the best, if not the best, righthanded hitter in the game. Where else ya gonna get those 45 home runs and 144 RBIs? And who’s gonna protect Papi in the line-up? Kevin Youkilis? If you give him a gun, maybe.
Look, you’ve got one of the most feared hitters in all of baseball. A veritable RBI and home run machine who, yeah, acts a bit dippy. Hey, we’ll take “dippy” over some of the unproductive, unquestionably cantankerous asshats who’ve been a part of this roster throughout the years [see: The Rick Cerrone era].
Saving all that money does you no good if you can’t replace that talent. And short of wrestling Albert Pujols from St. Louie, you’re not going to find better. So can’t we just suck it up and chill out and look forward to another summer of Manny breaking windows on Lansdowne?
In other news, that freakin’ Houston-Atlanta game — a doubleheader, if you will — was one spectacular nutcruncher. Seeing Roger come out of the pen and work the 16th, 17th and 18th? Freakin’ amazing. Hell, I’d dig on a Chicago-Houston World Series. How ’bout you?
