Why do I think this? O-Cab was a lock. He thrived in Boston. He is one of those rare players from a small market that just explodes when they hit the big time. He exhibited the mentality and character of so many of the cowboys, idiots, whatever you want to call them. Oh, and he also carried a vaccuum in his back pocket when he played the field.

I don’t think trading Manny is the thing to do. And I would suspect that on occassion the top brass have said “no” to deals Theo has had lined up to move the Left fielder. Like you said, it’s not the money that’s the issue with Manny — remember we gave Renteria $40mm, Clement $25+ mm, and have a chunk tied up in Foulke that may make it hard to move him. But, perhaps we shouldn’t move him quite yet.

However, I digress. Manny being Manny, is the Sox being the Sox. We’ve lost a number of key components to our previous winning teams (Pedro, Lowe, Roberts, etc.). The young players will hopefully get the chance to step up, and hopefully they’ll perform. Manny will continue to put up big numbers and protect David Ortiz, he just doesn’t know any better… keep him around, we’ll need him.

Without writing my own post here, I just want to mention that I really hope they give our young guys in the farm system a chance. As much as I’d like to add a Konerko and keep a lot of players, I can’t help but want to see what the minor leaguers can do given a steady chance. It may be crazy, but there could be more than 1 Papelbon ready to explode next year. Without abusing them, let’s use them and start making this team younger, cheaper, and better!

I don’t think we add Konerko, becuase he has said he doesn’t prefer to play in a big market like Boston or NY. We need someone who wants to step it up a bit and play in our maniac baseball corner of the world.