Thoughts on the hot stove? To quote William Goldman from another context, “nobody knows anything”. Or at least, us armchair pundits don’t. Frankly, I don’t like our rotation for 2005, Schilling’s out for the start, leaving the idea of Fat Bastard (I mean it in a good way - I like his attitude, actually) David Wells as our starting pitcher on opening day. That said, I think the Yankees might be mortgaging everything of value left in the farm system (Eric Duncan and Dioner Navarro were possibly their last two good prospects) just to get an aging Randy Johnson, the man with the porn star name.
While I believe Theo Epstein and the rest of the Sox brass do have a plan, I’m not going to believe everything this off-season went exactly according to plan either. There are all sorts of conspiracy theories floating around: the Sox never wanted Pedro and offered him a big contract that they knew he would turn down, Cuza didn’t convey the right messages to Pedro, that sort of thing. Not sure how much of that is true.
I’ll say this: it’s possible that the Sox would think saying “look, we’re giving you the same money as Schilling” would be a sign of respect, while Pedro could hear those exact same words and find them distasteful. (Not making any claims to knowing their personalities - just postulating a scenario which could explain the tone of bewilderment on both sides.) One of those ‘different styles’ ‘head vs heart’ things purveyors of the MBTI and other personality metrics keep reminding us of… hey, even with Schilling, they not only had to cater to the stats geek in him in trying to convince him that right-handed power pitchers can succeed in Fenway, they had to sit down with him at Thanksgiving.
So where does that leave us? Let’s see what unfolds in April. Nobody knows anything.