Kenny Rogers Holds The Key To The Season

Why does Kenny Rogers hold the key to the remainder of the Red Sox season? If he has a strong second half with the Tigers, will they be an unstoppable force in the playoffs? No. I'm not even talking about that Kenny Rogers. I'm talking about the recently-facelifted roasted-chicken-eating, Dolly-Parton-dueting, shmaltzy-light-country-singin' Kenny Rogers. He's the key. Can he get lefties out? Who the hell knows. He did, however, sing "The Gambler," which has been going through my head constantly as we approach the non-waiver trade deadline at the end of this month.

Kenny sang about knowing when to hold 'em and knowing when to fold 'em. This is what is on every general manager's mind as we get to the trade deadline. Is my team in potential contention? What pieces could put me over the top? How delusional am I about our chances? What am I willing to give up? It's this last question that I think is most pertinent to our man Theo.

Trade deadlines of the past decade or two in Boston have been much different than they have been in the last two years. The World Series changed everything. No longer is there as much of the "win now at all costs" approach that characterized the behavior of Dan Duquette and his predecessors. We can breathe a little easier and have some perspective on this.

Something that Theo said very early on in his tenure as GM still seems to be a guiding principle. He talked about the Sox becoming a $100 million drafting and development machine. Working through the draft, developing players, making smart decisions, having patience- I think that's the Sox approach now, and I think it's going to work. This year, we've got Kevin Youkilis, Jon Papelbon, Jon Lester, Manny Delcarmen, and Craig Hansen all playing major roles in our first-place position this year. Can you imagine what this team would be like without Youkilis getting on base the way he does, or with Timlin closing games instead of Papelbon? No offense to Timlin, but the reason the Sox have had so much success in tight games is Papelbon. If you just look at their run differential- the Sox have outperformed their runs scored/runs allowed expectation. This is either blind luck, or some measure of success in 1- and 2-run games. I think you know what my explanation is.

The reason that these kids have been able to contribute so much is that Theo has held on to them. He has not been willing to mortgage the future to win now. That's the "what would you give up" part of the gambler's decision. The Sox picked most of these kids for the purpose of helping the team on the field. You'll not see Jacoby Ellsbury, Jed Lowrie, Dustin Pedroia, or any of those guys changing uniforms this July. Not for the likes of Jon Leiber, anyway.

That's the other part of the trade deadline problem. This is a terrible, terrible seller's market, even at the best of times. Every other team knows your weaknesses. They know what you need, and if they've fallen out of contention and are willing to sell, they're not going to sell cheap. Under limited circumstances are teams able to find what they want for a reasonable price. Either that or they're accepting less than they really need. Look at Lieber for instance. He's probably the most-named pitcher as a potential acquisition. There are just two problems: 1) he sucks; and 2) his contract is a millstone.

Red Sox nation probably still remembers him as the control master who gave the Sox agita with the Yankees a couple of years ago. Look at him now, his K/BB ratio has fallen off a cliff, he's got an ERA in the mid 5's (even away from offense-friendly Philly), and he's under contract next year for another seven million. We don't need that sort of suckiness. We've already got Matt Clement.

The Sox have been down that path, and recently. They picked up Scott Sauerbeck and Jeff Suppan back in 2003 thinking they were just the ticket. In the process, they gave up, among other things, Freddy Sanchez. Check the batting average leaderboard in the National League. Who is that at the top, hitting over .350? I think I recognize that little birthmark- it's Freddy. I know batting average is overrated, but I'd like to see that in a Sox uniform instead of my bad bad memories of Jeff Suppan and Scott Sauerbeck peeing themselves throughout the pennant race.

While we're on the subject of Freddy Sanchez for a second, I should point out I thought it very interesting that no fewer than four former Sox shortstops are having very good seasons after getting the boot. Freddy, Nomar, and Edgar Renteria are all hitting well over .300. Hanley Ramirez has dropped off a bit, but is stealing bases and helping the Marlins have hope for the future. It's almost as if I'm back in Milwaukee and get to watch all of the players have success only after leaving (I'm looking at you Gary Sheffield. I haven't forgotten).

Back to the trading deadline. If we're going to stand pat, for the most part, is that enough? Well, it has been so far. We're still in first place, albeit by only 1.5 games after yesterday's 5-1 loss to the A's. We're coming home, though, and play a huge percentage of our final games at home. Our young players are improving and the bullpen is less and less of a nightmare. Our offense is more than adequate on most nights, if we could just get Coco to make a bit more solid contact with the ball. This is a good team. It's a playoff team.

Oddly, the single biggest acquisition (no pun intended) for the Sox this summer could be David Wells. The other gambler, he of the PokerStars.com baseball hat. David's put away a couple of buckets of chicken in his day as well. If he's healthy (we know his arm is fresh) and anything like David Wells has always been, he's a major addition. I'd still like to see him make another rehab start, particularly because he's always so awful in his first start after the DL, but if he can pitch, we can win this thing.

The thing that Kenny Rogers was wrong about in his song was in the line- "...and the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep." We can hope for much more than that.