It won’t be long now before online readers will be asked to pay to view these posts of “Information, Insight, Analysis.” This morning’s column delved into the potential move of Dustin Pedroia from second base to shortstop. Welcome to the party, Tony.
(1) “For those of you who still think the Red Sox offense is going to be fine, ask yourselves this: if the Sox were concerned enough a year ago to offer Mark Teixeira the richest contract in club history – eight years, $170 million – how concerned are they now?”
They are panicked. They should increase their offer to Teixeira past $200 million and throw in the Ted Williams bleacher seat as a bonus. Honestly, the failure to sign Teixeira broke poor Tony. He’s had 12 months to heal the wound, but somehow those 300-plus days were not enough.
(2) “…the Sox are now looking for significant offense from their middle infielders because they know they are not likely to get it from other parts of their lineup, most notably from the designated hitter.”
This is some pretty confusing, roundabout logic. Apparently, Tony is a big believer in the theory that doubles and home runs are worth more when they’re hit by boppers like David Ortiz and Mark Teixeira. In his mind, grand slams by middle infielders are more like solo homers, at best.
(3) “For all of the criticisms that were made of someone like David Eckstein during his career as a shortstop – range and arm strength were chief among them – Eckstein was the starting shortstop on two World Series winners, one in the American League (the Angels, 2002) and one in the National League (the Cardinals, 2006).”
Back before writing tired storylines for Jim and Pam on The Office became so time-consuming, these types of ridiculous sentences would have been ripped apart in the most profane fashion imaginable at FireJoeMorgan.com. Now all we have left are lesser blogs imitating the style and a bunch of depressing relationship humor. Next year, look for Tony’s book examining how many career touchdowns Randy Moss would have if he only tried as hard as Wes Welker.
(4) “…the Red Sox would be making the move largely to account for other deficiencies, specifically in the middle of their lineup.”
Leave it to a Boston Globe sportswriter to attempt to stir up outrage by suggesting to fans that their favorite baseball team might be trying to toggle their lineup in such a way as to score more runs over the course of a season. Get pissed, Red Sox Nation!
(5) “Moving him to another position would be have been (sic) akin to making Jonathan Papelbon a starter in the earlier years of his career. Why dilute that? Why steal from one area to shore up another?”
Newspaper writers have not been using passive voice enough. It seems to have been a lost art in a lot of ways. Oftentimes, poor grammar and extraneous wording is utilized to mask laughably terrible arguments and rationales. For example, saying one thing is a bad idea by equating it to a very good idea – attempting to maximize a young pitcher’s value to a ball club – isn’t going to win many accolades. Unless that guy from Detroit who voted Miguel Cabrera for MVP is the one handing out the awards.
Fenway Pastoral 
Tony, is trying to join the contrarians bandwagon. The problem is the bus is full. Bob Ryan is one of the few guys who is down the middle, you have homers and contrarians, but the amount of contrarians given the success of the local market is overweight. That’s why Felger’s show doesn’t work. You can’t two guys ranking on the Patriots every day. They are 7-4 not 4-7. Tony like Borges, Felger is contrarian for the sake of it. Its tired.