The Man With The World on His Shoulders

Because these last couple of games are unworthy of anyone’s patience and attention, I’ve decided to use today’s post as a sort of walk down memory lane. A “Where are they now?” for the recently departed players of the team. So, where are they now?

Jermaine Dye is the easiest: he’s sitting at home on his couch. Or perhaps he and Joe Crede are touring with Journey, singing backup.

Jayson Nix was claimed by the Indians earlier this year after being designated for assignment. After batting a deplorable .163 with the Sox, Jayson went on to hit .264 for the Indians. Quite an improvement. Plus, this time around he had one more hit (37) than SO (36)! Conclusion? Not a big loss.

D.J. Carrasco, a man I would have traded Tony Pena’s soul for, moved over to the National League. He posted a mediocre 3.88 ERA in 45 games with the Pirates, then moved to the Diamondbacks, where further atrophied to 5.63. Overall, on the year, he has a 4.10 ERA and 57 holds. Comparatively, in 2009 with the Sox, his ERA was 3.76 with 103 holds (although, he had 30 more innings under his belt, so when the numbers are reduced proportionally, he should still be at 70 holds on the year). Seems the choice here was a good one, unless he, like I assumed of our own Edwin Jackson, was suffering from a case of “being on a horrible team.”

Scott Podsednik, who I was more than upset to let go played for the Royals, then Dodgers this year. I often compared him to Juan Pierre this year. Pierre is leading the majors with 47 stolen bases, while Scott has 34. Still, Podsednik is hitting a much better .308 with a slightly better .354 OBP and 49 RBI over Pierre’s .273/.345/31. Pierre has turned out to be a pretty good player for the Sox as of late, but I’d still rather have Scotty. I guess this one’s a toss-up.

Finally, there’s Jim Thome. After hitting .249 with the Sox the previous year, Thome went on to hit .273 for the Twins this year. He’s had 17 HR so far. HOWEVER, his first half numbers looked a little different. He was hitting .255 with only 10 HR in 61 games. Recently, he’s had 7 in the last 20 and he’s hitting .313 with a .423 OBP. His numbers are even better against the Sox, with an overall .387 BA and .459 OBP. As for a conclusion on this one… well, I don’t have one. I loved Thome as a player, but he was often frustrating in terms of productivity. Do I wish we had another slugger on the team? Sure. But should it have been Jim Thome just so he wouldn’t be single-handedly making Sox fans cry every night as part of the Twins organization? That I can’t be sure about.

Overall, I think Kenny hasn’t made as many mistakes as I’d like to accuse him of making this past off-season. Has he lost his magic touch? Well, to some extent, I’ve been beginning to doubt him ever since the Griffey trade. But is our entire season doomed because of the simple decision not to pick up Jim Thome once again? Absolutely not. The failures of our season are not Jim Thome’s fault. Surely, he's not the nail in the coffin deciding that the Sox are 5 games behind the Twins. It is the Sox’ fault for not winning with the talent they do have.