Boston Red Sox starting pitcher Josh Beckett hasn’t been seen in good light so far during this offseason.
He was seen as one of the ringleaders of Fried Chicken and Beergate 2011. And now, it appears that he may be one of the reason why Terry Francona decided not to come back as the manager of the Red Sox.
Here’s what Jon Heyman of SI.com has learned:
People familiar with what went on in the Red Sox clubhouse say Francona tried to stem unrest among the players with a late team meeting but believe Francona may have erred by never confronting Josh Beckett one-on-one. Beckett was seen by other Red Sox players as among the more vocal detractors of Francona behind the scenes. Francona long was beloved in the clubhouse so this was a unusual situation for him.
Now some people may not like Heyman but he is one of the more trusted writers out there and he’s usually right. And given everything else we’ve heard coming out of the anonymous sources from the Red Sox and how they were right before, there’s a pretty good chance this is true.
Obviously if this is true, can you understand why Tito didn’t want to come back? I can.
Why would we want to be there when one of his best players is talking behind his back? If he’s lost Beckett and we’ve all seen the influence Beckett can have on others, what’s to say he wouldn’t lose more guys?
The great respect I had for Beckett before went out the door with the fried chicken and beer incident. I can honestly say there’s little chance it ever comes back, especially if this is true.
The best remedy to all of this would be to trade Beckett. Unfortunately, the Red Sox can’t do that.
Their starting pitching depth for 2012 is not deep at all. You have Beckett, Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz. John Lackey is out for 2012 and the earliest we’ll probably see Daisuke Matsuzaka is June. So by trading Beckett you’re losing even more depth.
Given his close relationship on the team with his binky, I mean the Captain of the Red Sox, Jason Varitek, I would have expected him to do this. But that didn’t appear to happen.
Someone really needs to have a talk with Beckett and get things sorted out. If not, we can probably expect this to happen next year under the new manager, whomever that turns out to be.
Thanks to Krystle (@pinkberryoasis) who pointed out the link on @redsox1234‘s Twitter feed.
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