flyingelvii {l Wrote}:People keep saying Theo left the cupboard bare and while I agree to an extent with regards to the 25-man roster, the farm system is probably as well stocked now as it has been since the 2004-2006 period, when they at various points had Pedroia, Paps, Hanley, Youk, Shoppach, David Murphy, Lester, Buchholz, MDC and I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch of others. Bradley, Bogaerts and Barnes, in particular, have very high ceilings.
Theo had a lot of hits and quite a few misses. The money he had to play with made the team good - he could afford to miss as much as he did. It was when he struck out on what he thought was the core of the next generation of Sox because he misjudged the character of a couple of players with great stats that killed him. Lackey, Gonzo, Crawford = end of Theo. Had one or 2 of them hit, instead of all three missing, and then the nice farm system supplemented with Middlebrooks and others, they would probably be in the playoffs, and he would probably be here.