The Red Sox re-signed shortstop Stephen Drew yesterday, a move that has been called for by the media pretty much non-stop since the beginning of the season.

A guy that many of these same media folks were snickering at when he was originally signed, they called for his benching when he struggled with his batting average for much of last season, and these same people now view him as the savior of the Red Sox season?

He’s a nice, steady player, and maybe that’s all that’s needed for this team, but somehow I doubt it. The Red Sox lost their fifth game in a row last night, and appear to have lost the magic that carried them to a World Series title last season. Does Drew solve all that?

He solidifies the infield, taking over at shortstop while Xander Bogaerts gets pushed over the third base. He’ll get on base, provide some power and runs, but the Red Sox have a lot of other issues to still sort out.

It will be interesting to see how Super Agent Scott Boras is treated in all of this. He cost his player 4 million dollars by having him not accept the qualifying offer from the Red Sox last offseason. The Boston Globe Sunday Baseball Notes, which should just be renamed The News That Scott Boras Wants Put Out There should be an interesting read this week.

Get all the Red Sox news and views at RedSoxLinks.com.

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The NBA Draft Lottery didn’t go the way the Celtics and their fans wanted last night, but at least they got the pick they had the greatest odds of getting, and the Lakers weren’t the team that moved into the top three.

Now attention will shift to Kevin Love for the next few weeks until the draft, as the Timberwolves forward appears to be the player that media and fans have targeted as the star that the Celtics should aggressively pursue.

Part of me thinks that Minnesota won’t be quite so eager to deal with the Celtics this time around, but if they’re interested in the best package, it might just be Boston that has it.

At a minimum we know that we can safely cross Jabari Parker, Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid off the Celtics draft list. Instead, guys like Dante Exum, Julius Randle, Aaron Gordon, Noah Vonleh and Marcus Smart look to be the possibilities if the Celtics stay put at pick number six.

Get all the coverage at CelticsLinks.com.

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Interesting to hear Jon Meterparel on the WEEI morning show today with Callahan and Minihane. It was his first appearance on the station since departing in October 2012. He’s had a stint at Boston Herald radio, he’s been on the Big Show Unfiltered, tried his own podcast on jonmeterparel.com/. He’s done Pawtucket Red Sox games and continued his work on Boston College football and basketball radio broadcasts.

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

23 thoughts on “What Is The Fascination (if it is true) With Stephen Drew?”

  1. I tried to listen to the Meterparel love fest this morning and after the second time that Callahan called him one of the most knowledgeable people in the Boston Sports Media market I turned it off.

    As for Drew…It is a move like this that makes it extremely hard to like Sox management. At times…like last year…they hear what the fans want and are able to provide it…then they make a move like this which shows how out of touch they are and it drives fans crazy.

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    1. I wondered if D&C felt bad for him? He did leave on his own terms, but maybe he saw the future coming? I figure that they would have either Dale Arnold’d or John Ryder’d him at some point, but hard to tell with everything that happened.

      We can never gauge the true “bump” in share, but him leaving also was one of the things that did allow Minihane in, no? I’ve seen most people ‘agree’ that he has helped (saved?) the show. Who knows what would have happened otherwise.

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  2. “He’s a nice, steady player, and maybe that’s all that’s needed for this team, but somehow I doubt it.”

    No, it’s not, they have serious problems (basically 3 players hitting for power, inconsistent starting pitching, weak fielding), but hopefully Drew will help (incrementally). He can hit right handed pitching, has good power for a SS and is a very good fielder.

    What this proves is they are not content to lose 90 simply in order to let the young guys play every day. There is a balancing act between development and winning – there has to be with this payroll and these ticket prices.

    I think WMB is going to be traded, Sizemore will be waived (Nava returns) and Peavy is traded back to the Padres or another NL club (Workman returns). Peavy and Sizemore ARE ALL DONE.

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    1. If they’re going to let Bogaerts suck in the field, and Bradley suck at the plate, and (before he got hurt) Middlebrooks suck at both the plate and in the field, I don’t understand why they can’t allow Workman to take over that fifth spot in the rotation. I’m fine with a bridge year, but do it right for crying out loud.

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      1. Workman will be back soon, have patience. Nava too. Peavy’s velocity has been way down this season, but in the first couple of starts he enjoyed some magical luck. That luck has run out.

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  4. The least Boras can do is taking out a full-page ad in the Sunday Globe thanking Cafardo for doing such a great job at plagiarizing his daily talking points memo.

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  5. If the agent were anyone else, would signing a career 250 hitter be anything other than a minor note? However, the Sox need help defensively at that position. Xander Bogaerts has the potential to be a solid player in the future, but right now he’s terrible in the field. Some people blame the Red Sox coaching him to “surround the ball,” some people think he hasn’t grown into the position yet. Whatever. He’s terrible. So when I see articles like this (http://bit.ly/R9iBZK), I want to slap the kid upside the head.

    Move to third and shut up. The guy who ::should:: be pissed is Brock Holt.

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    1. This morning Callahan declared that they (Red Sox mgmt) have psychologically ruined Bogaerts (and Middlebrooks and JBJ (and Bard probably too)).

      I think Bogearts will be just fine.

      “Tonight was a tough one,” he acknowledged. “A lot going on. There was a lot going on today. I don’t want to make no excuses, but it was definitely a tough day today.”

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  6. I saw some post mentioning that Meter “mentioned the circumstances of him leaving” this morning on D&C. I wasn’t able to catch much of the show. Did anyone hear and can summarize?

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    1. Just reposting this here. From a poster on SOSH: “Meter went into see the boss as his contract was running out…told him
      he was thinking about leaving the show. Meter said the boss (who I
      assume was Jeff Brown) said nothing. Remained silent. Had no response at
      all. Then later on he learned if he wanted to stay he would have to
      take a pay cut.”

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  7. I saw some post mentioning that Meter “mentioned the circumstances of him leaving” this morning on D&C. I wasn’t able to catch much of the show. Did anyone hear and can summarize?

    I speculated below about if he saw changes coming down, where he was clearly not part of it. If you don’t like D&C, you most likely didn’t care for him. However, he did work (to me) with them quite well. There was clearly a comfort zone with him playing second fiddle to D&C. But, as their ratings started to dip, either he anticipated they’d let him go (didn’t he admit they were paying him bare minimum on salary?), and then also gave way for Minihane to get a bigger role. Without Minihane, I think there would have been changes already or pending changes with D&C.

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    1. From a poster on SOSH: “Meter went into see the boss as his contract was running out…told him
      he was thinking about leaving the show. Meter said the boss (who I
      assume was Jeff Brown) said nothing. Remained silent. Had no response at
      all. Then later on he learned if he wanted to stay he would have to
      take a pay cut.”

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  8. Gerry Callahan’s appreciation for Meterparel has always been one of those mysteries of life. Meterparel was characterized by Gerry as if he were a stats nerd when he was more of a “back of a baseball card” guy akin to an 11 year old baseball fan.

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    1. I think him and JD appreciated more that he didn’t put up much of a fight when they got into an argument of some sort.

      I remember when Minihane was first on and ‘had the gall’ to challenge him on any issue. He got a ton of props here and it was nice to hear actual discourse–or, heaven forbid, debate. It’s a bit of a change from the “YARM” hivemind that occupies certain shows.

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  9. Its 2 steps forward, 1 step backwards. Last year the organization took two huge steps forward. Charington, starting the year before, dumped the bad contracts, made a commitment to value and put together a team that won a championship.

    This offseason they sold the fans on the talent coming through the system, they moved on from Drew and everyone seemed happy except Nick Cafardo and Scott Boras. The team struggles..and then all of a sudden management panics. It is the panic that upsets me as a fan and of which I am critical. Spend money, don’t spend money, make fan pleasing moves, don’t make them…I don’t care…as long as there is a vision, a plan and consistency to implementing it. My criticism of the Sox owners all these years has stayed the same. When they are reactionary, they come across as the out of touch carpetbaggers they are.

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    1. They can’t just start Brock Holt for two months, this is the Red Sox, not the Astros.

      Ben Cherington said Tuesday that the injury would take “weeks, not days.”

      This implies that WMB might not be ready to again play at the MLB level for a month or two. We know that he’ll need to go to Pawtucket for some games before returning to the (any) big club.

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    2. First, the Drew move is not one of panic. Middlebrooks is on the DL and appears to be injury prone, and Holt is not the everyday answer at 3B. Second, Bogaerts is better at 3B and with Drew they are a better defensive team. Finally, it’s only for 1 year.

      As for management, we get it, you don’t like them. As to where they come from, don’t see the relevance. We had the local guy Harrington for many years and we all know what a golden era that was. Yest, this group had made mistakes and will do so in the future. What cannot be disputed, however, is that they have won 3 WS in the last 10 years under their stewardship.

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  10. Meat’s resume is a woeful one, filled with ‘journeyman’ stops everywhere. It really is true: people like him have no appreciable skills to do anything else in life except wait for the next radio gig to drop magically from the sky.

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    1. I kind of felt bad for him when he was “broadcasting” for patriots.com from a broom closet in the bowels of Gilette.

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  11. Meterparel can walk away from jobs because he was born into money. Don’t ever feel bad for him. His kids will be well taken care of even if he never works (for a salary) again. I don’t think he left ‘EEI because of a pay cut. He thought he had the talent to get a REAL play-by-play gig, either in TV or radio, for a pro team, or a national broadcast. It was time to poop or get off the pot. He clearly miscalculated, but the trust fund baby wasn’t taking a risk. I love that he failed. Two years ago he thought he could make the jump from reading news updates to landing a coveted, high profile job. Typical mentally of someone who has had everything handed to him in life. Now he finds himself on the outside looking in, totally irrelevant, wishing he could have the marginal exposure he once had as a flash boy on sinking ship of a station in a dwindling industry. Too bad, so sad.

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