Dear Theo,
As GM of the Red Sox, you have been exceptional. You brought the city of Boston and its championship starved fans not one World Series title but two. You rid Massachusetts of the cancer that was Manny Ramirez - his refusal to run out ground balls was an insult to the state that hosted the Salem Witch Trials - and I applaud you. As an assistant, you prevented your boss from getting railroaded by Billy Beane for Kevin Youkilis - the Major League leader in on base percentage. You, sir, are a model citizen and a hero to every one in Red Sox Nation…which, if we’re lucky, may secede from the United States of America any day now.
But this season your team has run into some problems. Offensive problems, mainly. After tonight, you’re in second place - one game behind the Satan spawns themselves, the New York Yankees. Your team OPS is third in the division, your runs scored 4th in the AL…simply put, this is not good enough for Red Sox Nation.
Therefore, we address this letter to you as not so much a matter of baseball business, but of personal welfare. Please, we urge you, trade Clay Buchholz for Victor Martinez.
While your offense flounders - third in OPS in the division…really?? - your pitching has been spectacular. Number one in strikeouts, number two in walks, number one in home runs…the only stats that matter…you’ve got a guy in Buchholz you aren’t even using. You can send him away for a hitter, Theo, a hitter with a career OPS of .832 - including an awful injury-plagued season last year - and a career playoff OPS that’s 56 points better than that!
If this were 1908, Martinez’s OPS would almost be the best in the league - it’d be within 10 points of the league leader. And who led the league in OPS that year?
Ty “f’ing” Cobb!
(Sure, Victor’s OPS may have dropped over 100 points since June 28th, but we don’t see how that’s relevant - it’s all the fault of him having to play too many games behind the plate, Theo. Honest.)
Martinez will help your team. No question. Great character guy, too.
We know you may be concerned now that Tim Wakefield’s on the 15 day DL or that you’re the GM of a Boston team and you’d be trading a white guy for a latin player, but we don’t think these should be grave concerns. Wakefield will be back - he’s not as old as Jamie Moyer, after all - and John Smoltz is young, he’s not even 50.
You’ll be fine.
Plus, if you’re worried about the caucasian thing, you can always get Danny Ainge to lend you Brian Scalabrine to throw out the first pitch or to sing “God Bless America.”
To conclude, the facts here in favor of making a trade are inarguable. We could be no more certain that you should make this deal than if we had climbed to the top of a mountain and found this letter written on a stone tablet as lightning struck all around us.
Signed, without bias and with only your best intentions in mind,
JoseMesaIsDead
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