In what wasn’t a stunning move, the Boston Red Sox traded utility All-Star infirelder Kevin Youkilis to the Chicago White Sox this week. Anyone who knew the situation knows that this whole thing stemmed from one thing only, Bobby Valentine and Youkilis not seeing eye to eye.
And while the move may have been a necesity, it is still shocking to see the Red Sox’ brass choose to unload a fan favorite instead of getting rid of the actual problem, Valentine. The Sox have been hovering around or below .500 for majority of the season, in large part due to bad management. Youk’s struggling season just became the face of the Sox’ struggles, but never was the root of it.
So in typical overreaction to anything, Boston shipped it’s most consistent player of the past few years in order to pacify a need to shake things up. Fact of the matter is things didn’t need to be shaken up, and Youk still has a few All-Star caliber seasons of baseball left in him. And of course they did the second worse thing you could possibly do in a trade, outside of trading in division, they traded him within the AL.
Youk is going to tear things up for a firsplace squad, and it just stings seeing a player whose entire career you’ve watched just go. Chicago definitely got the better end of this deal, and Youk will be playing when the seasons change, when it looks like all the Sox will be doing is watching it. Its sad to see the unneccesary face of change, but then again, when has “rational” and “Boston” ever gone together?