Dave D’Onofrio, Concord Monitor - [I]t’s become clear that the Red Sox have some work to do in order to narrow the gap between themselves and New York’s gold standard. They must add a slugger to the middle of the order. They must add reliability to a rotation that this September counted on Paul Byrd in a pennant race. They must add to a relief corps that became unsteady as summer turned to fall. And they can make all those additions with one simple – if foundation-shaking – subtraction. By trading Josh Beckett…The perception of Beckett is that he’s a bona fide ace… But, by and large, the reality has been something else altogether… Clearly Boston’s brass has lost some faith in him, evidenced by their choice of Jon Lester to open this year’s Division Series against the Angels; and the guess here is that you, too, as a Red Sox fan, have lost some faith in Beckett as well.

So there are still Boston (I’m counting southern NH as Boston) baseball writers who think like this?  I thought the species had gone extinct, killed off by the giant meteorite of two World Series sweeps, but I guess I was wrong.  Because this entire article is right out of the playbook from the 20th century.  The Red Sox are doomed.  They can’t compete with the Yankees.  It’s all the fault of the best players.  They don’t deliver in the clutch and the only way to close the gap with New York is to panic-trade them right now!!! It’s the same thing they said about Ted Williams and Yaz and Rice and Nomar.  I just didn’t think anyone still thought like this after all the success we’ve witnessed.  This guy is like your grandfather who lived through the Great Depression so he’s still trying to save money by reusing tin foil.  It’s frightening to think the BBWAA gives memberships to guys this obtuse.  Even the stats he uses make the case that  Beckett is an ace.  He says Beckett has never had 200 Ks in a season.  (He had 199 this year, more than anyone on the Yankees.)  He misses starts every year.  (He had 32.)  His ERA was 3.86. (14th in the AL.)  Even the argument about the Sox going with Lester in Game 1 is ridiculous.  So you’ve got two bone fide No. 1/1 A starters.  How does trading one of them make you better?  The Sox need to add a bat and a solid, 30 start arm at the back end of the rotation and that’s it.  All trading Beckett would guarantee is that you’d be chasing Tampa Bay for the Wild Card.