Speculatin'

Baseball writers throughout the country again snubbed Charlie Manuel for Manager of the Year while our teams' scribes have been busy posturing potential player acquisitions.

Terry Francona spoke today (it seems like a long time since we've heard anything from the Red Sox) and discussed his wish list. It sounds like he wants Jason Bay back and additional pitching - but his comments about John Lackey convinced me that the Red Sox are not pursuing the free agent:

Every year, there's a couple guys that seem like they can sway the fortunes of an organization. I think he's that type of pitcher. Now, to get that type of pitcher, you're going to have to make quite a commitment. That's something that makes our organization a little bit uneasy. It doesn't mean a guy can't come in and help you win, but if there's an injury along the way, that can set your organization back quite a bit. So there's a lot to think about besides just the year 2010. You're possibly talking about 2015. That's a lot of years.

Funny, they weren't too uneasy about paying more than $100 million to acquire and retain Daisuke Matsuzaka.

The Red Sox, meanwhile, jettisoned George Kottaras and were linked to Braves free agents Mike Gonzalez and Rafael Soriano.

The Phillies seem to be all over the place. Todd Zolecki says they're the front-runners for Mark DeRosa - I don't want him, but I didn't know he went to high school near where I grew up. Chan Ho Park's agent says despite the player's stated preference of starting, a role in The Pen II wouldn't preclude Chan Ho from returning to the Phillies. And David Murphy has a litany of bench options the Phillies may consider.

I have bad feelings about the offseasons for both our teams. I don't know why. {Let's hope Greg is wrong about this prediction, too.}