Second Guesser's Club - They Call This A City?

[Mighty Joe Young]

 
Thanks for the support, but my position was that even if Ellsbury was too expensive for them, they should have signed somebody to start in CF (or in RF and moved Victorino to CF), and that Bradley should have been riding the Pawtucket shuttle filling in as the replacement for injury or underperformance in CF and RF. 
 
 
Let's totally abstract from Ellsbury at this point, that's been debated and nobody's changing their position.
 
 
The problem that the organization had all winter was that Bradley was the only plausibly viable defensive CF OR RIGHTFIELDER above single-A!  That they were not only vulnerable to underperformance of Bradley, which has been much worse than even I imagined, but to a medium-term injury to EITHER BRADLEY OR VICTORINO.  Saying, "Oh Bradley wouldn't be a problem if Victorino wasn't hurt so much," misses the forest for the tree.  Committing to Bradley meant that they had no real backup not only for Bradley, but also for Victorino, especially in Fenway's RF.  They took a 1000 to 1 flier on Sizemore, and he's proven once again that there is no such thing as a "no risk signing" because the risk is the manager let's him suck for way too long.
 
It's not Carp/Nava that were taking up a roster spot that could have been used to ensure production out of CF, and provide better depth in RF, it was Bradley, who hadn't earned the full time job with his performance last offseason, didn't earn the job with his performance in spring training (he was sent down, returned when Victorino got hurt, and stayed when Sizemore sucked even worse in CF than he has at the plate).  I don't know who was available other than Ellsbury, but they've got a lot of money and a lot of prospects.  Make it work.

 
 
I would disagree with the notion that Bradley hadn't earned the CF gig with his performance last year. It was a perfectly reasonable decision to make him the starting CF based on his minor league numbers. The problem was -  as you correctly pointed out.- giving the backup CF job to a lottery ticket I would have tried to acquire a decent (read 4th OF) RH hitting CF to backup Bradley. You can't really go out and get a regular CF as that would have blocked Bradley. He wasn't going to "earn" the job riding the shuttle.
 
So it hasn't worked out so far. But that's what happens when you play kids .. lots of growing pains.
 
As it turns out Bradley is merely Problem # 2 (Buchholz gets the prize )  in a long, long list of things that have gone wrong. Which may turn out to be a blessing as Bradley and De La Rosa and Webster and possibly Cecchini or even Betts will all get extended looks - whereas playing time might be curtailed if the team had been in contention.