Sox-Rangers Trade Fail

This can't be giving Mike Lowell any holiday cheer. First off, he rings in the new year recovering from thumb surgery. Second, the trade sending him to the Rangers for Max Ramirez got eighty-sixed yesterday, putting him in a position no player wants to be in: rejected by one team who vetoed a trade for him because of a failed physical and cast off by another team who has tried to trade him for the second off-season in a row. The former team is the Rangers and the latter, of course, is the Red Sox, who are put in an unsavory position themselves after the aborted trade.

The plan for improving defense takes a hit if Lowell is to be the starting third baseman and the plan for improving offense suffers because a roster spot is being taken up that could have been used for a big bat. Max Ramirez might have taken up a spot on the 40-man roster (perhaps catching in Pawtucket) but he also might have been flipped in a trade. Lowell, however, takes up a spot on the 25-man roster and makes trading for a bat like Gonzalez all the less likely. The Red Sox already have a DH in Big Papi and no team can afford roster space for two DHs.

Had the thumb injury not come up, an argument could be made that keeping Lowell would have been better than starting a low-power Kotchman at first and Youk at third. The bum thumb, and the fact that it was bad enough to call off that trade, changes things significantly. If the Rangers thought Lowell would be healed and ready to be productive at the start of the season, the trade would have gone through. Now, the Sox, besides having egg on their faces after the failed trade, have a real predicament on their hands as to what to do about Lowell. Cling to the pie-in-the-sky hope that both his hip and thumb will be just like new and he'll have a bounce-back season to prove the Sox wrong for trying to trade him? Continue the infield merry-go-round from last season (which, in my estimation, did more harm than good)? Release him and risk the effect such action could have on team chemistry? What a conundrum!

As much as I understand that baseball is a business, I hate to see this happening to such a pro as Mike Lowell. I hope some sort of arrangement can be reached that will minimize the negative ramifications on all parties involved. Not sure what the arrangement will be, but, thankfully, I'm not the one who has to come up with it.

LET'S GO RED SOX!!!!