Both the Red Sox and the Yankees will undoubtedly spend the rest of their off-season with their heads held low in shame. Both teams spent an unbelievable amount of money trying to maintain their pace of consecutive ALCS appearances. The money spent in the off-season brought expectations and dreams that were, ultimately, never really realistic.
In retrospect, it is clear that neither team was ready to defend its title as the top team in baseball. Both teams lacked the two key ingredients, which never fail to produce results; pitching and defense.
The short period of time that has elapsed between the end of their respective seasons and the start of the off-season has brought with it the floatation of multiple big name and big money players.
Players like A.J. Burnett, Kevin Millwood, Billy Wagner, and B.J. Ryan, who are supposed to bolster any pitching staff they join. Or hitters like Paul Konerko, Torii Hunter, Aubrey Huff, Carlos Beltran, and Johnny Damon, who are meant to automatically improve any offense they sign onto. All these names sound great in a utopian world, where all promises are fulfilled and money doesn't matter. However, in the real world of baseball economics and failed expectations, these players do not make sense for either the Red Sox or the Yankees.
The Red Sox and the Yankees need to stop seeking instant gratification in the form of high-profile players and start to search for long-term solutions. They need to shift their focus from one-year remedies in order to create championship-caliber teams for the long-run.
The Yankees, who invented the theory of one-year solutions, may have finally started realizing that the future is more important than the present in baseball. This realization came with the contributions of Cano, Wang, Chacon, and Small; four players who helped as much as any "star" player, even though they lacked the "star" salary.
In Boston, the future of the Red Sox would seems more fruitful than that of the Yankees, simply because the BoSox possess a young core of unbelievable talent; players like Jon Papelbon (who could be Roger Clemens reincarnated), Hanley Ramirez, Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia, Craig Hansen, Manny Delcarmen, Anibel Sanchez, and Jon Lester. Now that they have the talent, the key is to hold to it and nurture it until it develops into a successful team of major leaguers.
With this in mind, Red Sox Nation cannot help but notice the contributions of David Eckstein and Adam Everett in this year's NLCS, two former Trenton teammates, and wonder what might have been.
Tony La Russa, manager of MLB's best team in the regular season called Eckstein, "the engine, the personality, and in many ways the identity of our team." These are three elements the 2005 Red Sox lacked. Three elements that would have been available and cheap (Eckstein and Everett combined would have made less than $3 million dollars for the Sox?compared with the $11 million a year for Renteria and Graffanino). Three elements that would certainly have made the difference between a clean sweep in this year's ALDS and an appearance in the World Series.