Ben, From Kenmore Square, You're On The Air

That the Mets went from a wild-card contender in late June to 20 games out of first place in mid-August wasn't all that surprising -- aside from David Wright, there wasn't any position player who had much of a record of success, and the pitching staff looked very thin. Everyone played over his head for three months, cobbling together wins. Now only R.A. Dickey is still doing that, maybe en route to the Cy Young Award, and the main hope is that come 2015, the team will have a few prospects establish themselves and its finances will be steady enough to sign some effective players. So it goes when rooting for a bumbling team.

That the Red Sox imploded this year is incredibly more unexpected. Heading into the season, I thought the management was wise to keep the team together (even if they did so because they couldn't afford to acquire new players): For 85 percent of 2011, the Sox were the best team in the majors, and then they had a historic collapse during September. That final month was a gigantic statistical oddity, so why not keep everyone together and hire a new manager whose fiery personality would keep everyone focused, when the previous manager's calm demeanor had apparently grown stale? Well, the team blew a nine-run lead to the Yankees in the three innings in April, Dustin Pedroia called out that new manager, Bobby Valentine, for being too fiery, essentially rendering him powerless, and the beat writers have been writing much more about melodrama than baseball since early June. They'll very likely finish below .500 for the first time I can remember, maybe even well below .500.

Kudos to Ben Cherington, the Sox's general manager, for pulling off the most audacious trade I can ever remember. The closest comparison is probably Fred McGriff and Tony Fernandez for Joe Carter and Roberto Alomar, but as my dad said, that was a like-for-like deal instead of a house-cleaning. Adrian Gonzalez is still a great player, but Josh Beckett and Carl Crawford are at best injured ones, and the Dodgers now shoulder $250 million more in contracts, which I can't understand. If the Sox had to lose Gonzalez to lose the other two, I understand. It all sounds like one of those crazy trade proposals from a caller to WEEI: "How about Gonzalez, Beckett and Crawford to the Dodgers, for a bunch of prospects?" But it actually made lots of sense, which may have led to the scariest development of the 2012 baseball season: Those callers to WEEI might just know what they're talking about.