Who was the most disliked Red Sox player acquisition ever? AT THE TIME OF ACQUISITION

Lose Remerswaal

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Riffing off of the Mookie threads, where I brought up that we rooted for Jose Canseco on the Red Sox, what member of the team do you think was the most disliked one ever at the time of acquisition?

I'm not looking for your irrational hatred of Toby Borland, or even rational hatred of Toby Borland. I'm looking for the guy when the Sox signed or traded for him that you think the most Sox fans said, "holy shit, I hate that guy".

I know you hate John Wasdin. We all hate John Wasdin. But when John Wasdin was added to the roster no one said "Fuck that guy". Same with Calvin Schiraldi. We all hate Calvin Schiraldi, but when he joined the team most opinions were "let's see what this guy's got".

I expect to see names like Mike Torrez, David Wells and Ramiro Mendoza: embedded Yankees will likely rule this thread. Maybe not Rickey Henderson . . . but maybe?

Oh, and Canseco played for the Yankees after the Sox, but he is certainly worthy of your hate


EDIT SINCE FOLKS ARE GETTING UNCLEAR ON THE CONCEPT:

The concept is when we heard the Sox added the guy we were immediately pissed and said NOT THAT GUY.


Not a guy who came here and sucked or became a piece of shit (The Cordero Exception). Conversely, if we hated him and then he turned out to be pretty good (The Lackey Clause), THAT DOESN'T MATTER.
 
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ookami7m

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Lackey is the first one that pops into my head. Hated him in LA and most of his time here didn’t change that.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Are we talking players that we hated before they signed and loathed the idea of having to root for them, or signings that we hated that we took out on the player whether he was an asshole or not?

I don't think I've ever hated anyone prior to him signing with Boston, though David Price probably is the closest followed by Lackey...they grew on me once they signed (and won a ring). But there have been plenty of signings I hated and thus didn't enjoy rooting for the player much...Carl Crawford might be the headliner for me on that front.
 

Ale Xander

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Crap player: Craig Grebeck or Aceves

Great player (because of who left): Jason Bay (Although I'm probably biased there)
Maybe Crawford although I liked him.

HM: Price, but most fans probably thought they would get a great regular season player, but people hated him pre-title.

HM2: (purely based on $), Panda
 

Ale Xander

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"I'm looking for the guy when the Sox signed or traded for him that you think the most Sox fans said, "holy shit, I hate that guy". "

I don't think any of your three guys qualify.
Then probably Price or Crawford. It's certainly an AL East player.
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

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Javy Lopez (the catcher), because he always killed them with Baltimore and I hated Baltimore and still do. Plus he was pretty bad here.

Ian Kinsler (admittedly, much of the hate was because he sucked, cost the Red Sox a bullpen piece that it turned out they desperately needed, and made a stupid error that extended Game 3 of the WS and led to the only loss they took and nearly killed their momentum the way the first few innings of Game 4 went)

AJ Pierzinsky.
Him too.
 

lexrageorge

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To me it's Carl Crawford. Hands down. Not only did he fall off the cliff, he took every opportunity to blame Francona, his teammates, fans, the city, and everything else, even though he did no better after he was traded to LA.

There were some guys in the 1990's who I hated: Dante Bichette, Carl Everett, Mike Marshall, Larry Anderson (my most hated until Crawford came around), Darren Bragg (just because he got playing time). And in the Henry era: Rudy Seanez (both parts 1 and 2). But none come close to Crawford for me.
 

InstaFace

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Came here just to write Eric Gagne. Although my experience with the Sox only goes back to the start of this century.

Pierzynski is close but I gave him a chance. I was even pro-Renteria. Lackey struggled, had plenty of doubters and deserved them, but ultimately redeemed himself and I was happy for him (as were most people around here, if I recall). Gagne never had a chance with us, he was fuck-that-guy from day one until the day he left.
 

ifmanis5

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First three that came to mind:

AJ was a massive jerk.
Wil Cordero was a pre-MeToo disaster.
Carl Everett was an impossible person.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Came here just to write Eric Gagne. Although my experience with the Sox only goes back to the start of this century.

Pierzynski is close but I gave him a chance. I was even pro-Renteria. Lackey struggled, had plenty of doubters and deserved them, but ultimately redeemed himself and I was happy for him (as were most people around here, if I recall). Gagne never had a chance with us, he was fuck-that-guy from day one until the day he left.
He redeemed himself, but at the time of the acquisition... ugh. Lackey Face.

If we are just going overall, Wil Cordero has a special place.
 

moondog80

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He redeemed himself, but at the time of the acquisition... ugh. Lackey Face.

If we are just going overall, Wil Cordero has a special place.

Did people really hate Lackey at the time? I thought much of the hate was generated from a mediocre year 1, terrible year 2, completely missing year 3, and the notion that he was mad because he had to honor his contract and play that extra year for the minimum.
 

m0ckduck

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Easy AJ Pierzinsky is clearly the one. I was startled to scroll halfway down the page before finding a reference to him.

If we're talking not players who turned out to be despicable, but players that were dislikable from the get-go, I'll go with an obscure one: remember Gary Gaetti's spring training and 5 games with the Sox? That guy always annoyed the crap out of me.

Edit: Lots to dislike on that 2000 roster: Gaetti, Dante Bichette (YUCK), Izzy Alcantara, Rico Brogna, Paxton Crawford, Mike Lansing, Jose Offerman, Ed Sprague, depressing late-career Jon Valentin.
 
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John Marzano Olympic Hero

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In order:

1. AJ Pierzinski (he seemed like such a prick.)
2. David Wells (seriously, HIM? Washed up former Yankees are the worst.)
3, Randy Kutcher (I loved Dave Henderson and if they had gotten Will Clark for him, I'd have been annoyed.)
4. Tom Brunansky (I never understood why Lou Gorman signed Reardon when they had Lee Smith. I then never understood why Lou Gorman traded Smith for Brunansky.)
5. Matt Young and Danny Darwin (I was okay with Clark, but these two wrecks? Especially Young. He seemed like an asshole and he couldn't win -- even when he didn't allow a hit -- and Lou Gorman was taking a victory lap like he signed Koufax and Drysdale).

Honorable Mention: Magglio Ordonez. I can see getting ARod, but replacing Manny with Ordonez? WTF Theo? And I know that it was to make the money work, but Manny rules.
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

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To me it's Carl Crawford. Hands down. Not only did he fall off the cliff, he took every opportunity to blame Francona, his teammates, fans, the city, and everything else, even though he did no better after he was traded to LA.

There were some guys in the 1990's who I hated: Dante Bichette, Carl Everett, Mike Marshall, Larry Anderson (my most hated until Crawford came around), Darren Bragg (just because he got playing time). And in the Henry era: Rudy Seanez (both parts 1 and 2). But none come close to Crawford for me.
I almost mentioned Rudy but figured it wasn't fair to hate him for being a shitty pitcher that twice convinced an AL East team to sign him to a deal when he was clearly an NL-only pitcher and only against weak lineups. I hate the front office more for being hoodwinked by stats when they brought him back instead of remembering what happened the previous time he was here.
 

Merkle's Boner

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Pierzynski hands down. Just a miserable human being. Price would be second for me because of his "feud" with Papi.
 

Shaky Walton

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I tshought the Rusney Castillo signing was completely insane. Star money to an injured minor leaguer. I also was sick to my stomach over the Carl Crawford signing. If anything, he performed better in Boston than I expected.

Someone mentioned David Cone. Why?

David Price was part of 2018, a big part. Until then, I would have said him.

And the money they got for Babe Ruth.
 

nattysez

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5. Matt Young and Danny Darwin (I was okay with Clark, but these two wrecks? Especially Young. He seemed like an asshole and he couldn't win -- even when he didn't allow a hit -- and Lou Gorman was taking a victory lap like he signed Koufax and Drysdale).
There's the name I was scanning the thread for. He's the first guy I can remember the Red Sox acquiring where I thought "he's bad and we paid too much for him."

Edit - the "why did he even sign here" is one of my favorite SoSH memes, so I'm glad this thread resurrected it.
 

donutogre

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Great idea for a thread.

There's admittedly a lot of recency bias to this, but AJ was the first one who popped into my head. Lackey is another who I had kind of forgotten about / forgiven, but at the time I was not really into the deal and he sure didn't make it easy to root for him. Overall, quite a bad deal, with 1.5 good seasons all told... but he pitched his ass off in 2013, so whatevs.

EDIT: of course, he was pitching with a shredded shoulder in 2012, so hard to totally fault him? I just don't understand the calculus that led to running him out there every five days.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Did people really hate Lackey at the time? I thought much of the hate was generated from a mediocre year 1, terrible year 2, completely missing year 3, and the notion that he was mad because he had to honor his contract and play that extra year for the minimum.
Yeah, there was quite a bit of hate. The original signing thread probably still exists somewhere on these forums.
 

pedro1918

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Add Kevin Mitchell to the list of Pierzynski, Canseco, Young and Clark.


EDIT: And for the record, I was excited when the got Carl Everett and Wil Cordero. I thought they were great acquisitions that went south. Fast. Really fast. And really south.
 

moondog80

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Yeah, there was quite a bit of hate. The original signing thread probably still exists somewhere on these forums.
Could be, memories are funny things. What I recall was that the signing came out of nowhere so I saw it as a pleasant surprise, as he was on quite a run of being a very effective starter.
 

Mooch

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First name I thought of was Carl Everett.

But taking a few minutes to add some other obvious ones:

Jim Leyritz
Rick Cerone

And maybe some of you aren't as old as me, but here's my steal of the draft:

Matt Young