If I had to judge, the main reason for Franchy hostility is that he was the underwhelming perceived centerpiece of the return for a popular traded player. And that fit the "Bloom will run the Red Sox like the Rays" narrative which was really churning at that moment. (And so far, it looks like the Royals won that trade, with Benintendi already producing 2.4 rWAR for them and having another year pre-FA. We'll see if Cordero, Winckowski, and all the rest of them can beat that.)
But if we're being honest with ourselves, this is America. It would be weird if there weren't any racial animus in the subtext of a sports discussion. That said, I genuinely think there's considerably less of that sort of thing on SOSH than in most sports conversations — especially around Boston sports, where a bunch of the media has these extremely creepy raced and classed expectations about which players will be beloved by the fanbase (i.e. white dudes with blue collar affect). Perhaps ironically, I don't think actually think those expectations really reflect the actual views of actual Boston sports fans, at least not the ones I know.
It seems like Boston sports fans' actual favorite players are considerably more diverse than WEEI's or a few of the beat writers' assessments of who those guys would be. Like, sure, Gronkowski was beloved, but so was Vince Wilfork. Pedroia was beloved, but so was Betts. Papelbon was beloved, but so was Uehara.
But if we're being honest with ourselves, this is America. It would be weird if there weren't any racial animus in the subtext of a sports discussion. That said, I genuinely think there's considerably less of that sort of thing on SOSH than in most sports conversations — especially around Boston sports, where a bunch of the media has these extremely creepy raced and classed expectations about which players will be beloved by the fanbase (i.e. white dudes with blue collar affect). Perhaps ironically, I don't think actually think those expectations really reflect the actual views of actual Boston sports fans, at least not the ones I know.
It seems like Boston sports fans' actual favorite players are considerably more diverse than WEEI's or a few of the beat writers' assessments of who those guys would be. Like, sure, Gronkowski was beloved, but so was Vince Wilfork. Pedroia was beloved, but so was Betts. Papelbon was beloved, but so was Uehara.
Cordero and Micker Adolfo are pretty similar in baseball terms. They are toolsy, post-prospect outfielders who have shown flashes of high-end potential but struggled to get consistent results perhaps because of all the weird injuries they've suffered. Bringing in Adolfo would be the same kind of gamble as bringing in Cordero, or for that matter, bringing in Christian Arroyo.Do you think the difference is lost on me? Why don’t you ask the poster who brought up Cordero what’s so strikingly similar that he needed be invoked in reply to a post about Micker Adolfo.