Here’s another instance of Cotillo just kind of like,
weirdly hammering his angle to the point of suspending his (and our) intelligence. It’s a video clip of the Masslive podcast he tweeted on the 28th, he and McAdam discussing the rumors about “overspending for Teoscar Hernández” (McAdam). I’ll link
here and transcribe:
Cotillo: “I find this to be a strange kind of pursuit. He does make your lineup better, he does make your team better, but he's adding to a place in the outfield where you’re already kind of set. To me, that would just mean that one of the young outfielders has to get traded…I don’t think it makes a ton of sense for them to go out and get an outfielder on a long-term deal — Teoscar Hernández from what I’ve heard is seeking four years.
Just, add a starter! It’s not that hard. You’re okay in the outfield. You’ve got a lot of controllable pieces, you’ve got more balance now with O’Neill than Verdugo. To me, you’re set there. This seems to me kind of maybe a chess not checkers thing, or the moves down the line are not there yet, but to see them aggressive after a position player at this point (is) not exactly what I would have predicted, but it is the case.”
i think this illustrates what Cotillo does. He’s providing baseball content,
driving it even. But he’s not reporting on the Red Sox. He’s reporting on Red Sox fan frustration.
The above is certainly not a wrong opinion to hold. But it seems remarkably goofy to me for a mainstream Red Sox reporter to not recognize that the plan is to use an outfielder in a trade, likely for a starting pitcher.
I’m definitely not the sort that wants journalists to do
just the facts or anything like that. But this seems just like, goofy in its antagonism: “Just sign a starter, it’s not that hard…”, plus as a bonus, a little anti-intellectual barb with the line about Breslow playing “chess not checkers.”
Again, it’s a totally defensible opinion to not want to trade Duran (or Yoshida or Rafaela or Abreu) for any reason. But for a Sox beat reporter to take this kind of approach, knocking the potential signing of a guy who “makes your lineup better” because you can’t be bothered to entertain the idea that we’d trade for a starter. It’s not a good faith effort to understand or report the process here. It’s framing the story from a starting point of complaint, derision, scrutiny.
His whole routine lately strongly suggests Boras’s influence, to me. The implication is that the Sox really need to outbid the field for one of Montgomery or Snell. Those are good players, but it’s certainly not the only way forward.
Of course, days later, we literally
do sign a starter — one of the top 8-10 or so on the board — and he hits us the next day with another story about the Sox being cheap.
