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Bobby Valentine Thinks He’ll Stay with Red Sox in 2013; Ben Cherington Disagrees

With the Red Sox season winding down, there’s pretty much only one thing on the mind of Boston fans: who’s going to manage the team in 2013?

According to Bobby Valentine, he’s going to be back, and better than ever.

In an article on WEEI by Alex Speier, Valentine is answers queries about his job status by saying,

“My gut feeling is that they haven’t told me yet,” said Valentine. “There hasn’t been any dialogue. We’ve talked, but [not about the job], which makes me think I’m coming back. I don’t know.”

Meanwhile, in the front office, general manager Ben Cherington seems to have other ideas regarding the Red Sox managerial position with the offseason approaching.

As reported by Peter Abraham, here is what Cherington said at the end of his interview with WEEI on Thursday:

“I’d always rather get the decision right than rush it,” Cherington said. “But what we know we need to do is hit the ground running this offseason. One of the things that, as I look back on last offseason, that didn’t go perfectly was simply the amount of time that we spent on the manager search and what that did to the rest of the offseason and I would like to spend less time on it this offseason, that’s for sure.”

Of course, Cherington quickly tried to clarify his statements on WEEI later that afternoon. It’s not becoming to pseudo-fire your manager with less than a week left in your season (unless you’re the Cleveland Indians, in which case you fire your manager with all of six games left, because that definitely helps set you up nicely for next season).

In attempting to explain himself to the Boston Globe, Cherington stammered,

“The only thing I can clarify is to tell you that I meant it in the most literal sense possible. We’d like to focus less of our offseason on who the manger is. I don’t think that has anything to do with Bobby Valentine. It has to do with how we’re allocating our time.”

Well, I’ll be darned if that doesn’t leave me completely confused. I can’t tell if that’s a strangely roundabout endorsement of Valentine (since keeping him would, quite literally, be the most expedient managerial search possible) or simply another way Donald Trump might say, “You’re fired.”

Considering Valentine also mentioned there’s “not much I would have done differently,” I’d have to think Cherington has already made up his mind.

But hey, this is the Boston Red Sox after all. You know, the same team (by which I mean ownership group) that gave Cherington the reins to select their next manager, then went, “Ehhhh,” and picked Valentine instead. Not to mention the same franchise that canned its most successful manager in history for one bad month and traded two “cornerstone” franchise players to gain financial flexibility for a largely mediocre 2013 free agent class.

So I guess maybe the better question for Red Sox fans is, Is it October 4^th yet?

About Nick Bohlen - My Twitter

I am a weekly contributor for the Patriots, Celtics, and Red Sox sections of SoB. As a Red Sox fan first and foremost, I am predisposed to expect the worst and masochistically relish it. I apologize in advance with a celebratory '04 David Ortiz (see right).

Tags: Ben Cherington, Bobby Valentine, John Henry, Larry Lucchino, Mercy