Schilling: Crawford can rebound, Lackey can't
http://www.weei.com/sports/boston/this-just-in/21147821/schilling-crawford-can-rebound-lackey-cant
Former Red Sox pitcher and current ESPN analyst Curt Schilling, in a call-in
to the WEEI Sports Saturday Show, said that he believes Carl Crawford is
strong enough to overcome both his disappointing first season in Boston as
well as the suggestion by Sox owner John Henry on Friday that he was against
the signing of the left-fielder.
"So I’m going into next season as Carl Crawford playing for an owner that
doesn’t want me there. That’s awesome. I’m fired up," Schilling said
sarcastically, before a more direct assessment. "The one thing about it is
that that’s probably one of the few guys that will get after it a little bit
harder.
"Of all the stuff to come out of this year, he was the one I felt worst for
because he works as hard as anyone in the game. You can ask anyone who’s
been around him. And yes, he’s making the money that’s in the contract, but
there’s a guy who was absolutely doing everything he could do to make this
season right."
Indeed, given that Crawford has to shed the baggage of a disappointing first
season in Boston after he signed a seven-year, $142 million contract as a
free agent last offseason, Schilling suggested that the Henry statement will
mean little. Either Crawford -- who had a career-worst average (.255) and OBP
(.289) along with his second-worst full-season slugging percentage (.405) and
OPS (.694) -- will be able to leave behind both disappointments or neither.
"What he went through last year, if he’s not going to be able to get over
that, then this isn’t going to matter," said Schilling. "He either finds a
way to put that stuff away to allow it to motivate him, forget it and move on
or he’s going to be the guy he was last year."
While Schilling expects Crawford to rebound, he does not believe right-hander
John Lackey is capable of doing the same in a Boston uniform. Lackey was
12-12 with a 6.41 ERA (the worst ever by a Red Sox with at least 120 innings
pitched) in 2011, and the way he's handled his struggles both on and off the
field led Schilling to conclude that the big right-hander's five-year, $82.5
million contract -- while virtually untradeable -- will never yield positive
returns.
"I don’t know how he gets out of this. He hasn’t shown me from a makeup
perspective that he’ll battle through it," said Schilling. "I don’t think
he has the wherewithal mentally to be the guy to get himself away from this.
He’s the pitcher he is."
That being the case, Schilling said that the Sox must resign themselves to
absorbing most of the remainder of Lackey's contract (which has three years
and $45.75 million left) in order to cut bait.
"There’s a lot of untradeable stuff that they’d like to trade. But you can’
t just trade a John Lackey. He’s making an exorbitant amount of money," he
said. "[Eating the money is] what [the Sox] are going to have to do. They’re
not going to get value back for John Lackey. The value they get is going to
be completely dependent on the dollars they take in the contract."
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