For all that, though,Oakley Sunglasses Outlet, I'm not exactly pleased to see Jake Peavy go. He's taken a lot of flak over the year he spent with the team. The Red Sox dealt away a growing fan favorite in Jose Iglesias, leaving Peavy to bear the burden of not only his own failures, but also of any close plays at shortstop that got through for hits. "Iglesias would have had that" was not only an attack on Stephen Drew (whose occasional vilification is a subject), but a subtle dig at Jake Peavy.
To be fair, that wouldn't be the case if Peavy had been stellar, but he wasn't. Peavy posted a 4.04 ERA with the Red Sox in 2013, then gave up 10 runs in 13 postseason innings. It wasn't necessarily what fans wanted, but it was at least what the Red Sox needed. Peavy's reputation, built primarily in his time with San Diego, put lofty expectations on a pitcher who was brought in more for who he wasn't than who he was. Jake Peavy was not Felix Doubront, pitching with 150 innings on his arm. He was not an inexperienced rookie clearly in need of more seasoning like Allen Webster. To go a little further back, he was not Kyle Weiland. Really, that last name is what it hinges on. The Red Sox were not ready to see their rotation collapse again as it had in 2011, and Jake Peavy provided the extra depth needed to ensure that didn't occur.
More than anything, though, Jake Peavy was just a good guy to have around. I think we can all agree that there's a pretty big difference between 2012 and 2014, and not just because we have plenty of hope for the future we didn't have until the Punto trade that August. In 2012, it was just plain difficult to root for some of the players. They came across as a dysfunctional unit of malcontents, essentially the polar opposite of the team that would win it all in 2013. While 2014 has more in common with 2012 in terms of results, the team still feels like the 2013 team, just without the spark, health, luck and what have you that took them to the World Series.