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Peter Abraham: Was Valentine Always In The Mix?

BOSTON (CBS)  - Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe joined 98.5 The Sports Hub's Toucher and Rich Monday to talk about the "palace of intrigue" over on Yakwey Way.

Bobby Valentine will meet with the Red Sox on Monday to talk about their open managerial position. This comes after Dale Sveum was not offered the job after his second interview last week.

Was Valentine always in the mix, or is this the candidate the Red Sox owners want, rather than general manager Ben Cherington?

"I think he was someone they were thinking about but obviously they didn't bring him in for one of the interviews and obviously he wasn't Ben Cherington's first choice; it seemed like Dale Sveum was," said Abraham.

"The hope, I think for Cherington, was Sveum would go out to lunch with the owners and everyone would get along famously, and they would be prepared to name him the new manager. Obviously that didn't work out. They literally left the place they had lunch, went back to the GM and owners meetings, and said we're opening up the search. That's apparently how poorly it went."

So in comes Bobby V, who has 15-years of experience under his belt.

Is he the right man for the Boston Red Sox though?

"Valentine is considered a guy that is borderline brilliant tactician. People think he was the big fish out there; he was just waiting for the best opportunity for him. I don't know if it will work in Boston, because he's a guy that needs to run the show and needs to be center stage, and the Red Sox haven't had a guy like that in a long time."

Valentine has not managed in the majors since 2002, his final year with the Mets.

He had success overseas, winning a title in Japan. But is he ready to jump back into the MLB after all the time off?

"I don't think he's out of touch by any means. For him, he needs to realize this could be his last big shot. He's 61-years-old, he hasn't managed in the big leagues in 10 years. If he doesn't do well here, that's probably it for being a major league manager. He's going to have to, to some degree, I don't know if change his ways is the right way to say it, but he's going to have to fit in more than he has other places," Abraham said.

"I think he's coming up to sit down with Cherington to figure out if they can get along."

Finding a new manager is just one of the issues the Red Sox have to resolve in the coming weeks.

Another issue is getting compensation for GM Theo Epstein, now in Chicago.

"This is a situation the Red Sox messed up big time", says Abraham.

"It's not ending any time soon; they agreed to talk about it after the winter meetings, so that will be sometime in the second week of December," said Abraham.

"The Red Sox, I think, screwed the pooch unbelievably, because they let Theo go to Chicago. The leverage that they had was he was sitting in his office at Yawkey way counting paper clips. They could have made them wait as long as they wanted to wait. The Cubs were anxious to get going, and they needed their guy.  The Red Sox just should have locked him in his office and said 'until we get what we want, you're not getting out.' But when they let him out and he went to Chiacgo, that was that. They lost their leverage. The Cubs are delaying and Theo is making jokes he's not worth that much."

"Now they're going to get some Double-A kid with a broken arm."

Listen to the interview here:

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