Goodbye, McDonald

Darnell McDonald was designated for assignment Saturday to make room for Josh Beckett on the roster. Even though I enjoyed having McDonald on the team and was even pushing for him to have a starting position during Spring Training (his numbers were great, if you remember), it really wasn’t surprising to see him go. (Un)Fortunately, it looks like we’ll be saying goodbye to more players in the next few weeks.

For the season, McDonald hit .214 with 2 home runs, 7 doubles, and 9 RBIs. His strike outs (17) were more than his walks (12), and he was caught stealing (1) as often as stealing (1). Minus the players who have seen less than 10 games, McDonald was the worst. It’s a business, plain and simple.

Darnell McDonald is one of my favorite players to follow on Twitter. He always seems to have something positive to say, no matter the situation. Even when he was DFA’d, he tweeted: Dream come true to playin Boston want to wish my boys good luck the rest of the year! Much love to RSN! #ShowGoesOn. Then he was sent back to Boston to learn his fate (traded or released essentially), and he tweeted: Back to Boston to wait and see where the journey leads S/O to all my followers! #twitterswag #blessed. As with many players who have left the Red Sox for other things, I will continue to follow McDonald. I just hope he gets picked up by another team and continues to play.

In 2012, the Red Sox has seen 11 players in the outfield; from most games to least they have been: Sweeney (52), Ross (50), Nava (45), McDonald (38), Byrd (34), Podsednik (19), Kalish (13), Ellsbury (7), Anderson (6), Lin (6), and Repko (5). The outfield has seen way too many players on the disabled list (Crawford, Ellsbury, Ross, Kalish, Sweeney, McDonald, Podsednik, and Repko). Crawford has yet to play a game, and Ellsbury has played a week’s worth of games.

It appears to me that once Crawford and Ellsbury come back (early indications are July 13th for Crawford and July 19th for Ellsbury), other players will either be traded or DFA’d as well. Likely, Ross would bring in the most for a trade, followed by Sweeney and Nava. I don’t believe Kalish will be traded, since he was dubbed “Right-Fielder of the Future” in 2010. Podsednik will most likely be traded as well, possibly in a package to bring in a starting pitcher.

As we learned from Youkilis’s trade last week, no one on this team is untouchable in terms of trades (well, maybe not Pedroia). I’ve stated before that Shoppach will probably be traded in favor of Lavarnway, but as my brother pointed out yesterday, wouldn’t that trade already have happened? The bullpen is fluid, as anyone can be traded in favor of new, fresher arms. Bailey should be coming back at some point, so what do they do with Aceves?

As we say goodbye to Darnell McDonald, I think in the back of everyone’s minds the question remains, “Who else will we say goodbye to?”