The mystery in Boston this hot-stove season: come April, who will be closing games for the Red Sox? The mystery persists. But today, a clue. Let me begin at the beginning.

So, last season the Boston Red Sox took one for the MLB team when they hired Allard Baird, the man who (un)made the Kansas City Royals, to be an advisor and scout.

Also last season, Boston’s closer, Jonastud Papelstud, had a transient subluxation of the shoulder, which caused him to miss several games at the end of the season when only fools believed the Red Sox still had a shot at anything. Team doctors thought it would be less wear-and-tear on Papelstud’s incredibly masculine and generally wicked awesome right arm to throw once every five days for 7 innings than to throw an inning almost every day. So the hurler moved back to the starting rotation, where he was supposed to be all along (until Keith Foulke’s suckage necessitated his stepping-up).

So, basically, this left Boston at the end of the season with no closer, and with intrepid baseball genius Allard Baird in the posish of finding a new one.

According to today’s Boston Globe, Baird went to Seattle to see what he could see. What he saw was disgraced former 16-game winner Joel Pineiro coming out of the bullpen:

He watched his stuff, how he conducted himself, how he approached the job. And Baird came away thinking this is a guy who could successfully work out of the bullpen.

But Baird wasn’t done. He had one more (idiotic) suggestion to make:

Baird advised the Sox to sign Runelvys Hernandez, who played for Baird when he was general manager of the Royals. Hernandez has an electric arm but was not consistent as a starter. Hernandez doesn’t fear any hitter or any situation. So Pineiro and Hernandez will get big-time looks.

Maybe Runelvys would do well to fear certain hitters or certain situations. It might help his game. Since his first season in 2002, his ERA has gone steadily up—4.36 that year, 4.62 the next, 5.52 in 2005, and a truly horrific 6.48 last year. The same is true of his other stats as well. For instance, in 2002 he had about twice as many strikeouts as walks—45 to 22. But last year, his 50 strikeouts in 109 innings were balanced by 48 walks. He’s never had a winning season (his first year is again his best, with a 4-4 record). A guy who’s erratic, worsening, has a high ERA, and throws a lot of base-on-balls isn’t exactly closer material. But hey, his arm is “electric” right?

As for Pineiro, he’s coming off of three straight losing seasons. However, he at least has tasted success, with three solid seasons from 2001 to 2003. But as with Hernandez, his stats have also been trending worse. An ERA of around 2 in 2001 rose steadily through the 3’s, until 2004 when it hit 4. Why stop there? 2005 saw it swell to the 5’s, and by last year it had reached a lofty 6.36. The one thing you can say for the kid is that he does consistently strikeout plenty of hitters. He has 658 K’s since 2000, and just 327 walks. The problem? He’s expensive. He made almost $7 million last season. At least Hernandez is under the $1 million mark.

But Pineiro tries, rather adorably, to make himself friendly with Sox fans in the Globe story:

He thinks he will feed off the adrenaline of Boston fans because, “I did it in Seattle, but this is Baseball Nation here. Hopefully, I can take that aggressiveness out there, and I know that having Jason Varitek behind the plate is going to help me out an awful lot.”

[…]

“I wanted to go somewhere where I had a chance to win every day,” Pineiro said. “I had chances to start other places. But I thought to myself that I might not have the chance to wear this jersey again.”

Dude, it’s Red Sox Nation, not Baseball Nation. But props on the shoutout to ‘Tek.

I’m glad we didn’t get into a bidding war for some expensive, aging closer who may or may not have been able to pitch the entire season. But it’s key to have that rock-solid guy in the 9th. Our starting rotation (Schilling, Matsuzaka, Beckett, Papelbon, Wakefield) makes me feel all tingly, but without someone to finish the game in the 9th, it could all be for naught. At least Theo seems to have (finally) gotten the memo: you can never have too much pitching.

Even the most die-hard Red Sox fan will admit that some of the decisions that GM Theo Epstein (aka Hunky McDreamboat to the pink hats) have been a little shaky.

Last season, Epstein signed Coco Crisp to a big deal. This offseason, he will try to trade Crisp.

The season before that, Epstein signed Matt Clement to a pricey contract. Clement sat out most of last season.

More than a few times, Epstein has chased after even bigger disasters, only to be outbid and bailed out by other teams ( i.e., the Yankees). See: Carl Pavano, El Duque and A-Rod.

So it’s probably good that the Red Sox are trying to find some help for their young GM. It’s probably not good news that the man they’ve hired for the job is Allard Baird, one of the worst executives in sports history.

From the Boston Red Sox public relations department:

BOSTON, MA-The Red Sox today announced the appointment of Allard Baird to the position of Assistant to the General Manager.

The appointment, which is effective November 1, was announced by Executive Vice President/General Manager Theo Epstein.

Baird joined the Boston organization in July 2006 as a special assignment scout. In his new position, his responsibilities will be expanded to overseeing the Red Sox’ professional scouting department. Baird will serve as an advisor to Epstein on all facets of the club’s baseball operations and will continue in his role as a special assignment scout for major and minor league coverage as well as the amateur draft.

Baird, 44, served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Kansas City Royals from June 2000-May 2006. he was the fifth General Manager in franchise history. That’s right, the man who is more or less solely responsible for making the Kansas City Royals the powerhouse that they are today is being give MORE POWER with the Red Sox.

Yankees fans, contain your laughter.

Word is that the Red Sox are looking for more veteran baseball guys to surround wonderboy Theo Epstein. On of the men the club could be turning to is already under its roof. Former Royals general manager Allard Baird has served as a special adviser to Theo Epstein the past few months and the the Globe is reporting that he could assume a bigger role (with a fancier title) in the organization after his contract expires on Oct. 31.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Allard Baird is probably not the answer to the Sox’s poor front office decision making. God knows he wasn’t the answer for the Royals poor front office decision making.

Are there really that few front-office types out there? And why does Theo need a babysitter? He’s making the big bucks. Shouldn’t he be equipped to do the job on his own?

You are, for the purposes of this post, both Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino and Sox GM Theo Epstein. (This leads to some nasty migranes, but stay with me.) And you want to cultivate the Sox of tomorrow—the young arms and bats toiling away in the farm system. You want to find add fresh, young talent to said farm system. And all you need is the right person to pick that talent out of the crowd, so you can get it under contract and put it on a bus to the bigs. Ah, but there’s the catch—you need a sharp, new eye to find these future Papelbons and Lesters. You need a proven winner. You need someone who’s going to dig out talent like a pig going after a crop of truffles.

You need….the Royals’ GM?

Or rather, I should say, the Royals’ former GM. After all, Allard Baird was fired at the end of May for putting together the team that, as of the All-Star break, was 27.5 games out of first place.

When the Royals fired Baird, the Kansas City Star explained why:

The organization’s primary failure under Baird was in its inability to draft and develop high-quality players in recent years. The current 25-man roster has only two players — outfielders David DeJesus and Shane Costa — who were drafted in Baird’s six seasons.

Further, several recent lineups mocked the very idea that the club is engaged in a rebuilding plan. The Royals started five players Tuesday against Oakland who were 30 years or older.

While Baird and his staff succeeded in uncovering some real bargains on the free-agent fringe, they proved far less successful in obtaining top value when forced by financial considerations to trade players such as Johnny Damon, Carlos Beltran and Jermaine Dye.

It was the Beltran trade — on June 24, 2004 — that marked the latest full-scale effort to rebuild their roster. The Royals received catcher John Buck, third baseman Mark Teahen and pitcher Mike Wood in return.

They are also 99-206 since that point.

And this is the guy you have hired to scout for you? Lucchepstein! Are you crazy?!?

Or…crazy like a fox?

Please, someone, tell me there’s a master plan here.