To is a preposition

Boston Red Sox games must have been a psychiatrist’s dream last season, given all of the apparent dysfunction and frustration, given all of the telling body language.

Most managers and pitching coaches stand relatively close together during games, but Bobby Valentine and Bob McClure often were far apart — and there were instances when McClure visited a struggling pitcher on the mound, returned to the dugout and sat without reporting back to Valentine.

Not surprisingly, McClure did not last the season.

I remember watching a Red Sox pitcher stare down Valentine, like he was aiming lasers, as the manager made a slow walk to the mound. Sometimes, infielders preferred to stay at their position rather than participate in the meetings, because of lingering issues.

And this all started even before the first day of spring training. When the players learned about some of the drills that Valentine had planned for them, including one in which they hit the ball to teammates using a fungo bat, the players couldn’t believe it.

Midway through the season, one player summed up the mental state of the Red Sox: “Everybody hates everybody.”

Owners of the Boston Red Sox thought the team wasn’t marketable after the 2010 season and needed to add “sexy players,” former general manager Theo Epstein says in a new book co-written by former manager Terry Francona.

Epstein says owner John Henry, chairman Tom Werner and president Larry Lucchino made the team’s image a priority, according to excerpts released Tuesday by Sports Illustrated. “Francona: The Red Sox Years” is co-written by the Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy and is scheduled for publication by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on Jan. 22.

“They told us we didn’t have any marketable players. We need some sexy guys,” Epstein was quoted as saying.

Francona said of the ownership group: “I don’t think they love baseball. I think they like baseball. … It’s still more of a toy or hobby for them.”

The Red Sox pounced on Victorino, at a high price: Three years, $38 million. Boston will play him in right field, at least for year one of the contract, with the defensively limited Jonny Gomes handling the limited real estate in left and Jacoby Ellsbury in the final year of his contract back in center.

Baseball is very much a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately business, which is what makes the size of the reported offer so interesting. From 2008 through 2011, Victorino ranked as the 21st-most valuable position player in baseball, combining blazing speed with solid extra-base power, good center-field defense, and plus on-base skills. His 2011 season was especially huge: .279/.355/.491, with 27 doubles, 16 triples, and 17 homers in 132 games, and career highs in slugging and WAR. That power outburst looks like an outlier compared to the rest of his career, though, with Victorino’s numbers nosediving to .255/.321/.383. So did the Red Sox get the 6-win player of 2011, or the 3-win player of 2012? If it’s the latter, Victorino’s age (32) and his speed-based skill set make him a regression risk over the life of the contract. On the other hand, the Sox run a money factory; even with Victorino, their salary for the entire roster shouldn’t go much beyond $120 million, and Victorino offers a much cheaper option than Michael Bourn or Josh Hamilton. He also ensures that the Sox don’t have to trade one of their premium prospects to plug that outfield hole. Given the team’s time frame for contending probably kicks in after a reloading year in 2013, we’re probably talking about a mild overpay for a rich team on a stopgap player who won’t kill you. You’re not getting a parade, but you can probably cancel the witch hunt, too.

Valentine is very smart and, like Collins and Showalter, has a bottomless passion for baseball, and maybe, if everything had played out differently, the players would have come to see that. But right away, Valentine reinforced the preconceived notions they had about him.

According to sources within the organization, Valentine had asked for a change in the way that cutoff plays were run, and when he walked onto a field very early in spring training, what he saw almost immediately was that shortstop Mike Aviles was not where he wanted him to be. Valentine loudly and profanely questioned Aviles’ aptitude, others in the organization say. What Valentine did not know at that moment was that the Red Sox players hadn’t yet been instructed on where to go in the new cutoff alignment.

Aviles is highly respected, a grinder, and other players were bothered enough by the exchange that three leaders on the team — Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz and Adrian Gonzalez — went to Valentine to express concern and provide context for Aviles’ mistake. Gonzalez, sources say, asked Valentine that if he wanted to get on a player verbally, the first baseman would be OK with being a target, because he could take it.

It was a moment that others in the organization now look back on as a crossroad in Valentine’s year as manager, because in that instant, Valentine could have gone one of two ways.

He could have listened to the players, embraced what they were saying, called a team meeting the next day and built on the incident. He could have apologized to Aviles and then told all of them, in so many words, Mike, you should know that these three guys over here — Ortiz, Pedroia and Gonzalez — have your back and are really good teammates, and that’s a great thing. And I’m really feeling good about what we have in this room.

“But it didn’t go that way,” said a member of the organization.

Valentine did express regret to Aviles. But the players perceived Valentine as being miffed by the situation, as if the players had overreacted to something that he felt was innocuous. The players perceived that Valentine felt his authority was being challenged.

Right away, this incident badly damaged the fragile connection between he and the players, and was probably destroyed once and for all by his comments about Kevin Youkilis in April.

Yes, please.

6. Mike Lowell, MLB Network analyst. Another outside-the-box candidate, Lowell stated a desire to spend more time with his family in Miami after retiring from the Red Sox in 2010. Lowell enjoyed tremendous respect in the Sox’s clubhouse and was a fan favorite. He also is bilingual, which is a great asset, but as Kevin Millar said last week, “He might be too rich to manage.” Lowell’s name also has surfaced as a potential candidate in Miami if the Marlins fire Ozzie Guillen.

Everything about Valentine looks fake. His tan may be real for all I know, but it looks sprayed on. He constantly does things to call attention to himself and show up his players, whether it’s threatening to punch out a radio host, batting Scott Podsednik (he of the 42 home runs in 4307 career plate appearances) in the power-hitting third spot as an implicit indictment of his usual middle-of-the-order guys, or leaving Jon Lester in a game to watch his ERA explode even after giving up nine runs in two innings. It’s just unbelievably depressing to watch. The players look at Valentine the way prisoners look at the trusty who snitched his way to the cozy library job. Dustin Pedroia, a guy the city once loved beyond all reason (and he seemed to love it back), looks like he would fall to his knees weeping in gratitude if he were traded to the Rockies, the Diamondbacks, the Seibu Lions, anyone – during games, you can almost see him looking up at the owners’ box expectantly, like he’s waiting for the good news.

If this were war, the players would have murdered Valentine in the foxhole months ago. In fact they apparently tried to do just that, at least once, but were rebuffed by management, which either out of cheapness or stubborness or both is apparently determined to let Bobby V ride out the season – and maybe keep him for next year, too.