Boston Red Sox Should Not Be Getting Rid of Manager Terry Francona

Terry Francona has been the most reliable manager in Boston Red Sox history and the Red Sox not picking up his 2012 option is bad for the Sox.

Reported on espn.com, Terry Francona told Boston Red Sox staff members on Thursday that he will not be returning as manager, a club source said on Friday.

The Daily News has been told by sources that Francona is out as Red Sox manager in a meeting this morning with team owner John Henry. The sources said that the decision to end the Sox' relationship with Francona was Henry's call, not general manager Theo Epstein's.

John Henry I do not see why you got rid of Francona?

The Red Sox won two World Series with him and have been in the playoffs five of the eight seasons under his leadership. Francona was displeased with the way the entire team, or at least some of the players, were acting towards the final month of the season.

From a report on redsox.com, Terry Francona had problems with the team's chemistry.

"I think every team's different," Francona said. "This team, I think, became challenging at the end. We can go back to even Toronto. I remember a game in Toronto, the day after we won 14-0, we ended up having a meeting and I'm not even sure if anybody [outside the team] knew. There were some things I was worried about. We were spending too much energy on things that weren't putting our best foot forward towards winning."

A winning mentality is what is a key to any postseason team down the stretch and the Sox lacking this mentality is the worst thing that could happen to them, especially in September. A team needs to put their best foot forward and be able to take a look at one game at a time in order to even get a shot at making the playoffs.

The Sox lacked any of this down the stretch and their 7-20 record showed that. Sure some balls they could have put in ball or caught, but they did not believe each game was important and now they are out for the postseason. Their lack of winning mentality killed their chances of making it to the postseason.

General Manager, Theo Epstein, also met with the players during the final month of the season. "I actually addressed the team myself later on in the month, before a game," Epstein said. "We redoubled our efforts off the field, in the front office. There's things that we can do, watching games over, looking at charts, seeing if there are little tidbits we can offer to the players, the coaching staff. Tito was trying to find anything he could do to reach the team."

Epstein sounded if he believed in Francona's message and not picking up his option is just not the right move for the Red Sox to make.

If anything, the Red Sox should be cutting ties with General Manager Theo Epstein. He has overplayed players the past two off-seasons that have not been worth it. Carl Crawford only batted .255 with 18 stolen bases in his first year of his long-term contract. John Lackey has been horrendous at best after tow full seasons, and now with the announcement of divorcing his wife in late August, he is really starting to alienate Red Sox Nation.

Plus, there aren't really any "good" managers out on the market. The Sox needed someone like Ozzie Guillen to put a fire under their butts, but now he is with the Florida Marlins, so they should have kept Francona.

What is next Theo? Are you going to pay starting pitcher Justin Duchscherer $80 million for six years?