Red Sox Fans Shouldn't Panic: The Team Will Have a Manager

I'll be the first person to admit that I've got zero experience working for a major sports franchise, or more specifically, a baseball team. 

With that being the case, I'm still a bit perplexed by the current situation surrounding the Boston Red Sox.

It seems as though there's a fair amount of panic in Sox nation right now. Things still aren't very settled since the untimely demise of the Red Sox season. 

Ben Cherington may or may not have been overruled on the selection of Dale Sveum as manager. Now it looks like Bobby Valentine may end up in charge. 

I don't think it's a stretch for me to assume that the Red Sox will open the 2012 season with a manager. In a perfect world that manager would be in place by now. Then again in a perfect world, we wouldn't need a manager because Terry Francona would be celebrating his third World Series title. 

Sometimes things don't happen exactly how we all envision them happening. Theo Epstein landed Curt Schilling on Thanksgiving Day. David Ortiz snuck in under the radar as a free-agent acquisition, but it was Jeremy Giambi who was slated as the starter in 2003 —not the man now known as " Big Papi". No one expected Dice-K to be as bad as he turned out, but no one expected Okijima to be as good as he was during the 2007 title run.

Not having a manager is a problem—not getting the right manager would be a much bigger problem. If Bobby Valentine becomes the manager of the Red Sox and if he takes the team to the playoffs next season, will anyone really care that the Cubs, Cardinals and White Sox all got managers first? 

As of now the there are a lot of question marks regarding the 2012 Red Sox. They will need to be addressed and it would be better sooner than later. If there's no manager when the Winter Meetings take place starting on December 5th, then that would be very odd. It's not even Thanksgiving yet. There's one major free agent off the market and the Red Sox were unlikely to ever match Philadelphia's four-year $50 million dollar offer to Papelbon no matter when it was proposed.

There's no reason for fans to feel good about the Red Sox right now, but it's also far too soon to somehow write off this offseason or even worse, next season. The Cardinals are waiting to see if their franchise player returns, as are the Brewers. The Texas Rangers, a team that has always been short on pitching, are waiting to see if their No. 1 starter leaves for the second consecutive season.

Uncertainly is par the course for this time of the year in baseball. Someone was going to fill their managerial opening first and someone was going to be last. Does that matter? We won't know that for some time.