Peter Gammons

Hall of Fame baseball writer Peter Gammons joined Mut & Merloni on Wednesday morning to give his thoughts on the Red Sox possibly hiring Bobby Valentine as manager.

Valentine is the top candidate for the Red Sox managerial job in the eyes of many, and Gammons agrees that he would be a good fit for the job, partly because he presents a different managing style than Terry Francona.

“I think he’d be really good. Sometimes when you replace a coach or a manager in any sport, sometimes it’s for the best when you kind of move in the opposite direction,” Gammons said. “And I think that one of the things Terry Francona did so well, which was always to basically protect his players and support them and, as Alex Cora used to say, never say the wrong thing. I think maybe there was a comfort zone there that got to be too much of a comfort zone and I think that while Bobby will be very careful about how he goes about the Boston job, I think he will rattle some cages, and I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.”

While Gammons said that Valentine to the Red Sox is not a done deal yet, he remains their top choice, even though he thinks that Tigers third base coach Gene Lamont would make a good manager as well.

“If they went that way, I think ownership would respect that, but I don’t think it’s going to happen,” Gammons said of bringing in Lamont. “I think it’s going to be Valentine.”

Gammons went on to say that Valentine is excited at the prospect of working with general manager Ben Cherington and the other baseball operations staff within the Red Sox organization.

“In talking to Bobby, he seems so enthusiastic about working with these people,” Gammons said. “He did a lot of research before he came up here and that research led him to believe that these are really good people to work with.”

Following are more highlights from the conversation. To hear the interview, go to the Mut & Merloni audio on demand page.

More on Valentine: “He’s a brilliant guy. And I know that there are people that are a little afraid that the way ownership that has set this up — and I think its been so much clumsily put together in certain ways — that it’s opened the door for there to be a manager-ownership relationship that can at times circumvent the general manager. I don’t think that’ll happen because I think that A) Larry Lucchino is so highly vested in Ben Cherington. And I think that Ben is extremely strong and he’s so rational.

“One of the greatest treats a couple of years, when [Valentine] was managing the Mets, I would just get in line around the players and following around through his baserunning clinic that he did for players. And it is astounding, his ability to teach.

“He also will relish the enthusiasm in Boston. Will there be clashes over two or three years? Yeah, there will be clashes. But that’s the nature of Boston. But in the end I think it will be really terrific and I think the person that will make it work is Ben Cherington.”

On if former Red Sox pitching coach and current Blue Jays manager John Farrell would have been the top pick for manager if he were available: “I don’t think there’s on question. Which is no disrespect to anyone else, he’d be No. 1 on my list. … But there was no way at the end of the 2010 season, when John was preparing to leave, that he thought that Terry Francona wasn’t coming back, they’re close friends anyway. It wasn’t something he thought about. I don’t think anyone saw 2011 evolving the way it did. There wasn’t anyway, at that time, of saying to John, ‘Look, we’ll give you X amount of money to stay here because you’re eventually going to be the manager-in-waiting.’ Because it wouldn’t have been fair to him and it wouldn’t have been fair to Terry.”

On why the Red Sox have yet to focus on re-signing David Ortiz: “I think part of it is because of the manager. Also because Ben and Mike [Hazen] and all the baseball people went down to the Dominican Republic last week to watch some of the young kids and [Yoenis] Cespedes. I think that kind of got postponed. My guess is between now and the winter meetings, they’ll have a good idea of if they can sign him. It’s a little touchy in that, yes, the market value of DH has been depressed, but Ortiz was clearly the best DH in the league. … He does mean more to the Red Sox than he’s going to mean to anybody else. Now I know that we’re not supposed to think that way, but he does. People love him. I think he more than anyone is the face of the team. I think it’ll get worked out.”

On how the Red Sox will deal with the closer situation: “I know there has been exploration of Ryan Madson. Where he had four years on the table from the Phillies, I’m not so sure that they’ll go [four years for $11 million a year], which is what the Phillies deal was, or four times 10 or whatever it would be. The only thing about Madson is that he was up to 95-96 [mph] last year. He does have a great changeup, changeup is his primary pitch. Also in the last month of the season, his cutter, which was 91-93 [mph] was devastating. You’ve got a lot you can play with there with Madson, so if he goes down to 92-93 [mph fastball], his changeup is so good that he can still be Trevor Hoffman-like. So he might be one guy they go that length with.

“They might take Francisco [Rodriguez] and then put Bard at the end and whoever else they want to put at the end. I kind of doubt they would go for [Francisco] Cordero. And I don’t think they’ll trade what’s necessary to trade for Huston Street. So, I think it could be one of those guys that now doesn’t require compensation.”

On Justin Verlander winning the AL MVP: “I probably would have Verlander third, behind [Jacoby] Ellsbury and [Jose] Bautista. Just going through all the different numbers — defense, baserunning, all those things that you add up — as great as Verlander was — and in wins above replacement value, I think he was third in that — I just thought that with the games played of Ellsbury and Bautista, particularly all that Ellsbury did, I thought he should have been MVP. But I understand the argument for the starting pitcher.”