Exit Millar, Enter Tavares

Exchanged Emails today with a fellow resident of the Nation about one Julian Tavares, who the Sox signed for middle relief, assuming Keith Foulke comes back to his 2004 form. I defended young Julian and his supposed flakiness (hitting your fist and doing damage after a bad pitching performance is classic "head case" stuff), but then I read that Kevin Millar signed with the Orioles. Not that the two moves are in any way related, but it got me to thinking. Millar is out (he was really out months ago, to be fair), and Tavares is in. Is that a good swap of players, from a personality standpoint? Millar was the author of "Cowboy Up" during the Red Sox 2003 playoffs, and his now-famous (to me) carefree attitude after falling behind 3-0 to the Evil Empire in 2004 ("Don't let us win tonight, boy, don't let us win tonight...") will never be forgotten. In many ways, Millar symbolized the 2004 'idiots' just as much, if not more, than that centerfielder whose name will no longer appear in this blog (please, don't make me say it, the former long-haired gentleman). For that, I will miss him. Sure, Millar's bat tailed off in 2005, and I couldn't believe it when he was booed on one of my visits to Fenway, but you have to wonder how the 2004 team would have been -- mentally, at least -- without him. Plus, when that guy connected, man, he connected. He had a very sweet home run swing over the monster when he was on (see picture), and I will miss that.
So this off-season continues to be a depressing one. We have no shortstop to speak of (Cora?), and the guy they have penciled in in centerfield (Adam Stern) has a total of 15 major league at bats in his career. His CAREER. I don't care how many GMs the Sox have or who is really pulling the strings, somebody make a move! The Nation is waiting.