Wouldn't have cost much more and play Bay at first if need be. Personally Bay was pretty lousy in LF. I've seen stats that actually say he was worse in left than Manny. Not saying I agree, but its debateable at least. Losing Moss's bat hurt some too. He could also play some first. Paying an old Lowell big bucks after a strong contract yr turned out to be wasted money too. Oft injured players don't usually become more durable as they get older. I'd take Bay at first or Moss at first. Anyone over kotsay. Rotoworld had this to say about kotsay:
Wouldn't cost much more? It would have cost at least one more top level prospect, and a B level. The Dodgers sent Andy Laroche (who was ranked the 25th best prospect in all of baseball by Keith Law before the season...the only Sox prospect ahead of him was Ellsbury). So the Sox would probably have had to include Lars Anderson to replace him. And then Bryan Morris who was another top 10 prospect for the Dodgers. So you are looking at sending a top prospect, a couple high prospects who are already in the majors, and a B prospect.
And why would they put Bay at first? They already had a gold glove quality first baseman who was an MVP candidate, and at the time, they had a gold glove 3rd baseman who they just signed to a contract extension, and is the reigning World Series MVP. Just doesn't make sense.
They'd play Bay at first b/c he's a much better hitter than the other OF they moved to first, Kotsay. Both Lowell and ortiz weren't close to 100%, thus the Sox interest in Giles, b/c they needed another bat. Personally i wouldn't sign an oft injured older player to a contract extention b/c he was "the reigning WS mvp" in your words. He did have a good contract year, but trust me we'll be paying someone to take on that contract just as we did with Renteria and are going to do with lugo.
What Laroche was before the season is not the same as what he was in mid summer. It's like saying Bucholtz has more value than Lester, because last offseason he did. A lot had fallen off of Laroche's value. We would of had to add another prospect or two, but we'd be getting two prospects back when Manny left this offseason (and we had a whole Winter to replace him). So no, it wouldn't have cost much more.
I'm not saying that they should have added Bay if they kept Manny. just pointing out that it was possible and wouldn't cost much more. We needed another bat and we didn't get it at the deadline. We got Bay and kotsay (shortly after) and lost Manny and Moss. We also didn't add to the bullpen.
All these people were saying "who needs manny?" in the ALDS and would be the first to say the same thing if we won now, but we didn't and the truth is he was exactly what we needed, a clutch postseason hitter. We had tons of "gamers" like kotsay and tek and lowrie and cora, but in the postseason you need elite arms and elite sluggers. Again I'm not saying you can't be disgusted with Manny antics, but all the people saying we were better without him and they'd rather pay for him to play for the Dodgers are wrong imo. We won two World Series's with Manny as the costar of our lineup (with Papi). Without Manny we don't even make those two World Series's imo... just like without Manny we didn't make it this year. Manny's postseason stats are out of this world. He steps it up against the top pitchers in baseball on its biggest stage. I don't understand Red Sox fans need to bash every former star after they leave town (Clemens, pedro, Boggs, damon, Nomar, Manny, Mo Vaughn, etc). Just because the boston sports media does, doesn't mean fans have to as well. Wait, in a year or two, everyone will be bashing Ortiz. So lame.