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Roger Clemens had a pretty good year in 2006. He posted a 136 OPS+ and struck out 257, solid numbers for any player. But Clemens' 1996 season followed irregular years, and Clemens appeared to be declining. So the Red Sox, led at the time by Dan Duquette, proclaimed Clemens on the downside of his career and let him go. Then, of course, Clemens posted two insane Cy Young seasons in Toronto, before being traded to the Yankees and haunting Red Sox fans forever. Naturally, Red Sox fans blamed the front office -- especially Duquette -- for misreading Clemens' career curve. But we now know, thanks to the Mitchell Report, that Clemens started using steroids soon after he left the Red Sox, leading to his stunning increases in OPS+ and innings pitched in the following years.
So are Dan Duquette and the Red Sox staff vindicated? I say yes. After all, steroids aside, it's likely that Clemens would have continued to decline year-over-year, and for the money Clemens was demanding it was smart to avoid signing a long-term veteran contract. We're still not sure how much steroids can help a player, but in Clemens' case it seemed to wake his tired arm right up. It's unrealistic to assume Duquette would factor potential steroid use into their cost-benefit on Clemens, right? Duquette deserves to be the whipping boy for many of his failures in Boston, but in retrospect, he deserves a pass on the Rocket and his big, needle-pocked rear end.
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