By TERRY NAU

Sports editor

Blackstone Valley boasted two major league baseball players again this summer – Woonsocket native Rocco Baldelli and St. Raphael Academy product Chris Iannetta, who grew up in North Providence.  It’s an incredible achievement on their part to reach the highest level of their profession. As fans, we should never forget that.
2009 was not a kind year to either. Rocco landed on the disabled list twice and then got hurt in the last week of the regular season and was left off the playoff roster. His bat was missed off the bench, where he hit .357 as a pinch-hitter with a .438 on base percentage. Who knows what he might have done in a key situation in LA when the Sox couldn’t score any runs? He might have been a great matchup in a pinch against Angels lefthander Darren Oliver, who played key roles in the first two games, both LA victories.
Iannetta, who was expected to blossom in his third full big league season with Colorado, instead lost his job to veteran Yorvit Torrealba and only had 12 at-bats in September, the last of them a walk-off game-winning homer  that helped secure Colorado’s wild card playoff berth.
Iannetta finished the season with a .228 batting average. On the plus side, he bombed 16 homers in just 289 at-bats. He knocked in 52 runs, a high number for less than 300 ABs.
What does the future hold for both? Hard to say. Boston may be reluctant to sign Rocco again due to his ongoing health problems. The Sox signed Rocco to a one-year deal for $1 million. Incentives based on his active days on the roster netted him another $1.5M. In return, Boston got 150 at-bats, 7 homers and 23 RBI.
There are no righthanded hitting outfielders in Boston’s farm system who can replace Baldelli. Josh Reddick is lefthanded. He’s a strong prospect who appears to need more seasoning in Pawtucket next summer. But if Boston wants to replace Baldelli, it would have to go back on the open market to find someone.
Just remember this: Rocco hit .293 with 4 HRs and 15 RBI in 93 at-bats against lefthander pitchers. That kind of production isn’t easy to replace.
Baldelli probably hoped he would play more in 2009, show that he could play for more than two days in a row without wearing down, but that didn’t really happen. So if he goes on the free agent market, he does so as a part-time player with a big question mark hanging over his head.
When it comes to Iannetta, Colorado faces a decision of its own. Torrealba delivered a lot of key hits for the Rockies in the second half of the season and again in the playoffs. He is 31 years old, five years older than Iannetta. And a free agent. The third Colorado catcher is 32-year-old Paul Phillips, who has six years of big league experience, going back and forth from the minors to the majors. He hit .311 in 45 at-bats with Colorado this season.
The question when it comes to Iannetta is do the Rockies have the guts to dangle him on the trade market and see what he could bring? Do they trade their youngest catcher, the catcher with the most power (Torrealba hit 2 HRs in 290 at-bats this season) or do they keep Iannetta as the backup for yet another season and sign Torrealba.
The guess here is the Rockies try to keep them both.
The Red Sox could solve their long-term catching problems by making a deal for Iannetta. This time, it wouldn’t cost them a blue-chip pitching prospect like Clay Buchholz or Daniel Bard. With the talent in Boston’s farm system (most of it at lower levels than Pawtucket), general manager Theo Epstein might be able to put together a package that would please Colorado.
Sure, Victor Martinez did a good job catching for Boston after his trade from Cleveland. But Victor is 31 and should not catch more than 100 games. Jason Varitek, sad to say, is history.
Among Boston’s backstop prospects, George Kottaras is not the answer behind the plate, no matter how well he catches knucklers. Dustin Brown is a AAAA player at best. Mark Wagner is a great defensive catcher but hasn’t shown he can hit his weight.
If Theo could trade for Iannetta, that would be a great starting point to fixing the minor leaks in his ball club. Chris is a power hitter who can catch and throw. He’ll be 27 years old next year. But don’t hold your breath. These are the words of a hometown sports writer that you’re reading today. My world is a lot smaller than Theo’s. He’s got a lot of things to think about besides finding a catcher. So we’ll leave him and his baseball ops people alone and just mind our own business.
***
By the way, did we mention Theo had a bad season, too? General managers can impact their teams in negative ways, perhaps even more severely than when a key player endures a tough year. You can’t blame Theo for losing Mark Teixeira to the Yankees but you can pin the John Smoltz Experiment completely on the GM. Smoltz was a two-month disaster who cost Boston valuable ground as the Yankees stormed past the Sox in July and early August. His presence kept Buchholz pinned in Pawtucket for two more months instead of going to Boston and winning some games. I figure the whole thing cost Boston five games in the standings.
Theo also signed Jason Varitek last winter against his better instincts. Epstein has dumped veteran players in the past, people like Johnny Damon and Pedro Martinez, and earned praise for not letting them get old under his watch. So how come he kept Varitek around.
For a franchise that is considered very pro-active and smart, Boston sure accumulated a lot of dead wood on its 25-man roster this past season. Julio Lugo (Theo’s worst signing ever), Varitek and Smoltz were very negative contributors from a statistical standpoint. Mike Lowell and David Ortiz got old in 2009, Lowell mostly in the field and Ortiz at the plate, which is all he does anyway.
***
Another thing. I read today where the Sox may have underestimated the Angels. That’s nonsense. Kevin Youkilis told everyone who would listen last week that past history meant nothing but the media kept writing about Boston’s playoff domination of the Angels. The media may have underestimated the Angels but the Red Sox surely did not.
And I have to laugh over the Boston media’s take last month that winning the AL East title did not matter, that the wild card works just as well in the playoffs. How does that look now? The Yankees got to play a weak sister while the Red Sox  got stuck with the Angels.
Winning the division title is always the best way to get to the playoffs, no matter how much the Red Sox apologists want to make you think it doesn’t matter.