I think we all believe Kevin Youkilis was traded by the Red Sox to the White Sox on June 24 for the following reasons:

Will Middlebrooks had played too well at third base to go back to Pawtucket.

There simply was a positional logjam, with Youkilis losing to Middlebrooks at third, David Ortiz at DH and Adrian Gonzalez at first base. Sure, you could mix and match -- Gonzalez in the outfield, days off here and there for Ortiz (at the time one of the two or three best hitters in the American League) and Middlebrooks -- but it was feeling awfully inorganic at the end.

The Bobby Valentine-Youkilis relationship clearly was a problem, almost certainly starting before Valentine's comments to WHDH-TV's Joe Amorosino ("I don't think he's as physically or emotionally into the game as he has been in the past for some reason") in April. Valentine's almost historic insecurity found its summit whenever Youkilis was the topic post-trade. On Sept. 12, Valentine talked about Youkilis on WEEI:

"I'm going to say this about Youk," Valentine said. "What was he hitting when he left here, .238? When he left here, the reason he was hitting .238 is because I really affected him negatively. I was the root cause of his not performing well. Since he's been with Chicago he's hitting .238. I just want to make it clear that the cause of him hitting .238 was not me." 

The Sox had to trade Youkilis this past season. There really was no other viable option at the time. And maybe that was as obvious to every other team in the league as it was to the folks around here, and maybe that's why Ben Cherington got basically nothing in return for a guy who should've been a fairly attractive option to some contenders (Zach Stewart is 26 years old and has a career ERA of 6.82 -- and had a 22.24 ERA in two starts with the Sox last year). 

Now it's a little more than four months later and things, as Bob Dylan once told us, have changed.

Will Middlebrooks still is going to be the third baseman, but the logjam? Gone, wiped out in the trade with the Dodgers. There is a third baseman, there still is a DH -- the deal with Ortiz also was a product of the trade with the Dodgers, $26 million for two years to a 37-year-old coming off an Achilles injury is a lot easier to swallow with a quarter of a billion dollars off the books -- but right now the 2013 Boston Red Sox do not have a starting first baseman. 

Bobby Valentine will never manage another major league game again. It boggles the mind that Larry Lucchino -- who didn't get where he got by being dumb -- spent hours, presumably, talking to Valentine about the position and concluded he was the right guy at the right time for the job. I have no idea if John Farrell will be a success or not, of course, but unlike many if not most in the local media, I carry some doubt about the hire. But I'm guessing Youkilis has a significantly better feeling about Farrell than he did with Valentine.

And also there's this: Kevin Youkilis was overpaid at $13 million in 2012. The Sox paid Youkilis $11.1 million last season to be not as good as Will Middlebrooks and to go somewhere else to play baseball. But the White Sox declined the $13 million 2013 option on Youkilis on Tuesday, making him a free agent for the first time in his career at age 33. The White Sox already have said they'd like him back at a reduced number, and that's exactly what he's looking at in the open market. 

So there it is. If you are Cherington, do you try to bring Youkilis back?

I think it's worth considering, but ultimately I'd have to pass on the sequel. There's a reason Youkilis -- two years removed from a .975 OPS -- lost his job to Middlebrooks, and there is a reason he likely will be available for a one-year deal at the half the money he was making last season. This is a player in decline, and it's not a slow decline.

Youkilis will be 34 years old on Opening Day. He has been on the disabled list at least once in each of the last four seasons and hasn't played 130 games since 2009. His least productive season as a major league regular was in 2012, with career lows in batting average, on-base percentage and OPS. His 2012 numbers were down markedly from his 2011 numbers, and those were his worst in six years. 

And there's the idea that Youkilis might not have been the best influence in the clubhouse during the last days of Terry Francona, not just with Valentine in 2012. We’ve all heard a million stories about September 2011 and all the different rumors about who told what to whom and why they did it, and Youkilis didn't come out as one of the heroes in the drama. If you are serious about changing the culture, what would a return of Youkilis suggest?

Bringing back Kevin Youkilis would be a mistake. Not a fatal one as one-year bridge, but a mistake nevertheless. He was a superb player with the Sox for the great majority of his career -- back-to-back top six MVP finishes in 2008 and '09, a career .388 on-base percentage -- but that player is gone. If the Sox sign Youkilis you'll get to watch a player in his mid-30s continue to decline until the inevitable injuries put him on the disabled list. There's just no upside there anymore. Nostalgia won't turn the 2013 Kevin Youkilis into the 2008 Kevin Youkilis. 

The solution? Well, James Loney had an OPS of .630 last season, .574 in 30 games for the Sox. Do you want to trade for Kendry Morales or invest huge money in Mike Napoli or Nick Swisher? If I'm Cherington I think I'd find a serviceable veteran for short money and take my chances with Jerry Sands, who has hit 35, 29 and 26 homers in each of his last three minor league seasons. This team isn't going to win the World Series next season, and there is no perfect free agent fit. Put it another way: I don't know who or what the answer is for the Sox at first base in 2013.

But I know it's not Kevin Youkilis.