Analyze this: Terry Francona talking Red Sox is part of job

The revolving door between coaches' offices and broadcast booths in pro sports has been spinning for decades, but never has there been anything quite like this:

Two of the biggest names in baseball essentially trading jobs -- one that involves managing an iconic on-field brand, the other offering a place on the sport's highest-profile regular-season television stage.

Cool, huh?

But Terry Francona, ESPN's new "Sunday Night Baseball" analyst, and his bosses have done their best to temper the fascination over his moving into the post that Bobby Valentine held -- after Valentine took the spot Francona had held as Red Sox manager.

"It's not like this is earth-shattering news stuff," executive producer Jed Drake said. "No sweat, no problem. We are all going to take this straight ahead. While I understand and appreciate the unique situation -- I helped manufacture it -- once we're a week into this, it's going to be like old news."

Good luck with that. Francona got a dry run March 22 when he worked a Red Sox-Yankees exhibition game, an experience he called "a little awkward."

But the stakes rise Thursday with the No. 1 announcing team's second of four games in five days: Red Sox at Tigers. Francona will make his Fenway Park debut as an analyst when the Yankees visit April 22.

Is Francona prepared for the fact that everything he says about the Red Sox will be carefully parsed?

"It doesn't really matter," he said. "I always say what I think is honest. And again, I can't control how people blow it out of proportion."

Francona's analysis of Valentine will come under particular scrutiny, as will the relationship between the two. What will it be like when Francona and his colleagues meet with Valentine before games?

"The first time I walk back in that office, I'm sure it's going to be a little strange," Francona said. "It's an office I occupied for eight years."

Drake said all he demands of Francona is honesty, including on sensitive topics such as the Red Sox's collapse last season.

"I expect him to be candid," Drake said. "I expect him to give insight that will be exceptional and special because of his knowledge of these players and their strengths and weaknesses. I expect that he's going to go right down the middle of this."

Drake said that after Valentine left, ESPN used "a full-court press" -- with help from ESPN football analyst Jon Gruden -- to land Francona, who had received rave reviews as a fill-in for Tim McCarver on Fox's ALCS coverage.

Francona has been asked many times what advice he would give Valentine, and he has declined to provide any. "He's managed longer than I have,'' he said. "So he doesn't need my advice, nor would I offer it, because I don't think that's appropriate."

If Francona were to offer advice, though, it might be something like this: fasten your seat belt.

"Eight years in Boston for me felt like, I think we should maybe put it in dog years, because it's a lot," he said. "It takes a toll on anybody. It took a toll on me. But again, sometimes it's time for a change.

"Now they have a new voice and Bobby has a chance to take over fresh and do it his way, and that is what's good about it, because he will do it his way."

Francona said the AL East likely will come down to which pitching staff stays healthiest.

"The Red Sox have a good team," he said. "You know, last year we were on pace to win over 100 games and fell apart in September . . . They're not going to just go away this year and turn into a bad team."

If they do, ESPN will expect Francona to explain why.

"It will be a challenge for Terry, but one he's eminently capable of handling, as he's shown throughout his baseball career," Drake said. "Now he's just shifting gears and now it's a broadcasting career. All is good. All is in order. All will be fine."