And tomorrow is the reporting date for pitchers and catchers for Oakland and Seattle. 8 days until all other teams' pitchers and catchers report.

Here's the full schedule:

FEBRUARY 12, 2012
Voluntary report date for pitchers, catchers and injured players (Oakland and Seattle)
FEBRUARY 17, 2012
Oakland and Seattle full squads may report
FEBRUARY 19, 2012
Voluntary report date for pitchers, catchers and injured players (all other clubs)
FEBRUARY 24, 2012
Full squads may report (all other clubs)
Mandatory report date for all players on Oakland and Seattle

FEBRUARY 29, 2012
First exhibition game, Florida State University vs. Philadelphia Phillies, Clearwater, Fla.

It's stupid, it's contrived and I love it. Anything that means "baseball is on the way" is OK with me.

Yay!

Not even a Red Sox fan, but very stoked by this article.

There was a spot on local news about the Yankees' truck leaving too. Apparently that's a routine thing among baseball teams though I'd never heard of it before.

No word on whether the Mets are renting a Vespa or a Segway for their transportation.

There was a spot on local news about the Yankees' truck leaving too. Apparently that's a routine thing among baseball teams though I'd never heard of it before.

Every year, as far back as I can remember (late 1970s) and probably prior, the Boston Globe would publish without fanfare a picture of the equipment truck being packed up for the trip to Florida. It was a nice tradition, and local folk generally knew what was meant by the phrase "truck day" as a result. Then the current management took over the team, saw the free publicity opportunity that it was, and, as is their way, turned it up to 11.

From what I can tell it didn't become a publicity thing for other teams until the last couple of years, once the instant-trending nature of social media alerted the rest of MLB to what Boston was doing. Not that I begrudge other teams copying the Red Sox... I like the idea that, a week after the Super Bowl - the annual reminder of how popular football is - throughout the nation people are smiling because they know baseball is on its way.

I'm interested to see how Lackey is in spring training, maybe a hint whether we are getting a 4.00 ERA in 180 innings guy or a 5.00 ERA in 100 innings guy.

I also am interested in the health of the 2 sluggers, Ortiz and Napoli. It's a long way down to Gomez/Overbay in the DH/1B slots.

PeteAbe said yesterday that Lackey looks like he's lost a lot of weight.

So you're saying he's in the best shape of his life?

Circumstances might have me in the Fort Myers area in late March/early April, which got me excited for a minute, as I've never been to spring training before. But it looks like my only shot is the game on the last Saturday of the month, and I might not get there in time. Alas. One of these years.

Extended Spring Training continues after the regular version is completed. You might be able to catch an intrasquad game.

Ahh, hadn't thought of that. Thanks!

My father did it one year, said it was a lot of fun. There was someone of note playing from the big club and it was one of those deals where that guy would lead off every inning and my father really enjoyed himself.

Circumstances might have me in the Fort Myers area in late March/early April, which got me excited for a minute, as I've never been to spring training before. But it looks like my only shot is the game on the last Saturday of the month, and I might not get there in time. Alas. One of these years.

Circumstances are going to put me in there on the 21st and 22nd. I'm planning to take in the first couple of innings of the game with NE and then head on to the conference I'm attending. Like you, I've never been to ST (Damn you 1976 labor-management strife). I'd love to stick around for Saturday's actual opener, but I've got to coach my daughter's basketball game, so a few innings on Thursday is all I'll get.

Thin Lackey! Talk about best shape of his life stories.

On the subject of thin Lackey my father and I both noted that he looked much thinner in 2011 than he had in 2010. Since that worked out so well there is every reason to be optimistic!

I'm based in the Tampa/St. Pete area, so if any of you spring trainers want to meet up for a game sometime, let me know. Fort Myers is a bit of a haul for me and my work schedule in March looks pretty hectic, so I'd probably only come down for one game at JetBlue if I can swing it.

If any of you travel within Florida to see the Sox play road games in the Grapefruit League, I can vouch for the Orioles' and Phillies' parks being great venues. They have the added benefit of being much closer to my house. The Pirates, Blue Jays, Yankees, and Tigers are all fairly close by as well - I just haven't been to any of those parks yet.

Not that the Sox needed to keep him around, but I found it interesting that in Carfado's column, it was mentioned that some personnel did not care for Kelly Shoppach's "clubhouse politics."

Extra bases has the pitching lineup for Thursday;


Northeastern: Joel Hanrahan, Daniel Bard, Andrew Miller, Alex Wilson, Clayton Mortensen, Pedro Beato, Anthony Carter.

BC: Koji Uehara, Andrew Bailey, Oscar Villareal, Terry Doyle, Jose De La Torre, Junichi Tazawa, TBA.

Ah, NRI season. I'll have to learn who four of those guys are sometime later.

I have to say my biggest disappointment so far is the stories about Felix Doubront being out of shape. I'm a big believer in his but this is the second time in three years.

One thing I remember from last year but didn’t notice in my piece was that Bard was consistently last in his group when they did their outfield running.

I've always thought that if I ran a HS program, my off-season program would consist of us constantly playing pick-up basketball when an emphasis on *not* rebounding at 100% to prevent rolling ankles. The end-goal being good enough to scrimmage the JV basketball team.

Same thing if i ran a soccer program.

I have to say my biggest disappointment so far is the stories about Felix Doubront being out of shape. I'm a big believer in his but this is the second time in three years.

Yup. Really maddening. I wish he had options so the Sox could dump him off to AAA for a little while. Aceves or Morales can handle the load, and Doubront needs to learn to take his job seriously.

I'll also note here the Cringe. Every time news like Doubront out of shape or Napoli delaying full baseball activities comes across the wire, I see evidence that whatever ###### up this club over the last three seasons, and especially the last one, hasn't been exorcised. What if Doubront is still responding to a problematic culture among the players or incompetence among the training staff? What if Napoli is badly hurt and the club screwed up another free agent signing / physical? These are of course all entirely possible, but every spring, every team has a guy show up out of shape and another guy come in with an injury to work through. These aren't weird. Even so, I can't help but cringe.

(This has been a problem with the CFBPS. It weeps softly every time I cringe.)

I don't understand what the hell they've been doing with Napoli. Okay, fine, they found the AVN when they did MRIs on him, but he's been asymptomatic, has continued to be asymptomatic, and he's on meds to treat it. Why the hell are they handling him with kid gloves? Sure, the hip could give out tomorrow or it could give out when he's 60, but going slow on these activities isn't likely to change that either way.

So Dustin Pedroia may or may not have a Twitter ID. While I have no doubt that a Pedroia twitter feed would be fun I also think there is a spectacular chance that Pedroia will say something incredibly stupid at some point during the season.

Red Sox get Mike Carp from Mariners for a PTBNL.

Decent move. 1B and OF backup, 27 yo, depth where needed. Might have his best years now, basically.

Carp's ZiPS projection is 304/394. Move him to Fenway, it jumps up to about 325/420. CAIRO likes him a lot more, Carp's Fenway-converted CAIRO projection is 340/440. That's cromulent semi-platoon partner for Gomes who can also play 1B.

The question is, can he play right field? The Sox need their 4th OF to be able to cover right field competently in case of injury to either Ellsbury or Victorino. Otherwise you're looking at Pedro Ciriaco out there. My impression of Carp is that he's not a right fielder, but he's more of a right fielder than Jonny Gomes, who's just a DH.

It doesn't look like he can play RF. Hope I'm wrong, but he's described as a guy who can kinda fake it, maybe a bit better
than that in LF.

I have a lamp on my desk that's more of a RF'er than Gomes.

I imagine that if Carp makes the team, then they probably carry a guy like Sweeney as a 5th OF for a defensive backup for all 3 positions (potentially with Victorino moving to CF and Sweeney in RF when Ellsbury needs a sub). Even if they do carry Sweeney on the 25 man, I'd imagine Ciriaco will see some time in the OF this spring though.

Well we've still got Nava.

C - Salty, Ross
IF - Napoli, Pedroia, Drew, Middlebrooks, Ciriaco
OF - Carp, Gomes, Ellsbury, Victorino, Nava
DH - Ortiz

That still leaves room for a 12 man staff (wheee!) or an 11 man staff with Gomez or someone of that nature kicking around.

Nava still has an option, right? Since Carp is out of options, Nava probably starts the season in Pawtucket if they want to give Carp a shot. That also makes sense if they want to have Nava gain some experience at first base.

I imagine that if Carp makes the team, then they probably carry a guy like Sweeney as a 5th OF for a defensive backup for all 3 positions (potentially with Victorino moving to CF and Sweeney in RF when Ellsbury needs a sub). Even if they do carry Sweeney on the 25 man, I'd imagine Ciriaco will see some time in the OF this spring though.

I can't count. Yup, 25th man Sweeney looks about exactly right.

Carp vs. Nava is your big spring training battle for a roster slot. Carp vs. Nava vs. Sweeney is your battle for a semi-regular lineup slot. With Matt Hamilton as the dark horse in both.

It seems like the Red Sox needed a ride from NY to LA and have had offers of a ride to Cleveland, a ride to Columbus, and a ride to Toledo. They have a bunch of sorta interesting, kinda might be decent players. It's just kind of, not incredibly thrilling.

I take the point, but I don't think a ride to LA was ever in the cards. It's a long way there. You can't just add 20-25 wins in one offseason. So I've been ok with the trip to Ohio for a while.

The critique I've seen voiced is that it's not clear the Sox have a plan for getting from Toledo to LA, and that's fair. But all I'm realistically rooting for from this season is that we make it a day or so into the central time zone and we see some evidence that the next ride is forthcoming (say returns to form of Lester or Ellsbury, big seasons on the farm by Bradley or DLR).

As long as they don't drive the car straight into the Harbor again I'll be fine.

For those who need some sunshine and baseball in their lives this weekend the Sox are on NESN at 1:30 tomorrow. If the Sox lose I think that will probably be a bigger loss than the 2003 ALCS.

If the Sox lose I think that will probably be a bigger loss than the 2003 ALCS.

I just want to ask that we please make this a thing this season. Reading that entire thread just now was absolutely delightful.

@29--I agree on all counts. I was only trying to point out that the parade of Carps, Hamiltons, and the like is, although probably the right thing to do, not easy to get excited about.

Whoa, Lackey looks like he's lost a full Pedroia.