This was the best hope among Red Sox fans regarding the team’s fortunes in 2013: that 2012 would be an outlier for the starting rotation; that the return of John Farrell would mean the return of performance from Lester and Buchholz to their former peak; and that any projections that included any influence of 2012 would be assessing the rotation too negatively. While it’s less than one month, it’s fun to see that hope be fulfilled to date.

My, how times have changed. The last two non-sellout games at Fenway were in May 2003, featuring an opponent managed by Buck Showalter.

From the Boston Herald, so it’s just making the case that it’s easy for Red Sox fans to root for this version of the team. Last year… not so much.

On WEEI this morning they noted how everyone in the dugout was giving Middlebrooks high-fives after his flyout yesterday. I think it’s a foregone conclusion that nobody was happy he made an out. And it’s a lot easier to maintain a positive attitude when ahead by double digits, and in first place. But it’s still a positive sign that they’re a ...

The Red Sox have started out 2-1 this year, on the road, against the Yankees. Height of optimism, right? Yes, let’s bask in the glow, and live in the moment.

Or, if your thoughts are already focused on the future, the good folks at soxprospects.com have compiled projected rosters for 2014 at every level in the Red Sox system, from the majors all the way down to the Dominican Summer League. (Tangent: They’ve listed for the DSL an outfielder who might get nannied.)

At the MLB level, ...

This is an explanation of the disappearing content from Sox Therapy and an announcement of a new blog, Replacement Level Red Sox (www.replacementlevelredsox.com). Darren, Jose, Matt(bert) and I have decided to start a blog, and we are moving our blogging over there. It’s been great writing here at Sox Therapy, thanks to Jim for giving up the platform and the opportunity, thanks to y’all for making this community a fun place to write. We just felt that we’d like to take a shot at blogging at a ...

Lots of Sox Therapy posts lately but I’ll add another one since with Opening Day just two weeks away I think it’s time we had an Opening Day Roster thread.  Things are starting to fall into shape with injuries and performances clearing up some open questions.  David Ortiz’ injury is the one that’s going to get the headlines but with yesterday’s Boston.com story about Stephen Drew I think we have to acknowledge that our Opening Day shortstop is going to be someone other than Drew.

I really don’t want to think about a Boston Red Sox season where our lineup isn’t anchored by Big Papi.  I am currently not going to, because I think the best interpretation of what we know if that this isn’t the biggest problem ever.  The current shut down, as reported, is not either a major new injury or a failed recovery of the same major injury – it looks like an injury cascade where the Achilles pain led Ortiz to change his stride, which then in turn led to heel problem.  This ...

I hope everyone in Massachusetts enjoyed the foot of snow last week.  If it makes you feel better it was a bit windy today when I stepped out of the pool and I caught a bit of a chill.  Brrrrr.

I have been able to brave the elements and get to a few Spring Training games so far and as always it is a ton of fun.  The week started on a bit of a maudlin note as I walked through the retired numbers section in front of JetBlue Park and passed Johnny Pesky’s number 6.  John hasn’t been an active ...

The largest change in baseball strategy over the last decade has been the radically increased use of the shift defense in the past two years.  This was pointed out in a Bill James Online article by John Dewan early in 2012.  Farrell’s Blue Jays were among the earliest adopters of the shift, reportedly due to the influence of 3rd base coach Brian Butterfield.  Butterfield has moved to Boston with Farrell, and we can expect the shift to make the trek east as well.  He may be actually taking it ...

The Red Sox are on NESN and MLBtv.  Right now!

Want to talk about the ballgame?

Everyone on the internet hates Shane Victorino.  Shane Victorino has a strong statistical profile based on basic stathead number crunching.  This is a conundrum to me.  Let’s take point one as given. For point two, consider VORP.  There is no more perfect stathead stat than VORP.  It reduces all baseball events to simple run value.  It loves OBP and slugging, it doesn’t care about clutch, it only values high-percentage base stealing.  It doesn’t try to quantify defense, but includes a ...

The big Francona/Shaughnessy tell-some book on Tito’s tenure in Boston will be available for purchase in a week, so its juiciest sections are getting the usual pre-publication flogging on sports media.  It looks like Sports Illustrated will be publishing longer excerpts soon, but a few bits have been made available already.  (The best run-down is probably in Gordon Edes’ piece on ESPN Boston.)  My reaction is mostly that if this is the worst that Shaughnessy could coax from Tito, then Tito is ...

Not So Nasty Nate made a comment the other day about the Sox’ lack of depth on the corners that resonated with me.  I got to thinking about some players who are a bit off the radar and might contribute in 2013.  I’m pretty geared up for my Spring Training trip (52 days!) so count this as a little list of non-big name guys I’m hoping to check out somewhat closely while I’m there (thus ending their careers in the process).  Plus, a thread that isn’t all-Hall of Fame all the time seems useful;

Feel free to read “this” either uninflected as if followed by a colon, or in italics with a full sneer.

The Sox have pretty much completed their 25-man roster.  There’s a small chance they’ll trade Ellsbury, and there’s a good chance they’ll trade a catcher and a reliever (or relievers) to clear up some logjams.  They might add a 1B/LF type for the last spot on the bench and let Jerry Sands have another year in AAA, and they could add a platoon LF in place of Nava or Kalish.  With ...

I figure most of y’all saw that SG did his first run of team projections based on CAIRO and showed a four-team dead heat in the AL East.  The Sox at 84 wins trailed ever so slightly the Yankees at 85 and the Rays and Jays at 86.  While it’s of course too early, it seems pretty unlikely that anyone’s going to project to run away with the AL East.  The Yankees could still remember that they’re the New York Yankees, but they seem pretty locked in to this unnecessary two-year rebuild.  The ...

The most recent Sox free agent news on the twitters is that the Sox are the favorites to sign Shane Victorino.  Robothal reports they’ve offered 3/38, pretty much identical to the Napoli contract.  The 2012 free agent market featured a bunch of players who produce value at the plate, on the bases, and in the field, without being particularly elite in any aspect of the game.  Victorino remains unsigned, while Upton and Pagan signed for 5/75 and 4/40, both less than I was expecting. 

It’s been twitter-reported by Jim Bowden that the Sox are in on Mike Napoli but he wants a fourth guaranteed year before he’ll sign.  I assume Napoli is looking for a contract in the range of $10-15M per season.  I’m not so much sold on that fourth guaranteed year, as Napoli is a bad body hitter with old player skills.  But I’m going to get to the part where I contradict myself later.  I begin with the case for Mike Napoli.

First, he’s one heck of a hitter.  Napoli has hit ...