I really dig this roster, by the way. I’m not exactly sure what the cause is, but I’m much more excited about the group of players I’ll be rooting for in 2010 than I was going into last year.

Completely agree. As for the cause: I like pitching and defense teams, so that's perhaps the biggest part of it; I prefer balanced teams; I don't miss The Most Boring Player Ever, who signed elsewhere; I didn't love rooting for The Whitest Team Ever (non-Orange County division).

Bullpen scares me.

Is Matsuzaka starting the season on the DL?

@2: Why' Other than the 6/7th sopts, who'll be only getting low leverage innings anyeay, it looks extremely solid to me...

I think the top 3 in the bullpen are really, really strong. Basically, this looks like another solid squad -- really only Pedroia, Youkilis, and Lester (and maybe Beckett) have the potential to be big stars, but it's very likely that it won't have any big holes, either. The chance that Ortiz or Beltre or Scutaro bite the big one is offset by the probability that Pedroia & Lester get better results than last season.

Anyway, it's baseball season!

*skips around the room*

Just to play devil's advocate, I think this team will be more frustrating than we think. Cameron and Beltre should be fun to watch in the field, but Cameron is old, strikes out a ton and seems to go through terrible slumps, while Beltre just makes more outs than I've come to expect from a Red Sox. I get the sense I'll be cursing them as Cameron strikes out looking with the bases loaded and Beltre hits into yet another double play. Ellbury's bat just isn't very good for a LF, and even with 551 PAs at the top of the order last year, he somehow only scored 75 runs from there.

I think the AL East is really tough to call, in terms of the first three. Looking at the rosters, I could see BOS, NYY and TB all around 90-95 Ws.

I like the Red Sox personnel, but I do think they are going to miss Bay's bat. I know that is an MSM meme--"Red Sox will struggle offensively." But Bay hit well last year.

I think there's a pretty good possibility that they'll find themselves in the market for a bat to replace Ortiz come summertime.

If Matsuzaka comes back, would you push Wake to the pen? Do the Red Sox shove wake to the pen?

I want Wake back in the pen to be a long man to increase the chance that the Red Sox use six relievers and get another bench player. But it seems as if the team thinks Wake is the fourth best starter and the last slot is between Buchholz and Daisuke, which I think is a bad long run decision.

What's the batting order?

1. Ells
2. Pedroia
3. Youk
4. Victor
5. Drew
6. Ortiz
7. Beltre
8. Cameron
9. Scutaro

Works for me.

while Beltre just makes more outs than I've come to expect from a Red Sox

His home parks have destroyed his BA (34 pts lower at home than on the road), and therefore his OBP, his entire career. His career road OBP is .338, which is nothing to get excited about but is basically exactly what we got from Lowell in 3 of his 4 years (the aberrant 2007 excepted).

Wouldn't surprise me if he managed a .350 OBP.

FPH - that lineup goes L-R-R-S-L-L-R-R-R. Seems like giving up unnecessary tactical value.

I would guess

Ellsbury
Pedroia
Martinez
Youkilis
Ortiz
Cameron
Drew
Beltre
Scutaro

Ortiz/Drew or Cameron/Beltre could mix and match the 5/7 and 6/8 slots. L-R-S-R-L-R-L-R-R

Completely agree. As for the cause: I like pitching and defense teams, so that's perhaps the biggest part of it; I prefer balanced teams; I don't miss The Most Boring Player Ever, who signed elsewhere; I didn't love rooting for The Whitest Team Ever (non-Orange County division).

I am assming Bay is MBPE but I don't get the second reference? What team is supposed to be the Whitest ever?

His home parks have destroyed his BA (34 pts lower at home than on the road), and therefore his OBP, his entire career. His career road OBP is .338, which is nothing to get excited about but is basically exactly what we got from Lowell in 3 of his 4 years (the aberrant 2007 excepted).

Sure, but even taking that into account, CHONE projects Beltre to a .318 OBP, while ZiPS has him at .325. I would be (very pleasantly) surprised if he got to even a .340 OBP. I'm not saying he's not a good player, but that just isn't a very good OBP. CHONE doesn't love Cameron's bat, either. They're going to make more outs than Bay and Lowell. That's not a huge problem since they're better fielders, but it's going to be different.

I am assming Bay is MBPE but I don't get the second reference? What team is supposed to be the Whitest ever?

The Angels of the early '00s always seemed awfully white to me -- though maybe Boston surpassed them last year. Part of it was the contrast in '02 with San Francisco: the Bonds and Baker-led Giants against the Scoscia/Erstad et al Angels.

It's impossible for any team to be whiter than the White Jays.

@Russian last year's team was incredibly white. Ellsbury is half native-American, Lugo was half a player, David Ortiz was half of himself, and Victor Martinez played half a season. That means there was a total of two hitters on the Red Sox who were non-white. This year the Red Sox are non-white at 3rd, center, half of DH again, half of left field, SS, and C. A big improvement in the non-white category!

I have to say I am incredibly pessimistic on Ortiz given his spring, but he's obviously a very streaky player these days. Other than that, I'm not nervous at all about this team, and I'm quite excited. I think I said this in one of the "OMG the Red Sox are going all pitching and defense!" threads, but there are competing considerations in the frustration versus enjoyability of moving in that direction.

Frustrating: the lineup is going to have more crappy days, and when the Red Sox get behind big early, there is going to be much less optimism than when the team could just mash and pull itself out of those holes. There will be those days in the summer where we're clamoring for somebody who can carry them with their bat. Also, there will likely be more agonizing time spent with the bullpen, as low scoring games will mean more 3-1 and 4-3 victories. Teeth gnashing here we come!

Exciting: They won't get in those big holes as often! The rotation looks strong for at least four pitchers. So they may get down, but hopefully it will just be a run or two. More close games which are exciting. There will be fewer dribblers creating hits, which I remember killed Lester earlier in the year last year, and hurt my soul. Games will go faster. No more Varitek and SS creating two absolute sinkholes in the lineup like last year.

@2: Why' Other than the 6/7th sopts, who'll be only getting low leverage innings anyeay, it looks extremely solid to me...

Add me to the short list of people concerned about the bullpen. I think there is a little too much confidence in Bard. His 2009 season was good in the aggregate but he had a stretch of dominance in July or so and other than that he really was not very good. He looked to me like a guy with great stuff but wasn't quite sure how to use it. I like him long term but I think there is a real chance he will regress for 2010.

Take him out of the mix and you've got Papelbon, Okajima and Ramirez as guys who can be counted on. That's a pretty darned good start obviously but given that the bar for this team is playoffs or bust, I find it less certain than I would like.

Also Daniel Bard for the full season is exciting, as is the speculation that he has and will use a change up. I'm hoping Papelbon is real Papelbon and not "ok I'm going to dick around a lot Papelbon" for the first half of the season.

@Jose I think you're discounting Bard a bit too much: 63 Ks, 22 BBs, 5 HRs in 49 major league innings, not to mention the 29 Ks and 5 BBs in 16 minor league innings. He was an absolute beast against right-handed batters last year striking out 35 of the 115 righties he faced. His struggles came against lefties, giving up four homers in 97 PAs and an OPS of 866 (he still struck out a bunch of batters).

To the extent that he can be used more strategically against right-handed batters, he will continue to be great. To the extent that he can use his change up (read about it here) against lefties he'll be better against them. (And yes, I'm aware that this is the time of irrational exuberance with respect to pitchers and their stuff). Chone has Bard penciled in at a 3.48 ERA, which is his median projection on Fangraphs, and I don't see any reason to think that's off, if somewhat pessimistic because he throws so damn hard.

My bold prediction is that Lowell is going to get more PAs in Boston than is Ortiz in 2010.

I'd give you a reasonable bet that Ortiz PAs with the Red Sox is <250 but I don't think Lowell will get the majority of the replacement PAs. My guess is the Sox would give Reddick a shot until they can make a trade (unless they find that Reddick can do it).

Wouldn't Reddick be a historically young full-time DH?

Who else on this roster could fill that role, should Ortiz be unavailable? Most of them have significant defensive value that they'd be leaving on the table.

Maybe Martinez, but that would have the effect of putting Varitek in the order as well.

FPH - that lineup goes L-R-R-S-L-L-R-R-R. Seems like giving up unnecessary tactical value.

I would guess

Ellsbury
Pedroia
Martinez
Youkilis
Ortiz
Cameron
Drew
Beltre
Scutaro

Blegh! Batting Drew 7th seems like a terrible waste to me. Both Pedroia and Youk have virtually no platoon split over their careers, I would not worry about them. Why not just drop Ortiz to 7 or 8, seems like a much better solution.

I've said it before and I will say it again -- 82-84 wins. Baltimore may edge them into fourth place. Drew's the best hitter in that lineup, and that's not going to get it done against the Yankees and Rays. They look likely to give Dice-K Wakefield's place in the rotation too, and mess him around like Williams/Kerrigan did in '99-01. That will weaken both the rotation and (through overuse) the bullpen.

as is the speculation that he has and will use a change up

That old spring training folktale?

Yes, every player is in the best shape of his life and every relief pitcher is working on a new changeup.

But it seems as if the team thinks Wake is the fourth best starter and the last slot is between Buchholz and Daisuke, which I think is a bad long run decision.

Assuming Matsuzaka spends the first month or so of the season either unable to pitch or unable to pitch effectively, my guess is that Buchholz won't need any longer than that to change the framing of that question. He'll be firmly entrenched in the rotation by the time the Sox have to make the choice for 5th man.

@Karl you should put your money where your mouth is on that one given that Vegas certainly thinks they'll win a bunch more than that.

@WJ I'm appropriately skeptical of those sorts of articles, but I also remember him flashing a pretty damn good change up to get Mauer out last year in a high leverage at bat.

Wouldn't Reddick be a historically young full-time DH?

Who else on this roster could fill that role, should Ortiz be unavailable? Most of them have significant defensive value that they'd be leaving on the table.

Maybe Martinez, but that would have the effect of putting Varitek in the order as well.

That's the issue, there really isn't another in house option though I suppose Lars Anderson could turn things around. I could also see a scenario where Reddick takes Ortiz' place in the lineup but plays one of the corner outfield spots with Drew or Ellsbury moving to DH (though I doubt they'd move Ellsbury).

Just for what it's worth according to BBRef there have been 21 players 25 and younger with at least 100 games played and half at DH.

Who cares what race the players on the team are? (As long as they're not intentionally doing racist things, which they clearly weren't.) This is one of those things people talk about and I just don't understand why.

Do you think karl will say anything about his preseason prediction when the Red Sox win 90-95 games again?

If Papi isn't hitting I would guess that Hermida would get extra PAs as a DH against RHP before they'd call Reddick up.

Geez, I keep forgetting about Hermida. That's a good point OCD.

I'm hearing the lineup will be:

1 LF Jacoby Ellsbury
2 2B Dustin Pedroia
3 C Victor Martinez
4 1B Kevin Youkilis
5 DH David Ortiz
6 RF JD Drew
7 3B Adrian Beltre
8 CF Mike Cameron
9 SS Marco Scutaro

I don't get why you'd bat two lefties back-to-back. That's gonna cause a bit of hair-tearing - I think more than if you bat an 850 OPS in the seventh slot.

Lineups don't really matter much, though.

Ortiz ahead of Drew is ludicrous. He hasn't been a better hitter in a while. They really like to keep Drew down in the lineup for some reason, though.

I'd go with MC's lineup with the Ortiz/Drew switch he mentioned.

Who cares what race the players on the team are?

I don't care a lot, but it does affect my relationship to the team. Major League Baseball players come from fairly diverse backgrounds (in many senses); I would guess that even last year's Sox team had a more diverse workplace than many of us enjoy, at least when you consider national origin, socioeconomic background, etc. This is one of the fun things about professional baseball teams, in my opinion -- it's not terribly high on the list, but it's somewhere on there, for me.

Also, teams do come to represent in some small way the cities they play for. I liked how, in the late '90s and early '00s, an increasingly diverse Boston (briefly a majority minority city) rallied around a team of Pedro, Nomar, Troy O'Leary, Brian Daubach et al (i.e., white guys, black guys, Mexican Americans, Dominicans, and so on). It's less exciting to me when Boston rallies around Pedroia, Beckett, Youkilis, Bay, Lester, etc.

Of course, it also matters -- more, I think --- that, apart from trash-talking Pedroia, I don't really love the personalities of any of those guys.

I don't get why you'd bat two lefties back-to-back. That's gonna cause a bit of hair-tearing - I think more than if you bat an 850 OPS in the seventh slot.

Cue Admiral Ackbar! Someone brings in a LHP reliever, and Francona PHs Hermida for Ortiz.

EDIT: Or that Lowell kid.

Hermida's a lefty. Lowell or Hall, ok.

But I really don't see Francona pinch-hitting for Ortiz. Certainly not if he's a solid 850ish OPS contributor. Francona has pretty much no history of such pinch-hitting moves, and the Tango/MGL finding that pinch-hitters suck at hitting probably backs up his tendency to some degree.

Given Francona's loyalty / belief in sabermetric findings about pinch-hitting, I think it makes sense to avoid lineups that allow other managers to get a small drop on him.

These things are minor, but I think they'll become major in the minds of fans (such as me) if Drew/Ortiz keep batting back to back. Drew and Ortiz are really the worst sorts of lefties to bat back-to-back. At least when the Charlie Manuel bats Utley and Howard 3-4, he's got two hitters who are among the very best in baseball and still quite good against lefties. Guys like Ortiz and Drew, good contributors but not All-Stars, turn into quite weak hitters against solid lefty relievers.

Drew has actually become pretty good against lefties. .926 OPS in '08, .863 last year. It's still not a good idea to have them back to back but he's hit lefties pretty well.

Drew and Ortiz, projections (CHONE/ZiPS/PECOTA:

381/459, 372/441, 373/453 - Drew
366/507, 355/479, 368/479 - Ortiz

The differences are negligible, certainly in terms of batting order construction.

I would say that Ortiz comes with considerably more risk to crap the bed, performance-wise, than Drew. Drew's more likely to get hurt and miss half the season, Ortiz is more likely to OPS at 750 instead of 850 and not be much of a contributor.

That's a fair point, but I don't think it constitutes a large enough difference between Drew and Ortiz that we should care much about one of them batting 5th and the other 7th. (or 6th).

That's a fair point, but I don't think it constitutes a large enough difference between Drew and Ortiz that we should care much about one of them batting 5th and the other 7th. (or 6th).

Right, what's the difference going to be, a run or two maybe?

Drew's the best hitter in that lineup

How is JD Drew better than Kevin Youkilis?

Right, what's the difference going to be, a run or two maybe?

And as someone has said, the organization seems to really like batting Drew lower in the order. Obviously this is just Kremlinology (Theology?) but perhaps they think it does Drew well to be hitting 6th/7th rather than 4th/5th.

Drew seems to get a horrible projection no matter how well he hits every year. I'd suspect the injuries have knocked him down more than they should have.

I don't think it constitutes a large enough difference between Drew and Ortiz that we should care much about one of them batting 5th and the other 7th. (or 6th).

Me neither, really.

At least when the Charlie Manuel bats Utley and Howard 3-4, he's got two hitters who are among the very best in baseball and still quite good against lefties.

Utley is good against lefties. Howard has an awful platoon split.

That's the issue, there really isn't another in house option though I suppose Lars Anderson could turn things around. I could also see a scenario where Reddick takes Ortiz' place in the lineup but plays one of the corner outfield spots with Drew or Ellsbury moving to DH (though I doubt they'd move Ellsbury).

I think Hermida sees a lot of DH time if Ortiz goes down and Lowell isn't healthy enough to fill in. Either that, or they make a trade. Reddick is 23. There have been a few younger full-time DHs, I think, but I suspect that, like would be the case with Reddick in this hypothetical situation, most were filling short-term team needs, rather than DHing because they couldn't play any defense. Eddie Murray was a full-time DH at age 21, and Frank Thomas at 23. That's it, using a 100 game cutoff. Using a cutoff of 65 games at DH Billy Butler has two seasons that get added, plus John Olerud in 1990, Ocasr Gamble in 1973, and Fred McGriff in 1987. It is, I suppose, then, unprecedented for such a young player as Reddick, who is capable of playing a passable centerfield, to DH a lot.

I suppose that depends on one's defintion of "passable". Billy Butler would be the most entertaining centerfielder of all time.

I suppose that depends on one's defintion of "passable". Billy Butler would be the most entertaining centerfielder of all time.

Yeah, maybe. Gamble actually played a decent amount in centerfield over his career - something like 80 games - with among the worst BBRef defensive stats I've ever seen. I'm actually really surprised there weren't more career DHs. I guess with most of those guys, they leave them in the minors another year or two and hope they learn to play first base or left field at a passable level.

Another point I think is interesting: only three players have had careers of at least 100 games playing at least 70% of them at DH: Sam Horn, Travis Hafner and David Ortiz.

Watching Orioles and Red Sox right now. Hopefully Youkilis will hit better today. He couldn't hit the changeup yesterday 84-85 timing was off. My fried, Jeremy Guthrie who I have done pitching camps with, is pitching against sox today ; will be second pitcher. Still going for the RedSox though.

And as someone has said, the organization seems to really like batting Drew lower in the order. Obviously this is just Kremlinology (Theology?) but perhaps they think it does Drew well to be hitting 6th/7th rather than 4th/5th

JD drives in runs at a lower rate than the average player with the same opportunities. So batting him 4th or 5th makes no sense, and batting 6th he can set the tables for Cameron, Beltre and Scutaro. Ideally I would have JD hit 2nd to take advantage of his high OBP, but Pedroia has that spot locked up. Of course, if Papi gets off to another slow start JD may get his 5th spot back.

JD had a great last 6 weeks of the season, but around mid August he was hitting 244 with an 809 OPS and 43 RBI. He is very streaky and only starts 125 games per year (starts, not games played), but on a rate basis he is a good player. Just don't believe the hype, as 35 games are started in RF by backup RF'ers because Drew needs his rest.

His UZR has been high the past 2 years because Jacoby lets him take balls a more experienced CF'er will take, also because Jacoby had to shade to LF to cover for Bay/Manny and Fenway has no foul territory to speak of in RF so Drew can shade CF. As such, his WAR gets inflated since it is based on 1 yr of UZR only. Will be interesting to see how a guy like Cameron in CF (wuth jacoby in LF) affects JD's UZR.

Cameron should have some pop in Fenway, Beltre too if he is healthy. However, Beltre only has 1 XBH in ST, and you can't blame Safeco. Makes you wonder if his shoulder is full recovered. He has played some decent D based on reports in ST, but you expect some offense from 3B, if not OBP then SLG.

MLB just quoted Heyman announcing Beckett is signed for 4 years.

I know it's just one game, but after last night's stinker, my first thought that could be a very long four years.

Irrational, of course.

The Josh Beckett roller coaster ride, sometimes thrilling, sometimes terrifying, rarely boring.

Any $ figure yet?

2x post

Yahoo says $68 mil

Sox have a press conference scheduled

4/68 according to the Boston Globe.

Coke to Tora cubed. Still moving a little slow after getting in at 2AM.