Play Ball!

With the Red Sox season starting in less than a month, I thought it was a good time to recap their offseason, and preview the up coming season.

This Winter the Sox had their hands full with a busy offseason, I like the choices they made. The signing of John Lackey really gets me excited, because he was the number one starting pitcher on the Angles. Stick him into this rotation, and he is the number three pitcher behind Lester, and Beckett. As long as everybody is healthy they will have the best starting pitching in the league. I agree with the other notable signings of Beltre, Scutaro, and Cameron, they are not over paying them, and they all have short contracts. I can live with the choices the organization made this offseason.

Coming into the year there are still some questions about the team. The big questions is, are they going to be able to score enough runs. I think everybody is thinking, that just because the Sox didn't sign Jason Bay, there offense is going to be awful. But actually the offense didn't downgrade to much, you have to look at the other moves they made. Marc Scutaro will be an upgrade at the plate this year, if you look at the numbers he put up last year, and the average numbers the shortstops who played for the Red Sox last year had hitting. He will be a big upgrade if he Scutaro puts up the same numbers. Also, there will be a full season of Victor Martinez hitting third in the lineup.

If the trade deadline hits and hitting is a big problem for the Sox, then you will see Theo making a trade for a big bat. He has the pieces to get Adrian Gonzalez (who every fan is screaming at Theo to get), or a name that could come up is Prince Fielder. For now Theo is going to wait and see how the team hits in the first half of the year. He will then make up his mind on weather or not he needs to go out and get that big bat.

Another thing that could be a problem, that people are downplaying, is the bullpen. Last year Wagner and Saito were two big parts to the bullpen down the stretch, and they both ended up going to different teams. That could end up hurting the Sox, this year. I do still think the Bullpen is going to be fine with Bard setting up Papelbon, its just something to keep your eye on.

I believe the Red Sox will make the playoffs as a wild card team, and I have the Yankees winning the division (It really kills me to say that), but if the pitching staff is fully healthy in the playoffs, the Sox can easily emerge as the best team in baseball.