Seriously -- Let's Get It On

Forget about last night's game. Today marks Opening Day of the 2007 baseball season. The Sox open up at Kansas City for a game I almost tried to attend but for some logistical difficulties (like getting there and stuff). I will nonetheless be tuned to my television today at 3:00 Central time for the debut of the 2007 Boston Red Sox.

Although I've been remarkably reticent about the upcoming season, I am as excited and optimistic for this year as for any since 2004 when my particular form of madness reached its apex. It's not just the new additions -- Daisuke Matsuzaka, of course, but also JD Drew and Julio Lugo -- who inspire such grand hopes, but also the fact that Boston enters the season healthy, that Schilling is pitching for a contract, and that once again the Mannny Ramirez situation seems stable and so the Manny-Papi 1-2 punch remains intact to terrorize the league, with Drew looking as a potentially devastating number five for pitching staffs across the league.

For me there are also some hidden keys. With all of the talk about Dice-K and the predictable sound and fury that comes from Schilling people are forgetting Josh Beckett, who had a tough adjustment to the American League in 2006. And yet if Beckett improves on last year, if he can return to his status as a number one-type starter, the Sox will have the best front-end rotation not only in the league, but arguably in recent history.

The recent move of last year's revelation, Jonathan Papelbon, back to the bullpen has marked one of the high points of the spring for most fans. Let me inject a note of contrarianism to the proceedings, however. The reason they shifted Paps back to the rotation was because after last year's shoulder subluxation the team's medical staff believed that it would be better for Papelbon's arm to have the regular routine of the starting rotation. What, other than the absence of a closer, has changed to make the medical realities shift? Naturally Red Sox Nation is trying to make a virtue of necessity, but the fact remains: There is no sound medical argument that contradicts what we heard after last season's ignominious end.

But furthermore: Starters are simply more valuable than closers. Top-of-the-rotation starters are much more important than closers. They work more innings, they work more high leverage innings, and they have a greater impact on the game. Closers can, in fact, be overrated. Now do not get me wrong -- teams want closers. But despite the high-profile nature of blown saves, most guys, even the most marginal, will convert most save opportunities. Plus, Papelbon's greatest strengths as a closer was that he reinvigorated a pre-Dennis Eckersley approach to shutting the door. In the late 1980s Tony LaRussa established a set role for Eckersley -- one-inning saves, with Eckersley coming in to close the game at the beginning of the 9th if at all possible. That approach revolutionized the role of the relief pitcher (and established the roles of set-up men in the process). And yet prior to Eckersley, great closers, guys like Goose Gossage and Bruce Sutter, would routinely work more than one inning. Francona used Papelbon in an old-school way, and it worked. In their efforts to protect Pepelbon's arm, will the Sox no longer use him in the 8th if needed? Will they fear using him three days in a row if they have three close games in a row? And if so, doesn't that further reduce his effectiveness on top of the reduction that will come from going from starter to closer?

Papelbon's situation is the one that most concerns me entering this season. There are other questions, of course -- how will Jonathan Lester do in his return to being a starting pitcher after his apparently successful battle with cancer? Does Craig Hansen have the capacity to fulfill the promise we all believed he had (to be the closer, in fact) when he joined the Sox out of college? Can Drew stay healthy? Is Dustin Pedroia a legitimate Major League starter? Has Jason Varitek entered his period of decline, especially with the bat in his hands? Can Manny keep his Manny moments in the realm of the whimsical (stepping inside the Monster because he needs a pee) rather than the deleterious (taking crucial games off that happen to coincide with periods when he is feeling churlish about something or other)?

But every team has question marks entering a new season. My prevailing mood still is one of overwhelming optimism. This is going to be a very good Red Sox team. They can win the World Series. As a matter of fact, I am going to say that they will. (Given that I have predicted as much every year since I was old enough to predict such things, this should come as no surprise. Here is my take:

American League: Sox win the East, Detroit takes the Central, Oakland takes the West, and the Yankees edge out the Indians and Angels for the Wild Card. The Sox beat Oakland and the Tigers beat the Yankees in the divisional round, and the Sox take down the Tigers in the ALCS.

National League: The Mets take the East, the Cubs take the Central (I know -- I'm drinking the Cubbies/Lou Piniella Kool-Aid, but the Central is not that good and I think it will come down to the Brewers, Cardinals and the Cubbies) and the Dodgers the West. The Phillies and Braves will be in the hunt all year and one of them -- I say the Phillies -- will take the Wild Card. The Dodgers will take down the Phils, the Mets will beat the Cubs and then the Mets will beat the Dodgers to hoist the National League crown.

Sox take down the Mets in six games in the World Series. We have to see a nauseating number of shots of Bill Buckner but a glorious number of features on the 2004 ALCS.

In the meantime, Schilling gets the Royals today on ESPN. Play Ball!