Friday, January 23, 2009

Baseball 'Round the Corner

On Valentine's Day pitchers and catchers can report for spring training. Thus the countdown can begin soon. Now is as good a time as ever to point out that the American League East race is going to be epic in 2009.

2 comments:

GoodLiberal said...

I don't know if we are a bat short with Ortiz and Lowell returning from injury, but our rotation should be better this year. If Bard can hit like he did in San Diego or we get someone like Salty, then we've also upgraded over the V-tek batting black hole. Yankees will be better, obviously, and Tampa should be no worse but we'll be there or thereabouts. I also wouldn't be surprised if we pick up Matt Holliday midseason if the As are out of it...

dcat said...

GoodLib --
Obviously we are hinging a lot on the health of Papi and Lowell, as well as on that of Drew, among others. Our offense really is not the problem -- second in runs scored in the AL last year, I do believe. Nonetheless, you'd like a little more margin for error.
The catching situation is still decidedly up in the air. I think bard/Kottaras/Brown could be fine, but it's looking more and more like we'll work out a one-year deal with Tek, which I'm fine with. I'd love to transition him to coaching if he has any interest in that.
I do think that the Sox are keeping at least some of their powder dry until mid-season when they expect to have some options. I also wonder if we are not thinking about some of the remaining free agent options, many of whom seriously overestimated the market. I just get the feeling that the Sox are not quite done putting some of the minor pieces together.
Pitchers and catchers report three weeks from today . . .

dcat