Now, the context in which I'm contemplating this is that I'm currently seeing Oswalt getting lit up in the NLDS but, odd context aside, I think Oswalt is exactly what the Red Sox need in 2012.  First of all, lest anyone complain, let me clarify that Oswalt is not technically a free agent, and we won't technically know if he is until after the World Series; the Phillies hold a $16 million option for him with a $2 million buyout- given, however, the great success of Vance Worley, the limited innings that Oswalt pitched this year, and the increasing cost of guys like Cole Hamels (who they're more likely to want to sign to a long-term deal) and Hunter Pence, it seems terribly unlikely to me that they will.  So lets proceed as if he will be a free agent.

He had also, earlier this year, when he hurt his back as a result of helping his family clean up after being hit by a hurricane, he had said he might retire after the season, but he has since recanted that.

Let me go through some quick bullet points on why the Red Sox should sign Oswalt:

1. He's quite good.  In 139 innings this year, he posted a 3.69/3.44/3.95 ERA/FIP/xFIP slash line.  This was a down year for him.

2. He's a free agent who will be signable on a 1-2 year deal, depending on how much longer he wants to pitch.

3. He's not CJ Wilson.  I have nothing against CJ, but I do have something against giving a long term contract to a lefty who has only started for a couple of years.

4. He's also not John Lackey.  This is in no way related to Oswalt, really, but everyone who is not John Lackey should be appreciated.  If, for example, I were asked to describe something positive about Bill Hall, it would be that he is not John Lackey.

5.  Personality-wise, he might be the opposite of John Lackey.  He quietly goes about his business, yet is liked by his teammates.  Like a sort of pitching J.D. Drew.  He won't be a vocal leader, but he'll be a leader by example, doing what he needs to do.

6. He pitches a lot of innings.  We need this.

Now, the possible knocks against him are his age (just turned 34) and the injury this year.  I don't personally view the injury as a huge deal, as it was suffered outside of baseball, and because he has been generally quite durable through his career.  This, combined with his age, present some warning signs, but if you're looking to sign a free agent for a short deal, you're not going to get an absolutely perfect player.  

As far as a deal, the most comparable one I can think of is the 2 year extension 36-year old Chris Carpenter signed with the Cardinals for $21 million.  Oswalt is a bit younger, but also has not pitched quite as many innings as Carpenter has the last few years, and I'm imagining a deal would be somewhere in that ballpark.

As we're all well aware, the Red Sox may not have a ton of payroll room available this year, but to get a good pitcher without committing a ton of years and dollars, Oswalt is probably the best option out there.  I think that, whether through insurance on Matsuzaka, trading, or just finding the room, Oswalt will provide better value to the Sox than most any other option on the free agent market in their greatest area of need for 2012.

So, sick of thinking about this season, I've been spending some time thinking about what flexibility the Sox are going to have going into next season, because I've seen some statements I believe are just incorrect.  So, let me go over some numbers.

A quick explanation of the numbers I came up with:

For players who signed deals last year, I included the signing bonus in their 2011 salaries as they were money paid to the player in 2011 (the players with these were Buchholz, Crawford, and Gonzalez).

Players who have not yet reached arbitration make between $414,000 and $550,000 or so, depending mostly on service time.  These guys will not be exactly the same guys last year, but will make about the same amount of money, so I boosted a few of them slightly, but they don't really have a significant impact on payroll.  For example, no one is going to release Reddick just because he'll make $450,000 or so next year rather than $417,500.  I don't know their formula, so I guessed.

Bedard I did not include an amount for.  This is because I don't know how much he made this year, or how much of that the Red Sox paid.  His base salary was $1 million, and he didn't pitch a whole ton, so I doubt there were a whole ton of incentives, but in any case, that's a little extra money that they paid in 2011.

Anyways, if we take just the players who cannot become free agents next year, the total payroll I get for 2012 is $48,850,000 less than 2011.  We'll call it $48.5 million because of the guesswork I had to do.  This is not yet including arbitration figures.

The guys we have eligible for arbitration are: Ellsbury, Miller, Albers, Saltalamacchia, Aceves, Aviles, Bard, McDonald, Lowrie, Hill, and Morales.

I think it's fair to say that McDonald (as essentially a replacement-level player) and Miller (as a player working from a $1.3 million salary) will both be non-tendered- though they may try to re-sign both on minor league deals.  Same with Hill, as he's still recovering from surgery.  The others probably get kept- with a possibility that one of Aviles or Lowrie is non-tendered, but not a significant one as they'll both be pretty cheap.

Of those guys- MLBTR has Ellsbury currently estimated at about $6.8 million- let's call it $7, maybe up to $9 million if he does get the MVP (unlikely).  Even $6.8 million would give him the largest second-year raise for a position player.

I'd guess if all are kept that Salty, Albers, Aceves, Aviles, Lowrie, and Morales can all be had for about another $6 million or so- none are exceptional players and all have pretty glaring weaknesses,  Salty and Aceves take the most in this group.

Bard, with his weak ending, and lack of saves, it's hard for me to imagine him getting more than around $1-1.5 million in arb 1. 

So, to me, it looks like in arbitration, we're looking at somewhere between $14-16.5 million- leaving us with $30-32.5 million with which to fill holes.

Major lineup holes at this point are Backup catcher, DH, Shortstop, Right field

Major pitching holes are the rotation and closer.

Lets assume that, given Scutaro's strong finish, they pick up his $6 million option (not doing so would cost an extra $1.5 million buyout anyways).  Let's assume that they re-sign Ortiz for a couple years at the same rate as he's making now (as I don't believe he's going to get a raise, a slight drop if anything).  Lavarnway is likely to take the backup catcher role for free.

This leaves about  $11.5-14 million dollars of wiggle room, based on this past year's budget.  After a second consecutive season of failing to make the playoffs, I think Henry will probably be essentially forced to up payroll this year.

Obviously, in a perfect world, to get a new right fielder and at least one extra starter (as well as some level of depth), you would want more than that available.  At the same time, they are not right against a wall.  That amount of money gives them some lexibility to either try to acquire a player or two through trade, or to sign some lower-level free agents- we probably don't have a CJ Wilson in our future, but given our recent success with major free agent signings, I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

There's always a possibility that I've missed something or miscalculated something, but I'm fairly confident in these numbers.  If anyone has any questions about how I reached the numbers I did (all are from one of the best websites on the internet, Cot's), feel free to ask.  If anything just seems wrong, feel free to mention it.

Let the rosterbation begin!

A quick news tidbit here: Outfielder Josh Reddick has been called up from Pawtucket, according to Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe.  Darnell McDonald, who has contributed very little so far this year has been put on the disabled list to make room for him on the 25-man roster.  

It was reported yesterday that J.D. Drew was going to miss a few days with a strained hamstring, and presumably they felt better about how Reddick is performing than running Cameron or McDonald out there for a few days.  It'll definitely be interesting to see if the patience he appears to have developed in AAA this year will hold over against major league pitching- and he's not getting off easy, being scheduled to face Max Scherzer today.

Personally, I'm pretty excited to see if his very impressive 2011 campaign will translate to the majors.  Should we all be starting to get used to seeing Reddick in Right Field at Fenway?  Considering Drew, Cameron, and McDonald have all been pretty disappointing so far this year, if Reddick can have some success at the major league level, he might be getting significant playing time faster than we thought.

Already, after wednesday night/thursday mornings 7.5-hour baseball marathon, we saw the addition of Rich Hill and Scott Atchison to the Boston pen.  After the game today, even more changes are being made to the pitching staff, to no one's surprise.

First and foremost, nobody would expect Daisuke Matsuzaka to be able to make his start friday night after needing to come in around 2 AM to pitch out of the bullpen.  Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe is reporting via twitter that taking his place will be Tim Wakefield, who was so successful in his spot start on tuesday.  Hopefully this time the team can get a win for Wake.  Rather than completely skipping Dice-K, he will be pushed back to start on sunday instead.  I'm not sure at this point how exactly the rotation will shape up around them.

Also via twitter, Cafardo mentioned that Aceves will be back joining the Boston bullpen tomorrow (he was scratched from his start today).  No word yet on who he will be replacing, but Atchison is probably the most likely candidate.

It is being reported by Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe that Hideki Okajima has been recalled by the Boston Red Sox in place of Felix Doubront, who has been sent down to Pawtucket.  Okajima, who has seen his major league numbers quickly dwindle to fairly unacceptable over the last few seasons, performed well in Pawtucket, where the batters had not seen his delivery before.

This is a move that I can kind of see the Sox perspective, but I don't like.  I can understand and even approve of Felix being sent down.  He has a lot of potential as a major league starter, and may well be needed as one if some of the major league starters performances keep going as they have been.  Considering that in the past he has actually had some struggles against left-handed batters, he never made a huge amount of sense to me as a lefty specialist.

What I don't necessarily love is the call-up of Okajima.  As mentioned earlier, his numbers have consistently dropped every year.  Meanwhile in Pawtucket, we have Rich Hill, who has looked impressive as a lefty specialist, striking out 11 and only walking 2, with no earned runs and only 5 hits in his 8 2/3 innings so far.  He looked equally impressive in major league spring training.  As Peter Abraham points out, this may well be because Okajima has options left, and so can be sent down again, whereas Hill does not, so if they bring him up, they can't send him down before being exposed to waivers.  I understand this logic, but at the same time, this team is at a point where they really cannot have another pitcher who is going to be blowing leads that our starters give them.

We all have our ideas of what it should and shouldn't be.  We all know what it's likely to look like, whether we agree with it or not.  It's something that has been hotly debated ever since the additions of Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford were announced- but at last, Michael Vega of the Globe is reporting that at long last Terry Francona has announced what the lineup will be on opening day.

There is a caveat.  Francona has made it abundantly clear in the last days that the lineup fielded last night is the one that "he is comfortable with."  Because the Rangers' opening day starter, C.J. Wilson is absolutely devastating against left-handed batters, the lineup on opening day is not necessarily what he views as his typical lineup with this group of players.  Most likely, the main lineup is what we'll see the rest of this series and when the Sox finally return to Fenway (I'm eagerly counting the minutes).

So, without further ado, the lineup is right after the break:

Continue reading this post »

After weeks of anxious speculation about the three least important spots on the roster, it appears that at last we have the final picture of what the Red Sox 25-man roster will look like to begin the year- and it's probably a surprise to very few people.

Today, the Red Sox optioned Alfredo Aceves and Hideki Okajima to Pawtucket (according to Alex Speier of WEEI), clearing the way for Dennys Reyes and Matt Albers to make the 25-man roster.  As it was revealed a couple of days ago that Wakefield will definitely be on the 25-man roster, it appears that the composition is complete.

These moves should probably come as no surprise to anyone familiar with how Theo and the Sox like to work- they've gone the route of the most depth, insuring that they have as many relievers available in the minors as possible.  They would have had to let either Reyes or Albers go if they didn't want them to make the team, so this is pretty much what has been expected the last few days.  Full 25-man roster after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

Yesterday, the Red Sox announced that Jon Lester has been chosen as this year's Opening Day starter--and well it should be, as the lefty has been easily one of the best pitchers in the MLB over the past few years, pitching over 200 innings the last three years and getting fairly incredible results pitching at a home park that is not typically very friendly to left-handed pitchers.

Today, the Sox announced how the rest of the rotation will line up.  None of this should come as a huge shock to anyone and, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter a whole lot, but seeing how we are stuck in the purgatory of mid-March spring training on a day where there is no broadcast of today's game vs. the Mets, lets discuss it.

The way the rotation lines up is as follows:

Jon Lester

John Lackey

Clay Buchholz

Josh Beckett

Daisuke Matsuzaka

Continue reading this post »

This afternoon marks second to last Spring Training split squad day for the Red Sox, and it is an odd one in that the Sox will be the visiting team in both.

Demarlo Hale and his "A" squad, led by Jon Lester,don't have far to travel as they'll be playing the Twins in Fort Myers.

Meanwhile, Francona and his rag-tag group of prospects and Laser cannons will be heading to Kissimmee to do battle with our old buddies Millsy and Bill Hall and their Astros.

Because there's a lot, lineups are after the jump: 

Continue reading this post »

The Twins have taken an early lead in the much-discussed Mayor's Cup, the most important games of the year.  Today, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Tim Wakefield will attempt to keep the Twins from extending their lead to 2 games to none.  Carl Crawford will be making his Red Sox debut.

Can the Red Sox stay alive in this vital competition?  Only the Twins radio announcers can tell us.  Lineups after the break.

Continue reading this post »

Theo Epstein's streak of never going to arbitration will apparently continue on through 2011, as Sean McAdam or CSNNE is reporting that the Red Sox have come to terms with both of their eligible players, Jonathan Papelbon and Jacoby Ellsbury.

Both of these are intersting arbitration cases, and honestly, I'm surprised that both were dealt with as quickly as they were (in the past, Papelbon has nearly gone to the arbitration room).

Papelbon will be making $12 million, a raise of $2.65 million from what he made in 2010.  Personally, I'd consider this a gross overpay- in fact, a couple of months back in November, it was reported that he would only be seeking $11.5 million.  Apparently, that changed and the Sox agreed to go along with it.

Ellsbury will be making $2.4 million in 2011.

OTM Coverage from Mr. Ben "USG" Buchanan

Box Score from Baseball-Reference.com

Box Score from Baseball-Reference.com

If I were to make an understatement, it would be that 2010 did not go exactly as Mike Lowell would have liked.

After healing from hip surgery that robbed the former World Series MVP of much of his mobility, Mike Lowell had hoped that in 2010, he would be able to finish out his contract at third base, the position he'd occupied his whole career.  It became clear that the Red Sox front office didn't feel he was capable of adequately manning the hot corner when they signed free agent Adrian Beltre to be the starter.  From that point on, Lowell was bounced around in trade rumors, but instead spent the majority of a disappointing 2010 season relegated to either backup first baseman or the disabled list.  Fans who appreciated what he had done for the Red Sox clearly pitied him, as was made clear by the enormous ovation he got on opening day. 

In the midst of this bright spot though, on August 3, however, he did manage to have what must have ranked up with the World Series wins as one of the most rewarding moments of his career.

Continue reading this post »

Coming into this offseason, it was a known and given fact that the bullpen needs to be dramatically improved for the team to be competitive in 2011.  One of the biggest weaknesses was the lack of a second setup man, which led the Red Sox to over-rely on Daniel Bard.  Hideki Okajima, who had previously taken the role of left-handed setup man was simply ineffective through most of the year, and had become increasingly less effective each year since his stellar 2007 beginning.

The name that has been connected to the Red Sox through most of the offseason has been Scott Downs, and for good reason.  For years, Downs has been a highly effective setup man; effective even in the A.L. East which, as we are all aware, is not exactly the easiest division to pitch in.  He's a great pitcher, effective against both lefties and righties who has proven he can handle the setup role.

Today, however, it's been reported by Scott Lauber of the Boston Herald that the Red Sox are currently in pursuit of Brian Fuentes.  In my opinion, he actually would be a much more effective option for the Red Sox in 2011, so let's look at why.

Continue reading this post »

According to Gordon Edes of ESPN.com, the Red Sox and Padres have been discussing a trade for much-heralded Padres first baseman Adrian Gonzalez.  I don't really feel the need to go too much into detail about Gonzalez here as there's an article I posted just a couple of days ago professing my baseball love for him.

I have been hoping the Sox would wait until he hits free agency to pull the trigger on him, but I'm optimistic about Edes' report that the talks only include Red Sox minor league players--so Ellsbury, Bard, Buchholz, and Lowrie would presumably be safe.  I do have to admit this would get me incredibly psyched for next year.  If the deal were Kelly, Rizzo, and Iglesias straight up, I think I'd do that in a heartbeat for a year of a superstar player signed cheap.

 That's right.  I said the dreaded name.  Everyone is allowed to hate on me now all they want, but for all of the discussion that goes on about Adrian Gonzalez, I think he deserves to have his own discussion here.

Everyone here, no doubt knows about the great Red Sox Nation fancrush on Gonzalez, and there's a good reason why it exists.  He's young, he's a good defender, he seems like a genuiely nice guy.  The type of guy that can be a real franchise player.  Oh yeah, and he can hit pretty well.

After the jump I'm gonna take a quick look here at just why Red Sox Nation is all lovey-dovey about this guy.

Continue reading this post »

Alex Speier of WEEI is reporting that the Red Sox are set to announce Curt Young as the replacement for Pitching coach John Farrell.  Young was the pitching coach for the Oakland A's pitching staff which, under him in 2010, recorded the lowest ERA in the American League, and has led their pitchers to consistently low ERAs during his time as pitching coach there (which began in 2004)

This is his first time leaving the Oakland organization since he was drafted by them in 1983, apart from short stints with the Royals and Yankees in 1992.  After retiring as a player in 1993 and a few years off, he spent 4 years as a pitching coach in the minors before moving up to the major league level.

Personally, I'm pretty excited about this.  When I first heard Farrell was the main candidate for the Blue Jays managerial opening, I was disappointed until seemingly right after, Young announced he wouldn't be back with the A's.  It's hard for me, as an outsider to see exactly the effect that a pitching coach is having on a staff, but it is easy to see that over his time coaching, he has had a lot of successful young pitchers.  From what I've seen in interviews, he's always seemed like a pretty intelligent, articulate coach.  Maybe he's what the Red Sox are going to need to get their pitchers performing as we know they should in 2011.

EDIT: This is now official.  The Sox have released a lovey-dovey press release and everything.

I remember when I first heard that the Red Sox were signing John Lackey.  I remember thinking that it had to be a joke.  In addition to the fact that I (along with much of Red Sox nation) had just spent the winter mulling over how much I hated John Lackey and the Angels he had spent his career on – which I like to think was at least a little justified since they’d so easily just swept the Red Sox out of the playoffs.

In addition to the intense dislike of him I’d garnered over the last couple of years, it just seemed unlikely- the Sox had Lester, Beckett, Buchholz, Matsuzaka, and Wakefield; it already looked like a pretty good rotation on paper and it seemed like it would make a whole lot more sense to sign a pretty good pitcher to a short contract than to go all out signing the best pitcher available for big money.

I spent the next couple of weeks trying to figure out and justify to myself how that could possibly make sense, but remained unconvinced. 

Once, however, Spring Training came around, he changed my mind faster than I could have believed.

Continue reading this post »

That's right everyone, say hello to the post-season, Rich Hill is in the house!

The soft-throwing lefty from Massachusetts has been wallowing in Pawtucket lately, putting up some fairly awful numbers as a starter (since all the starters got converted to relievers).  He did, however, manage to actually post pretty good numbers against lefties- a 14:3 K:BB ratio- and will surely be used as a lefty specialist (because god knows the lefties in the pen haven't been able to get lefties out) where he might have some success.

Hopefully his numbers will look better than his last major league year, where he posted a 7.80 ERA with some pretty frighteningly bad peripherals. 

As Peter Abraham of the Globe has suggested, there is a good chance that this means our hero, Felix Doubront, won't pitch again in the majors this year, and instead will try to heal his injury.

Ahhhh, September.

It's the time of year (after maybe opening day) that every baseball fan across the country, regardless of what team they're rooting for, can look forward to.  Teams in competition have the ability to play their best team every day, using what September callups they want to bolster the troops, giving an occasional offday, and to rest the veterans once that elusive playoff spot is secured.

The teams that have been out of contention since day 2 (or even arguably, before) at last get a chance to bring up some fresh young players and see if they have what it takes to contribute to a major league team.

It's a spark of excitement for everyone, but this year, the Red Sox are stuck in a kind of purgatory between the two places and there is some question of whether it is time to do everything to try to get the team hot and race into that last playoff spot, or to cut their losses and evaluate a few more players for the future.

Continue reading this post »

The Providence Journal's Daniel Barbarisi is reporting that Red Sox top position player prospect entering 2010, Ryan Westmoreland, is coming back.  He'll be joining the Spinners and, though he won't be playing games yet, he will be with the team, participating in team workouts and sitting in the dugout for the games.

It's a cool article and a pretty amazing story (that will hopefully have an equally amazing ending), so I'm just gonna say click on the link, go read the article, and we're all rooting for you, Ryan.