February 8, 2012

Changes, Boston Red Sox

Clay Buchholz

The health of Clay Buchholz could be the key to Boston's season. Photo: Tony Ding/Icon SMI

The Boston Red Sox finished third in the AL East in 2011, losing the AL Wild Card on the last day of the season in the most exciting night of baseball ever. The Red Sox fielded an amazing collection of stars on the squad, with four players posting bWARs over 6.0, and three more between 3.8 and 4.8. They were slightly on the position player side of the ledger, but there was more than enough success there for the team to win. They underperformed their Pythagorean projection by four wins. Part of it came from four players, John Lackey, Tim Wakefield, J.D. Drew, and Mike Cameron who combined for a -4.0 bWAR, enough to wipe out the contribution of David Ortiz. In the end, there were just too many bad veterans on the team.

The Red Sox made the following acquisitions during the off-season.

Ryan Sweeney takes over for J.D. Drew in right, and should post positive WARs for the next few seasons. Punto, Ross, and Shoppach all go into backup roles Kelly likely replacing Jason Varitek. AnDrew Bailey replaces Jonathan Papelbon, who left via free agency.

The Red Sox did not deal with their rotation woes directly. At the moment, Tim Wakefield is expected to retire, so there is one less poor pitcher for the starting staff. The rest of the spots will be filled by pitchers recovering from injuries, (Clay Buchholz, Daisuke Matsuzaka), a long reliever (Alfredo Aceves) and two starters who simply didn’t pitch well in 2011 (Andrew Miller). My guess is that Buchholz and Aceves make the rotation. and probably Lackey given his contract Given the quality of the rest of the team, if Sweeney, Buchholz and Aceves could be one win about replacement value, the Red Sox will be in solid contention, rather than on the bubble. We’ll see. If injuries cause Boston to at some point go with Dice-K and Miller for any stretch, I think the team is in trouble.

Update: As pointed out in the comments, John Lackey won’t be back this season due to elbow surgery. I’ve updated the post.

5 thoughts on “Changes, Boston Red Sox

  1. boof

    Pretty sure Lackey is out for the year and Daisuke won’t be able to come back until much of the season is over. I’m not totally convinced Bard’s going to be able to hold up over a whole season as a starter, but he’ll be given a long look in the rotation. They also added some bad-to-mediocre rotational depth that should start the season in AAA (Carlos Silva, Vicente Padilla, Aaron Cook).

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  2. rbj

    Boston at best is looking at another 3rd place finish. Too many holes and question marks, plus NY & Tampa are strong. Red Sox will be battling the Orioles and Blue Jays.

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  3. pft

    Opening day rotation is expected to be

    Lester
    Beckett
    Buchholz
    Bard
    Aceves

    Bard or Aceves could be beat out by Padilla, Doubront, Cooke, Silva, Miller.

    Daisuke expected to be back June/July.

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