Boston Sports Then and Now

Don’t look now, but Spring Training is more than half-way over.  In fact, we are just shy of two weeks from Opening Day at Fenway Park, where the Red Sox will host the New York Yankees.  Outside, in the last week, Spring sprung.  It’s almost time for baseball.

Spring Training's almost through, but questions linger for the Sox.

However, there are still some questions surrounding the Sox.  Sure, the roster is almost set and a run prevention strategy has already been mobilized for the coming season.  All the same, the following five issues will still need to be resolved before April 4, or at the very least, will provide us with interest as the date mercifully approaches.

5. Is Bill Hall capable of filling his idealized role with the club?

Hall was acquired in exchange for Casey Kotchman on January 7.  The move was, at the time, lauded for being a shrewd way for the Sox to save some cash.  However, the keen were quick to identify a role for Hall that could prove immensely valuable.  Hall has played 6 positions in his career (second base, third base, shortstop, left field, center field, right field) and could kill two birds on the roster with one stone by serving both as the utility infielder and a right-handed outfielder that can give JD Drew a breather.  Hall’s been in steep offensive decline for three years since posting a remarkable .899 OPS and 35 home runs in 2006, and also hasn’t played shortstop since that season.  If Hall can’t field the position, the Sox are better off taking Tug Hulett or even Jed Lowrie north with them especially considering that Hall is hardly hitting in Florida.  The early reports have been positive, but Hall will have to keep it up if he wants to serve in what could be a very interesting reserve role with the club.

4. Will Josh Beckett and/or Victor Martinez be extended?

Beckett and Martinez are both entering contract years.

These two key players are each entering their last year under contract and neither wants to talk money once the season starts.  Sources say the Sox and Beckett have been talking and that talks feel optimistic, but there was certainly a feeling around the team when the club signed John Lackey that the transaction was done as insurance for when Beckett departs.  Then again, with the pitchers so similar, the signing perhaps merely indicates that the two represent exactly the type of pitcher that the Sox value, with high strikeout rates, high velocity, and high competitiveness being the three most distinguishable similarities.

There has reportedly been little talk with Martinez thus far, which perhaps had to do with Joe Mauer’s previously impending free agency — Martinez even said earlier this offseason that he understood that the team had to be keeping an eye on the MVP’s potentially hitting the market.  Mauer today agreed to an 8 year monster deal with Minnesota, so perhaps this will kick-start talks with Martinez.  Victor has been candid in stating that he wants to stay in Boston and his comments seem genuine.  He hasn’t, however, caught full-time in a few years now and the Sox may be interested in seeing how he holds up in so doing; such a strategy, of course, would require that nothing be advanced until the season’s end.  Further, it will be interesting to see how the enormity of Mauer’s deal (184 million!) effects Martinez’s potential demands.

3. How far off is Daisuke Matsuzaka?

Daisuke’s Spring has been well-documented and it seems, now, that he is highly, highly unlikely to open the season with the club.  Today, he pitched – and pitched well – in a minor league game, and will see action in relief against Florida on Thursday.  However, the Sox are probably going to want to take their time with their imported investment especially given how things went a season ago.  At the same time, the Matsuzaka of 2008 is a vast improvement over the Tim Wakefield of today — though it is, of course, a blessing that Boston can turn to a pitcher who was an All-Star (yeah, yeah, controversially, maybe) a year ago to fill the role of the sixth starter.

2. Who will get the last bullpen slot?

Alan Embree has returned to the Red Sox.

Alan Embree was signed yesterday and says that he thinks he can be ready for Opening Day.  This only compounds what was already an intense competition between Brian Shouse, Ramon A. Ramirez, Boof Bonser, Scott Atchison, Joe Nelson, and Junichi Tazawa.  Of the six, two are likely to make the Opening Day roster given current management’s displayed and stated preference to a twelve-man staff, but once Matsuzaka returns, one will stand.  With the press around his return, fueled perhaps by nostalgia, Embree perhaps has a leg up on the spot.  Tazawa and Bonser, though, can pitch multiple innings, and Nelson, Atchison, and Shouse all have had impressive Springs thus far.  This is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

1. Will Mike Lowell be traded?

I have beaten the drum enthusiastically in support of keeping Lowell in Boston, but it is likely that he will be dealt.  The Rangers and Marlins have both been reported to have interest in the last week and he wants to play full-time; further, it is likely that the Sox are still willing to eat a ton of money to move their former third-baseman.  If he is to be dealt, the questions are to where and for who.  In the deal with Texas that failed to go through over the winter, Boston would have received decent compensation in the highly regarded catching prospect, Max Ramirez.  Whether Ramirez remains on the block is unknown.  The answers to these two sub-questions are likely dependent on how much the Sox are willing to include in terms of money and how desperate the team is.

Other subquestions exist here, though.  My guesses, for what they’re worth, are in parentheses.  Just for starters: if Lowell sticks around, will he be unhappy? (Yes)  If so, will he be a distraction? (No)  Who will back up at first base if he is dealt? (Martinez, with Varitek catching more than any of us care to see)  Who will back up third? (Youkilis, and then Hall)  This is, to me, the most interesting, and perhaps the most important, unanswered question remaining for the 2010 Red Sox.