Opening Day Roster is All But Set.

Well, there you have it folks. Other than signing a couple arms for the bullpen (these will be mostly "no-namers" or journeymen) and trading Mike Lowell for a root canal to be named later. The signing of Adrian Beltre was not only genius but the cap off of our big moves in the offseason. So your lineup looks like this.

Ellsbury-LF

Pedroia-2B

Martinez-C

Youkilis-1B

Ortiz-DH

Beltre-3B

Drew-RF

Cameron-CF

Scutaro-SS

 

You may be looking at this lineup and think there is no uber-bopper that we have been coveting for the better part of 2 seasons. But what we did do is turn our lineup into a functional lineup, with NO glaring holes. In 2009, we had two automatic outs for the better part of the year with Varitek and *insert SS here*. What we now have is a lineup 1 through 9, that can produce good at bats. Yes, Beltre and Cameron will strike out. But Beltre has been a byproduct of SafeCo Field the last 4 years and should benefit with the short porch in left while Cameron takes his walks and is generally a patient hitter whom takes his walks. Given the length of contract and the relatively small salary I'd say we just stole Beltre and that you're looking at 20 HRs if not more playing half of your games at Fenway Park. He may hit about 15 points lower than Lowell but his defense and power and run production will far exceed anything Lowell has done in a Boston Uniform.

What this acquisition does do however is give us not just the best defensive ball club that I've seen in my lifetime. If Jacoby does in fact move to Left Field I'm willing to go as far as saying the best defensive team (on paper) in the history of baseball.

All of the people claiming that Theo has NOT done his job this offseason is COMPLETELY off-base. All of the Red Sox "Fan-boys" whom were clamoring for Bay to be brought back AND to keep Mike Lowell, clearly didn't pay attention last season. While they didn't necessarily cost us games, with those two players on the team we didn't get the job done and got swept out of the first round. Theo stuck to his guns with how much he wanted to spend on Bay and when Bay's agent said no, they moved on. So if you still think we are missing a LOT of offense we ALSO still have the pieces to pull a deal off for the impact bat that we need.

I am 100% on board with the off-season plan. There was no one on the market that could give us the pieces to be able to outslug the Yankees. Therefore we had to alter our approach to a more Moneyball-esque manor, if you will. Now saying that I realize that Moneyball was about OBP and finding hidden value in players but in the year 2010 the new On-base % is defense. Our defense was so abysmal last year that we needed to upgrade in 33% of our positions and we have done that, and then some. I like pitching and Defense much more than some pitching and power hitting. Hitting goes through slumps folks, defense doesn't. Let's put it this way, if defense is as important as I think it is, we could win around 100 games…Just sayin'.

Stay Tuned

Ryan