For the next two weeks the doldrums of the last gasps of Spring Training give way to a little thing called March Madness. If you’re like me, you start to see brackets in every minute detail of your daily lives. ”Who makes the best coffee; Dunks vs. Starbucks?” or “Facebook vs. Twitter”? or “MVN vs. ESPN”?
Sure there will be an obligatory 64 hottest babes bracket or a whose the greatest sitcom character of all time bracket, but given how “slammed” Evan was for his venture into pop culture in previous columns, I thought I would stick to the a topic more germane to our existence at Fire Brand, the Red Sox.
So here’s the plan. I’ve gone ahead and taken the liberty of ranking the sixteen most important Red Sox on the 2009 roster into four regions (seeded 1-4). While we can bicker about seeding (i.e. Lester over Youkilis for a top seed), I think they are pretty fair.
Here’s the criteria for advancing a player in the bracket. It comes down to the simple question, who’s success is more critical to the success of the Boston Red Sox in 2009?
The four #1 seeds are David Ortiz, Josh Beckett, Dustin Pedroia, and Jon Lester.
Over the next two weeks, I’ll publish a series of polls to dictate the winners of each match up in hopes of crowning a champion before Opening Day.
Without further adieu, here are the brackets;
Here are your first two matchups. Please feel free to battle your opinions out in the comments and enjoy the Madness!
Loading ...
Ortiz/Wake: The depth question is in favor of Ortiz.
Jacoby/Bay: Easier to find a replacement LF (internally: Carter/Baily with external options) than to find a replacment CF.
Ortiz/Wake – The guys above summed it up perfectly.
Ellsbury/Bay: With Drew and Lowell fighting injuries, Bay is pretty important to the middle of the lineup… but Jacoby’s defense and the fact that he’s leadoff man give him the edge here.
Good stuff Tim!
This is very creative but stupid at the same time.
Papi v. Wake was a no-brainer; Ellsbury v. Bay was much tougher, but I picked Ellsbury because I think Bay’s power is easier to replace than Jacoby’s speed. (Which is not to say that Bay is slow or Jacoby lacks power, either…)
At least I got credit for the creative part. Thanks Marcos.
I know this is just for fun and has no real meaning, but it is very difficult to assess “who is more critical to the success of the 09 Sox” without considering many other factors. That being said, it seems that the most of the players who “win” in the polls and move on are players with big question marks above their heads. Will Papi get his groove back? Will Ells find consistency and continue to steal bases well into the second half?
Anon 1 was me, sorry