Red Sox need backup shortstop

With the signing of Adrian Beltre and impending acquisition of Bill Hall, it seems that the Sox only have one thing left to do: dump Mike Lowell to bring in a backup shortstop. Lowell is perhaps even more redundant with the acquisition of Hall, who can play third and has done so primarily for a while now. There are now four third basemen on the roster (Kevin Youkilis included). What the team lacks is a viable backup shortstop. While Hall can play every position but catcher competently, he hasn't tried his hand at short in three years -- and thus shouldn't be considered an option there. He figures to serve as the fifth outfielder and primary third base backup and likely first base as well. He also can appear at second base but is his position of least experience (assuming you sum all his outfield games). Assuming that the team dumps Mike Lowell (who deserves a better fate and I feel should have a nice season in 2010 but it is what it is, and I can't argue with the team's decision), who can they bring in?

Adaptation and working the market

Since Moneyball was published in 2003 there has been a clear misunderstanding of what the book meant. I'm sure much of this is by people who never read the book, but perhaps some who missed the message. The message that is spread and widely understood is that Billy Beane was a huge proponent of OBP and that that wins games. If you ask anyone at a baseball game or on a sports talk show what was the point of Moneyball 90% will say OBP. Of course that 90% will also say that Billy Beane wrote the book. So what was the point in a cliff notes version? Learn what the market has failed to value and use it to your advantage. As of the writing of the book OBP was a largely ignored stat and teams were viewing players like Adam Kennedy as quality players for a solid batting average. This made a market for Beane to attack and he did so effectively. The problem is teams adapted and not only followed his model with greater finances, but also stole his staff.