It’s so close I can picture it. I can now put the days on my fingers as I happily count down to the day when Red Sox pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training. It’s just a matter of days now until the internet will be flooded with pictures of Red Sox players happily reporting for duty in Florida. Sure they’ll only be doing drills and tossing the ball but they’re arguably the most exciting pictures we’ll see the entire season. I don’t have any enlightening statistics or in depth analysis for any of you today but I do have some final thoughts on the offseason as it draws to its official close.God, will I be glad to see Manny Ramirez back with the Red Sox again in 2007. I don’t care what anyone says about him, I love that man! Sure, he’ll never be honored as a dirt dog but anyone who doesn’t think he works extremely hard to be prepared for the season and it’s eventual games is mistaken. He’s practically the definition of consistency and according to his teammates has a great personality. One of the great joys of being a Red Sox of late has been watching this guy hit. He’s one of the best hitters we’ll ever see dawn the uniform and the idea of him and Ortiz taking care of business for yet another year is enough to make any Red Sox fan grin. Even with the entire city criticizing him he’ll almost certainly put up his nearly perennial 150+ games, 40+ home runs and 130+ runs batted in yet again. I’ve said it before but it won’t hurt to repeat it – not trading him was the best move the Red Sox made this entire offseason.
The other obvious highlight of the Red Sox offseason was the acquisition of Daisuke Matsuzaka. Sure he’s a question mark given that he’s never pitched in the major leagues and the change in culture will be quite drastic. Even so, he’s clearly one of the best pitchers in the entire world. Not a bad acquisition to a rotation that already boasts veteran ace Curt Schilling and young sensation Jonathan Papelbon. “Mississippi” Jon’s one of the most exciting young Red Sox pitchers since Roger Clemens. If he stays healthy he has the ability to have a similarly large impact on the team for years to come. My favorite part about him (other than his pitching of course) is his work hard, play harder attitude. For the second straight year this kid busted his ass to be in the best shape of his life for the imposing season. He’s also one of the most entertaining personalities on the team. If you don’t believe me, just look him up on YouTube. There are probably more humorous videos of Papelbon on there then there are of any other Red Sox player period. His laid back, relaxed personality is reminiscent of Johnny Damon’s, only Papelbon doesn’t make you cringe every time he opens his mouth.
The low point of the offseason was their acquisition of a “closer.” It always makes me happy when my team pays $4 million for another team’s garbage. I wonder if working garbage detail will work out any better this time than it did when we picked up Javy Lopez, Jason Johnson and Kyle Snyder last year. If by some miracle, Pineiro is anything more than passable in the role this will truly be our year. Fortunately, Epstein has stocked the bullpen with veterans and we have plenty of young arms at the ready to step in. It’s one of the most important roles on the team so the battle for it’s sure to be interesting. Chances are it’ll be a little painful as well. It would have been great to have the comfort of knowing we have a lock down option like we did in Papelbon last year. It’s really unfortunate that pitching back to back days took such a toll on his shoulder.
There’s plenty more that could be said. The Red Sox bolstered their offense by adding Julio Lugo and J.D. Drew, Trot Nixon will surely be missed and Dustin Pedroia will make second base interesting. All those have more or less been talked to death already though. I don’t know about you guys but I’m more than ready to stop talking and start watching.
