Improving the 2014 Boston Red Sox

Ben takes a completely reasonable and totally plausible look at ways to upgrade the 2014 roster.

Nava Say Never

Or as Jerry Remy would say "Nahver say Nevah!"

The DL All-Stars

Kevin Youkilis left last night's game in the 4th inning with an ankle injury. At the moment, it appears he'll be fine -- the word out of Fenway is that he'll be in the lineup tonight. Still, the sight of Youk leaving the game yesterday must have caused remotes across New England to be flung in exasperated disgust as the injury bug appeared to claim another key player on this 2010 Red Sox team. In recounting the injuries that have plagued the club this year, it occurs to me that we could field a fairly talented club solely from our DL. In order to find out exactly how good, I decided to draw up a lineup (nine offensive positions, two starters, a setup man, and a closer) and see how well it would stack up given their projected 2010 WAR (I'm using CHONE projections for batters because they're the easiest to find, but the estimates shouldn't be too far afield; for pitchers it's a bit tricky, but I'll resort to using fangraphs.com's fan projections -- imperfect, but close enough). This is obviously a thought experiment more than anything else, but it's interesting to see exactly how much talent the Sox have lost so far this season.

Injuries Mounting, Boof Bonser to the Rotation? Nava Who?

Who is Daniel Nava? The Sox have quite the interesting player on their hands. With injuries to outfielders Jacoby Ellsbury, Jeremy Hermida, and Mike Cameron forcing the BoSox to dig deep into the minors once again, the Sox may have caught lightning in a bottle for the second time this season. Darnell McDonald admirably filling in for Hermida and Cameron, the Sox promoted Daniel Nava to the bigs on Saturday to take over Josh Reddick's fourth outfielder spot. Like McDonald, Nava wasted no time endearing himself to fans -- connecting for a grand slam on the first pitch of his MLB career Saturday, leading the Sox to a 10-2 win over Philadelphia. Nava, 27, has had quite the journey to the Majors. Making his professional debut for the Chico Outlaws of the Golden Baseball League in 2007, Nava impressed the scouts with a bit of speed (18 SBs in 20 attempts), pop (12 home runs in 314 plate appearances), and plate discipline (48 BB : 42 Ks) while with Chico. Signed by the Sox in 2008 at the age of 25, Nava kept rolling with hi-A Lancaster. Slugging 10 homers in 379 plate appearances to go along with a very impressive .341/.424/.523 line, the outfielder’s plate discipline (43 BB : 70 K) carried over to affliated ball as well.

Cautious Optimism But Lacking Something

The Red Sox offense is in good shape. The local nine is second in runs scored and OPS. The lineup has been legit even with Jeremy Hermida (649 OPS) and Darnell McDonald (746 OPS) getting 246 of the 1920 Red Sox at-bats or 12.8%. The other seven regulars are collectively performing as expected. When Mike Cameron and Jacoby Ellsbury take plate appearances from Hermida and McDonald, the Olde Towne Team should put up more crooked numbers.

On the pitching front, walks have been the issue. The health and return to form from Josh Beckett will reduce the number of free passes. If he replaces Tim Wakefield, the club will benefit even more since his style dictates not giving into hitters.

Poll: Early Season Stories.

As the season settles in, which Red Sox story has your eye?

Fixing J.D. Drew, Darnell Who?, Hermida Behind the Plate?

What Needs to Happen: JD Drew The bad starts just keep piling up… and keep continuing, causing some real problems in the lineup and some real frustration for the millions of Fenway Faithful. J.D. Drew’s poor April just keeps on coming, which has only added to the ineptitude and futility of the 2010 Boston lineup. Still, while fans may have already begun clamoring for an overhaul, Drew's April has all the earmarkings of a really bad, persistent slump - one that can ridden out with a patient couple weeks. When players go through stretches like Drew has, at his age no less, the primary questions that tend to be asked are 1) is the player hurt? 2) is he seeing the ball well enough or just putting poor swings on the ball? and 3) is he getting old?

Looking For Runs In All The Wrong Places

It's been a rough couple of weeks, folks. We've all heard it, we've all said it, we've all felt it. There's been enough negative energy in this town lately to give Vigo from Ghostbusters II a sugar high. However, if you sat there tonight watching grown millionaires crowd around Darnell McDonald like they were ten years old again and your cynicism, pessimism and negativity didn't melt away, you have no soul.

Tonight, it was the song of the backups -- the team was lifted up and carried by players no one has on a fantasy team, and eventually it was those players who gave the Red Sox their most inspiring win of the young season (with, admittedly, stunningly little competition). McDonald, Jeremy Hermida and Josh Reddick drove in six of the team's seven runs, and two of them weren't even on the roster this morning.

Sox Take R&R in KC, Buchholz Picks Up Where He Left Off

R&R in KC After winning the home opener, the Sox looked quite sluggish in their encore performances against the Yanks. What they needed was a little R&R against a weak out-of-division opponent -- and the KC Royals came to the rescue. Though the pitching staff managed to make the series interesting -- including dropping the first content by virtue of Okajima’s and Bard’s eighth inning bullpen lapses -- there were many positives to take away from the road trip to Missouri...

Small samples and spring flings

Every spring, we get the March stars who try to earn a roster spot, but hopefully we all know by now that a month or so of at bats is not enough to tell anything.

Half the time, players are facing minor leaguers and the rest are players working on their approach. Any major league team who picks a player based on any statistic over another in March is only setting themselves up to be disappointed.

So far this spring, Josh Reddick has been tearing the cover off the ball with a .400/.429/.700 line in 40 ABs. That sure looks nice and Jeremy Hermedia is matching him with .400/.447/.571 -- but does anyone think either is a better option in right field than J.D. Drew who is currently hitting .154/.241/.231?

You might say that comparing them to an established player making $14 million this year is a silly comparison, but why would that be any different than saying Clay Buchholz is not ready to start this year based on 6.2 IP?