The snow piles still may be chest high, but the Boston Red Sox equipment truck is on its way to Florida, and conversations around the watercooler and on the air are filled with both angst and anticipation. Truly, this is the best part of the baseball year, when everyone can be an expert, and no one can be proven wrong.
To this observer, the Sox cup is more than half full. All of their wounded warriors are said either to be healed or largely so, their primary divisional rivals (New York and Tampa Bay) are nominally weaker than they were a season ago, and their lineup and pitching staff are the envy of both leagues. (Hello, Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez!)
The space at the top of the cup, however, does contain some question marks. Will John Lackey be more than the fair to middling picture he was last year? Will Josh Beckett be any kind of pitcher at all? If either of these had been true in 2010, the club may well have challenged for the postseason even despite the raft of injuries it suffered.
Speaking of injuries: will Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia, and Kevin Youkilis – to name just a core few – come back at anywhere near their previous levels? Will Jonathan Papelbon be sufficiently motivated by his impending free agent status to perform anywhere near his previous level – and if he doesn’t, how will he respond to any kind of (perceived or actual) demotion or trade talk?
My preliminary answers run as follows: yes, only if he gets off to a decent start, probably, yes, and not well. What say you?
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