Hi gang.  Sully here and I am thrilled to be back per Jeff’s invite to chip in with a little Sox preview.

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Opening Day has arrived and not a moment too soon for eager Sox fans ready to put a disappointing 3rd Place showing in 2006 behind them.  While my reputation doubtless precedes me on the optimism front, there really are lots of reasons to have high hopes for the 2007 edition of the Carmine Hose.

In order to articulate why fans have every reason for high expectations, it would be helpful to have a look at where we have been before we look at where we are going.  The following two charts are remarkable because they show just how mediocre the Sox were last year.  Their stars were excellent, but nearly the whole rest of the roster failed them miserably.  The first chart shows where the Red Sox ranked in OPS amongst American League teams in 2006.  The second chart shows just how awful some of their starting pitching was last season.

  POS          OPS     AL Rank
Catcher       .668       12
First Base    .773       10
Second Base   .698       10
Third Base    .823       3
Shortstop     .674       13
Left Field    .977       1
Center Field  .713       12
Right Field   .777       13
Des. Hitter   1.003      2

Starter     GS   IP   ER   ERA
Clement     12  65.1  48   6.61
Snyder      10   47   33   6.32
Wells       8    47   26   4.95
Dinardo     6   23.2  23   8.75
Pauley      3    16   14   7.88
Johnson     6   29.1  24   7.36
Total       45 228.1  168  6.63

So before factoring off-season acquisition of some excellent talent, just consider how difficult it would be for a middling, small-market team not to improve on some of these numbers.  There are wins for the taking over and above the .500 Pythag 2006 team simply by eliminating some of the terrible performances the above charts outline.  If the case is still not compelling, allow me to ask a series of questions.

Do you think the Red Sox will get more than a .668 OPS out of the catcher position in 2007?  Can they eclipse .800 at first base?  Can Dustin Pedroia be an average offensive 2nd Baseman?  Can Coco Crisp, he of the 119 OPS+ in 2005 and 106 OPS+ in 2004 (80 in 2006), help Sox center fielders improve upon the .713 OPS total they posted last season?  And leaving J.D. Drew aside for a moment, if he were simply handed the reins, could Wily Mo Pena best the .777 OPS Sox right fielders put up last year?

On the pitching side (again, leave Dice-K out of this), could the Sox scrounge together some guys to replace the 45 starts of 6.63 ERA pitching?  Perhaps between Julian Tavarez, Devern Hansack, Kason Gabbard and eventually Jon Lester, the Sox could replace those 45 catostrophic starts with some merely below average output.  And there is more to the story than meets the eye when it comes to those 45 starts.  In these games, hurlers averaged only five innings per start, leading to incremental bullpen taxation.  Cleaning up last year’s starting pitching mess with mediocrities as opposed to atrocities would go a long way in shoring things up.  And finally, what about Josh Beckett?  Think he has more than a 92 ERA+ in him this season?

See where I am going?  Even before you factor the best pitching acquisition any team made this off-season, the addition of a perennial .300/.400/.500 candidate to take over in right field and the signing of a consistently solid if unspectacular offensive shortstop, the optimism case is strong.  But when you mix Daisuke Matsuzaka, J.D. Drew and Julio Lugo into the 2007 picture, things really start to get interesting.  The “there’s just no way they can be any worse” argument bounces you from about 81 wins (their 2006 Pythag total) to the mid-to-high 80’s.  The above triumverate, along with a collection of live bullpen arms that figure to help, get you closer to a total pushing mid-to-high 90’s.

I could go position by position and toss out a projection for each position but readers of this site already know the ballpark expectations for each of the Sox players.  Readers also probably understand that injuries can put a damper on even the most promising teams and this collection of Red Sox is laden with injury risk, if for no other reason than its age.  While the majority of their 30+’ers have proven resilient over their careers, age alone comes with enough injury risk to temper enthusiasm.  But 80 starts out of Curt Schilling, Tim Wakefield and Beckett, 140 games for Drew and 125 for Jason Varitek and this team should hang right with the Yanks all season long.  Those totals are all optimistic, however, and the Red Sox will need as much injury luck this season as they had misfortune last year in order to have a crack at the division.  Says here that karma owes ‘em one and they stay relatively healthy.

Look for the Sox to contend for the Division title and, at worst, glide to the Wild Card.

Prediction: 94-68 
 

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