Preliminary 25-Man Roster

[FlashGordon]

The Boston Globe published an article today, claiming to have the in on the 25-Man today. Batting line-ups seem to look like this.

Vs. RHPs: CF Coco Crisp, 2B Mark Loretta, DH David Ortiz, LF Manny Ramírez, RF Trot Nixon, C Jason Varitek, 3B Mike Lowell, 1B Kevin Youkilis/J.T. Snow, SS Alex González.

Vs. LHPs: CF Coco Crisp, 2B Mark Loretta, DH David Ortiz, LF Manny Ramírez, C Jason Varitek, 3B Mike Lowell, RF Wily Mo Peña, 1B Kevin Youkilis, SS Alex González.

You can read the rest here. I'll offer some thoughts later.

[ThanksTheo]

Overall, not a bad offensive lineup. Strong outfield, average infield, and Varitek behind the plate on most days.

Defensive weaknesses in this lineup? Probably SS, and possibly at 1B also, both positions may need time to flesh themselves out, and they could be a surprise. 2B should be solid with Loretta, and that's a big part of the "strength up the middle" that a contending team needs. No need to mention LF as a potential defensive hole, as that seems to change daily. But Manny has indicated an interest in receiving a Gold Glove award, right?

The Sox need to hope that Lowell will return to pre-2005 form offensively, and that Gonzalez' ST isn't an indication of things to come.

Biggest concern: SS

[Boston Boxer]

i disagree Theo...I think SS and 1B are excellent defensively. Gonzo and Cora have great gloves at SS and Youk, J.T. and Choi have very good gloves as well. I think we are very good defensively this year. I am worried about the offense particularly Trot and Lowell. Lowell has looked terrible at the plate in the minimal time i have seen him.

[ThanksTheo]

I think SS and 1B are excellent defensively. Gonzo and Cora have great gloves at SS and Youk, J.T. and Choi have very good gloves as well. I think we are very good defensively this year. I am worried about the offense particularly Trot and Lowell. Lowell has looked terrible at the plate in the minimal time i have seen him.

And I respect every word of that. Believe me when I say I hope you're right. Especially at SS, because I think 1B will probably take care of itself with minimal negative impact defensively. I guess I think too much about SS because our last deal for SS didn't work out so well. h

I haven't seen Lowell, only his stats. Maybe we're not expecting him to return to his pre-2005 form? As for Trot, my only thinking is he might want to give it his all this year to increase his market value. But of course he'd still have to produce..... can he?

(BTW: born/raised outside Boston, spent 2 yrs. at Offutt in the early 70's & stayed in that area for another 20+)

[RedSoxVT92]

The Defense I am not worried about. The Offense could be great or could be okish. Now if Lowell, Loretta, can get back to how they were in 2004 it would be great. Also Gonzalez has the abilty to smack 20 homers out of here this year but cant really hit for average. At first Youk is a bit of a question he could end up hitting maybe 30 homers to 10 homers but he is a guy that can get on base and work the count. We will have to see how he fairs on an everyday bases. Hopefully Nixon will be healthy this year but if he is not there is always the young power threat in pena to fill in. V-tek will probably be great offensivley being one of the best offensive catcher in the leaugue although he is 34 and seems to wear down at the end of the season. Coco also could have a outstanding year with all of his potentiol. I personally think he was a much much better option for CF than Damon. And you cant go wrong with the one two punch of Manny and Big Papi. Fenway Park should also help people like Lowell trying to get back on track. So the line up could be a very good line up this year. The starting pitching is kinda scary. As long as they can stay healthy. Wells and Schilling are getting older and its harder to recover from injuries now. Clement hopefully will pitch like the first half of the season last year. Also Beckett needs to avoid the blister problems, if he is healthy he is very dangerous (along with Schilling). Wakefield is a knuckleballer so he may be getting older but they usaully last longer. We can only aford to lose one starter then Paplebon can fill in. A Great talent who has the potentiol abilty to be a great pitcher. But If more than one starting pitcher go down then were in trouble because with out bronson we dont really have another "quality" starter that can fill in. So if everyone stays healthy were all good. The bullpen is yet another question. Hopefully Foulke can bouce back and be a very good closer. If not Timlin could step in but he is a better set up man. Craig Hansen could be another option but Im not sure if I want a guy with not alot of experiance closing out games. So tons of questions this year. Everything has the possibility to be great and it has the possibilty to be horrible. We will just have to wait and see how everything fans out. The roster was just how I thought it was gunna be. Once Sterns 17 days is up Willie Harris will most likley be called up.

[Mike D.]

Lowell and Gonzalez are both gold-glove caliber defenders, and Loretta is above average defensively. Youkillis is still a work in progress at 1b, but early indications are good. Snow has five or six gold gloves, and is still good with the glove at age 38. I think having a more solid defense will help the pitching a lot....they'll be a lot more solid up the middle especially than they were at the start of last year (with Renteria and Bellhorn).

One thing that might help guys like Lowell and Gonzalez (in addition to Fenway) is their place in the lineup. Lowell was one of THE guys in Florida...lots of pressure. In Boston, he'll hit in the bottom half of the lineup. Gonzalez will have pretty low expectations offensively. If he matches last year's .269 batting average with 10 HR, I think everyone will be happy. In Fenway, he could hit 15+ HR, too. If he did that, even his lifetime average (.244) would be acceptable.

[Jager]

Hello everyone. I'm new here, but I'm going to go right into it anyways.:radio
I don't really understand how anyone thinks our infield is only average. Our infield this year is fantastic. Youkilis, while he hasn't played alot of 1b, is much better than millar defensively, and should be better than him last year offensively. Loretta is solid defensively, and the only reason his numbers were down last year was because of a thumb injury that wouldn't heal because he kept playing. He had the whole offseason, and now is healthy, and has looked great during the spring. Alex Gonzalez is a downgrade offensively, although not by alot like most people are saying. Renteria didn't play well for us. Gonzalez has a bad avg. and obp, but he still comes up with hits when you need them, and with him being stellar defensively I'm willing to compromise there, and we can always try to upgrade next season. At 3b we have Lowell, who could go either way, but at least we know he will play great D either way. If Lowell gets off to a bad start it wouldn't surprise me to see the Sox take out Lowell, move Youkilis to 3b and call up Choi, so I think we could be ok either way. Choi if that were to happen is fantastic defensively, and should hit 20 homers if he's a full time player, and with Snow as our backup 1b either way we have fantastic D this year.
Manny is still manny in LF. I think Crisp is going to have a huge year. When I first heard about this trade I started doing some research about him, and by all accounts he seems to thrive under pressure. I look for him to have a fantastic offensive year, and the D will follow. It may take him a bit to get used to the bounces at Fenway, but He's fast, and I think he'll be solid defensively too. Nixon's problem has been that he's an injury risk, and he doesn't hit lefties well. Now with him and Pena (who pounds lefties) We should have a very productive year from RF this season supposing Nixon can stay healthy. If he can't then I look for Pena to get his tryout to have RF all to himself next season as we wouldn't resign Nixon. Varitek will likely decline a little bit, but he's still a great catcher.

Our rotation is the thing that i'm most excited about. I think Schilling will be good, probably not quite as good as he was in 04 and earlier, but still a good ace. Wakefield is one of those guys that you can bank on having a era around 4 and 225 innings or so, which is huge. Beckett is one of my favorite acquisitions in recent years. I love this kid. He has to work a few things out, but last year even with his injury problems he won 15 games. If he can get things worked out He can certainly be our ace of the future, and I honestly think he will be in the thick of things in the Cy Young race this season. Not to mention that in the 03 WS he killed the Yankees on 3 days rest. 3 DAYS! Thats insane. 4 days is one thing, but 3 days is just ballsy. He's only 25. Schilling has kinda taken him under his wing this spring, so I'm excited there.
Matt Clement is someone that was an allstar last year, then he got hit in the head with a line drive and it really messed him up. He has to show that he can do it for a full year, but I really like him personally although I know this one can go either way, but he has alot of upside if he can play like the first half of last year. He was our Ace before the allstar break last year. So I loved it that we kept him. Now personally I can't stand Wells as a person. I think he's whiny, and a big baby. With that said he can still pitch. He won 15 games for us last year, is a great big game pitcher. If his knees go bad we still have Papelbon (who personally I would have liked to see in our rotation this season) that could step in if needed. I think with our pitching our starters will be solid. Schilling was hurt, but his ankle didn't heal until this offseason. He played hurt last year, and now that he's no longer hurt I don't think he's suddenly going to forget how to pitch. Even if he doesn't have as much on his fastball he's a very smart pitcher, that can place pitches well. He even set guys up this spring by hitting a couple guys in the head after he said that he was going to pitch inside to guys. I think in our pitching Foulke is our biggest question mark. In fact it wouldn't surprise me at all to see him either not be effective, or healthy. With that said we have Papelbon that is capable of closing. If he winds up in the rotation Timlin did a great job of it last year, and I believe he could do it again with no problem. With our bullpen this deep it helps out alot. Tavarez is a loose cannon, who I just hope doesn't hurt us with a suspension during the pennant race. But he's still a solid pitcher. Riske has sucked, so It wouldn't surprise me if we don't use him very much, and Seanez has to prove that he can pitch in Boston. With that said if any of those guys faulter we have young guys that seem ready to perform. I love Lenny DiNardo. I think he will be a good long man for us. All in all I love our chances this year. I'm super excited about this years team, and I can't wait to see the games. I have MLB extra innings this year for direct tv, so I will get to see all, the games this year too. Sorry to go on and on, i'll try to keep my future posts smaller than this one