Boston Officially OFF Suicide Watch Until April.

It’s been a long season, and more of a roller coaster than the stats would indicate. Sure, the Red Sox grabbed first place in the AL East, never to relinquish it, on April 18th - but this virtual wire to wire dominance was tested by the annual Yankees surge, the annual bullpen implosion, and the semi-annual ALCS comeback.

However, with a handful of returning members from the 04’ World Series team - and a post Babe Ruth World Championship already in our pockets - the desperation that has linked Sox fans for almost a century was noticeably absent.

Now we’ve won 2 World Series in four years, but the difference between this year and 2004 is, "we’ve only just begun." - the song from Happy Gilmore

In 2004 I was, understandably, in the camp that thought we should keep together the “idiots” that brought an end to New England’s perpetual suffering. But, I guess with Theo, foresight is 20/20 now that:

Millar hits .200 with 12 home runs (in the DH spot with an AL East Rival), and hasn’t gone opposite field since 84’

Pedro has had both his legs surgically replaced (he’s still the only pitcher I’ve seen lose 10 mph of velocity and somehow remain above average) and has pitched roughly thirty games in the last 3 years.

Mark Bellhorn was recently spotted whiffing on a breaking ball (down and in) at his son’s Babe Ruth League practice.

Orland Cabrera has…….oh, he hits over .300 every year, is patient at the plate, and is infinitely better than Lugo defensively. Can’t win em all.

Anyway. As we move into 2008, we can finally see the product of Theo’s commitment to the farm system:

Although Pedroia is 5’3” in heels, I don’t know if there’s anyone else I’d rather at the plate with a hit and run on. I’d also take him in a steel cage match versus a combination of any three players in the entire league.





Tacoby Bellsbury: in his first major league at bat he hit a routine ground ball to short…….and beat it out……. In his first major league at bat he hit a routine ground ball to short…….and beat it out. He’s faster down the first base line than Ichiro, could probably play Left and Center at the same time in Fenway, and even showed some power to left at the end of the year. Pencil him in for rookie of the year in 08’.



Clay Butcholz threw a no-hitter in his second major league start. Jon Lester recovered from cancer to win game 4 of the World Series and should still add some velocity to his low 90’s fastball, making him a very, very, tough lefty if he can keep it in the zone. These guys will have to adjust to playing a full season as a Boston starter, but will be as solid of a back end of a rotation as there is in baseball.

Becket is simply the best pitcher in the game, and Diceman will start to show why we paid 100 million next year.







Yeah we have two contracts (Drew and Lugo) which seem to be giving us about .40 cents on the dollar, but I still contend that it takes a full year to adjust to playing in Boston (see Renteria), and expect them both to be serviceable in the immediate future.

And if there’s one thing we learned in this post season (or the last 5 years), it’s this: if the role players produce around ManRam and Papino, you’ll have to score double digits to beat us.

So, I’ll enjoy this for another week before giving Theo my full off season plans, which starts with replacing post season announcer Joe Buck and Tim McCarver with Remy and Wally.