Opening Day Eve

Today was opening day for several teams; the Red Sox open at Texas tomorrow. Terry Francona has already announced the lineup as well:

CF Ellsbury (L)

2B Pedroia (R)

LF Crawford (L)

3B Youkilis (R)

1B Gonzalez (L)

DH Ortiz (L)

RF Cameron (R)

C Saltalamacchia (S)

SS Scutaro (R)

SP Lester (L)

No surprises there really. Cameron gets the start over Drew and Youkilis breaks up Crawford and Gonzalez instead of Gonzalez and Ortiz but that's all due to the fact they'll be facing lefty C. J. Wilson tomorrow. I expect to see Drew in Right and Youkilis batting 5th most games. Although with 3 left handed outfielders, Cameron's going to get lots of opportunities to play this year.

I tried out the MLB TV feed today too with the opening day games and was pretty disappointed. For purportedly providing HD service, the feed on the live game was dreadful. The only time I got HD was when nothing was moving on the screen. During the game I was lucky to get SD and whenever there was any action at all (like oh, I don't know, during any pitch or whenever there was a batted ball) the resolution downgraded into gigantic pixels. I'm sure if I called it in, my connection speed would be blamed instead of their service but this was downright atrocious.

The saved games were better in terms of resolution but I'm still disappointed there's not a better way to jump ahead a few seconds to skip the between-pitch video. A 5-second skip would be ideal. I can skip to the next "event" (hit, K, SB, etc.) but the fast forward doesn't preview to where you're at in the game and it needs to reload anytime you go forward or backward. So fast forwarding 5 seconds takes 15 seconds to reload. Looks like I'll have to watch every second of every game if I'm really going to watch all of the games. Yikes!

I'll be out of town this weekend so I may be slow to post my observations for the games this weekend but stayed tuned. Baseball's back, baby!

Projections

I've played in a fantasy baseball league the last couple of years so I can't help but come up with my own projections for the Sox players next year. Because we're not playing fantasy this year, I'll let you in on my thoughts before the season starts. It might be interesting to see how the numbers work out at the end of the year.

My projection system consists of looking at the last three full years and guessing that next year will be somewhat similar. I assume every player will play a full season because a season ending injury seems purely random. I apologize in advance if the tables don't come out well on your screen. Blogger doesn't have a table tool for some inane reason.

So without further ado, in order of my projected lineup, the hitters:

Pos Player R HR RBI SB BA

CF Ellsbury 96 8 63 51 0.284

2B Pedroia 110 16 84 17 0.315

LF Crawford 91 15 93 52 0.295

1B Gonzalez 89 38 108 0 0.282

3B Youkilis 91 25 102 3 0.301

DH Ortiz 78 29 100 0 0.268

RF Drew 71 21 70 2 0.270

C Salty 53 14 68 0 0.259

SS Scutaro 85 10 63 5 0.272

Gonzalez and Crawford are hard to project as they've changed teams, although Gonzalez is an order of magnitude more difficult with the league change too. Saltalamacchia is difficult too as he hasn't had much big league experience to project off of. Ellsbury, Pedroia, Scutaro, and Youkilis are all coming off of injury shortened seasons so it'll be interesting to see how they bounce back. Ortiz and Drew are going to have pretty quite years but as long as the Sox are winning, I don't think people will mind.

Now the pitching, in the order Francona already announced (starters only; who projects relievers anyway?!?):

SP W K ERA WHIP

Lester 17 215 3.34 1.24

Lackey 13 145 4.01 1.33

Buchholz 15 132 3.51 1.28

Beckett 16 185 3.95 1.22

Matsuzaka 11 154 4.48 1.35

I'm surprised at the Lackey-love from Francona; I didn't see much to like from him last year and he's really only ever had one year where he was close to dominant (2007, with the Angels). Lester will be just as good this year as last; Buchholz won't be as lucky as he was last year but will still be good. It's an odd numbered year so expect a big season from Beckett (more like 2009 than 2007). Matsuzaka has had 4 years to find his feet in America; it doesn't look like he's going to be anything more than what we've seen already.

So there you have it. Now let me have it in the comments.

Sox are 12-14 in Grapefruit League action so far. I don't mind losing any of those games while they're still in Florida. Save the wins for when they count. 11 more days till Opening Day!

The Competition

Last week the Sox went 3-4-1 in Grapefruit League action but more interestingly, they went 2-0-1 playing division foes Baltimore and New York. Which got me thinking: I wrote about the Sox offseason, maybe I should comment on the competition. Ergo, in no particular order...

Baltimore Orioles (2010: 66-96):

The O's probably had the most active offseason in the AL East. They also had the most ground to cover after finishing last for the third straight year. New pickups included veterans Derrek Lee and Vladimir Guerrero as well as infielders JJ Hardy and Mark Reynolds. Essentially the Orioles turned almost half of their batting order and it's a good thing for them. Last year's lineup posted a miserable 9 WAR combined. Yikes. The pitching benefits from the signing of Justin Duchscherer and relievers Jeremy Accardo and Kevin Gregg. Overall, the Oriole front office has shown an interest in winning this year but you can't help but look at this team as too little too late. The improvement isn't going to win a title this year and isn't sustainable enough to win in future years. In the AL East, you need to have long term homegrown talent to compete with the Sox and the Yankees and the Orioles are lacking that.

New York Yankees (2010: 95-67):

The big story of the offseason for the Yankees was the deal they didn't make. Cliff Lee shocked the world by scorning the Yankees (and the Rangers) and signing with the Phillies. This left the Yankees in a bit of lurch and made the jewel of this offseason signing catcher Russell Martin who will take the load off of Jorge Posada. Andruw Jones was also signed as a fourth outfielder and relievers Pedro Feliciano and Rafael Soriano were added as well. Overall, a disappointing offseason for the Yankees but in reality, they had so much strength in so many aspects of the game last year, not making any moves would have still left them with a very good team. Starting pitching appears to be this year's team's main weakness with the retirement of Andy Pettite but look for the Yankees to still have a very competitive team, especially come trade deadline time.

Tampa Bay Rays (2010: 96-66):

The defending AL East champs made the fewest moves out of any of the competition, inking only three new players. Former Sox and members of "The 25" Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez were added to replace Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena. Kyle Farnsworth was added to the bullpen but the rest of the Ray revisions were replaced with home grown talent. You can't help but look at this Rays team and feel like they're moving in the wrong direction. After making the World Series in 2008, the Rays have been essentially treading water each year and just getting a year older while doing it. Unless their payroll increases drastically, they won't be able to keep their home grown talent and maintain their competitive advantage. This next year seems to me like the year they lose their momentum but that may just be wishful thinking on my part.

Toronto Blue Jays (2010: 85-77):

Our sole Canadian MLB representatives are another team that seems to be just treading water but they've been doing it for nearly a decade. This last offseason saw the addition of West Coast outfielders Rajai Davis and Juan Rivera along with relievers Carlos Villanueva, Jon Rauch, and Octavio Dotel. It's hard to get excited about any of those pick ups though really and after last season, it's hard to understand what the Blue Jays front office's strategy is for becoming competitive. It's been a long time since the Blue Jays were competing for the division title and it doesn't look like this year will be any different. Maybe the strategy is to catch lightening in a bottle every year, a la Jose Bautista last year.

So there it is in a nutshell. The Sox have a good chance of taking the division with this motley crew but one thing we all learned last year was that injuries are an element than can throw any team's chances for a loop. All of this prognosticating is pointless until they've played the games after all.

T-minus 24 days till Opening Day!