why so down on the Red Sox?

If they get Kuroda or Oswalt, they’re the best team in baseball.

the sox have no chance at division or that they will be a .500 team is just ridiculous. what i do sense and myself included is after last offseason expectations were so high and predictions so lofty then the bad first month followed by thge best 4 months in baseball and finished off with the biggest collapse in major league history. i am going into this season with a more even keeled look onto 2012. but i will say this i love the malancon and bailey aquisitions i understand the bard expirement for the rotation stretch him out and see if he can do it and if not he can go back to the bullpen. now i think if they could get kuroda or oswalt on a 1 or 2 year deal and keep aceves for the bullpen i would be very excited about the red sox chances !! a starting rotation of becket lester bucholz oswalt /kuroda and bard with a bullpen led by aceves melanson and bailey is a pretty good staff on paper.

I think that if we can sign a starter we should be a 94ish win team next season. I fully expect Ellsbury to regress a bit and I don’t think Ortiz will put up quite the numbers he did in 2011, but I feel that a full offseason for Gonzo not having to rehab his shoulder and rebounding for Crawford to make up that difference. And with the offense we should put up we only really need a solid pitching staff, not an ace 1-5, as long as it isn’t as atrocious as what the production was at the end of last season we should be fine.

I gave them about a 25% to miss the playoffs 22 games out…and that was being nice.

Given that its almost impossible not to improve in RF-LF and the 4-5 pitching spots, I generally agree with you. I’d say 93 wins. I still think the Rays win the division.

BUT they could also have Beckett, Bard, Buchholz, and Youk be on the DL at the same time with degradation from SS,2B,CF and DH.

…and assure you when the Sox are at .500 on May 1st, there will be panic in the streets.

through May, June, July, August but it will be very easy to reverse last April and Sept. With a healthy Gonzo, PD, Youk, CC, Buchholz, Jenks, Hill; a platoon of Salty/Shop stopping the running game; and an upgraded Rotation and Pen, this should be a better team. More importantly, after September and subsequent changes, it will be more motivated and consistent. A true force in the division.

(If a little Wall-O’-Text-y.)

The only counterpoint I’d give is that Boston’s terrible luck last year was the twin of the terrible luck the year before, which tells you that the mean, health-wise, may be lower than we thought. We probably can’t regress our team’s health projection back to the average health of your average major league team.

That said, it really just has to be “bad health” and not “catastrophic health” for us to make the playoffs. What’s more, with the extra wild card, our chances at making the playoffs are improved.

Anyone telling you that 2012’s team is going to be 10 wins worse than 2011’s team is not providing level-headed analysis. There is no reasonable projection of this team’s individual performances that doesn’t add up to at least a 90-win team.