Few players on the Red Sox had a more impressive year than John Lackey.

Oh, you may laugh and scoff, but consider this: only twice before has a pitcher managed 160 innings of work while playing as terribly as John Lackey did according to ERA+. The other two, for the record, are Jose Lima in '05 and Hub Pruett in 1927. Aside from a short stint of average pitching in July, Lackey was completely without merit for the season, offering up 6+ runs about as often as he managed a quality start.

Yes, John Lackey was historically bad, and that is, in its own special way, impressive. It's also unpredictable, it turns out.

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If there's one man who could have made the difference for the Red Sox this past year, it was Clay Buchholz.

It's hard to say the end of Buchholz' season came suddenly. After all, while he pitched his last game on June 16, it wasn't until much later that the severity of his injury would become clear. As a result, Red Sox fans were left waiting for a savior, hoping for a return that would never come.

In his shortened season, Buchholz was not the sort of world-beater that he proved to be in 2010. He was, however, exactly what the Sox needed in September: a solid starter capable of keeping the team in the game. Hopefully we'll get something similar when he returns in 2012.

Your projections after the jump.

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Looking back on 2011, you might be tempted to call Jarrod Saltalamacchia one of the pleasant surprises of the year. After a miserable start, the Sox' starting catcher really seemed to hit his groove in the middle months of Summer, and for a while had us all thinking we'd found a solid, if imperfect answer behind the plate.

And, certainly, it was a surprising year for Salty. Not many expected the guy to come out and belt 16 homers or put up a .450 slugging percentage, as you'll see below.

The problem is that not many expected a .288 OBP either. 

As good as the first four months of the season were for Salty, the last two were an absolute disaster, with Salty becoming an automatic out in September. And now, really looking back on the season as a whole, it's hard to feel terribly comfortable running with Salty outside of a platoon situation.

But, hey, at least the projections were decent.

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So...Carl Crawford.

There's no sugar coating it: Carl Crawford was a complete bust in his first year with the Red Sox. Coming from Tampa Bay as a star on offense with his speed and contact hitting as well as on defense, where he covered left field with all the skill of a center fielder, Carl Crawford made his way into Fenway Park and established himself not only as the worst regular bat in the lineup, but amazingly enough also one of the worst gloves.

You can say you didn't like the deal, or that you knew Crawford wasn't a fit for Fenway. But one thing's for damn sure: none of you can say you expected this.

And I've got the proof:

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Remember how nice having some semblance of the old David Ortiz back for 2010 was? It was a pleasant surprise in an otherwise disappointing year, and seemed like it would help us ease into the end of David Ortiz' career compared to the rather jarring drops of 2008 and 2009. No, we didn't expect that Ortiz would continue to be the old Ortiz. Maybe he had another 2008 in store for us? Solid production, but not spectacular.

Yeah, to hell with that.

David Ortiz' 2011 was the real deal. Maybe it wasn't quite as ridiculous as 2005-2007, but this was near-prime Papi hitting balls all over the park with some regularity. Forget about ending his career, now the DH is looking at a multi-year contract!

It was fun to watch, but not exactly easy to predict, as you'll see:

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It's that time of year again, when we look back at our pre-season projections and think about just how crazy we were back in January, February, and March--back when everything looked so damn promising.

We'll start with the curious case of Adrian Gonzalez. By far the most exciting offensive force in the lineup before the year began, the new acquisition by all obejctive measurements had a terrific year. Strong defense and a top-5 bat at the position led to 6.6 WAR. It's hard to scoff at that.

And yet...there was something a bit off about it all. For whatever reason, at least to me and a good few others, Gonzalez' season just didn't seem to bring the sort of impact the numbers suggest. Maybe it was because of the power outages which left Gonzo with just 27 homers, mostly bunched together. Or, more likely, it  was because we all had such incredibly high expectations.

Are you ready for the most massive of community projections tables ever? Click through to see how you (and the rest here at OTM) did.

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One man we didn't get to see in yesterday's unfortunate opener was Jonathan Papelbon. So at least the slate is clean for his community projections--the final one of the bunch.

Papelbon's effectiveness could possibly make or break the pen this year. While Daniel Bard (Opening Day excepting) and Bobby Jenks are expected by most to have solid campaigns, it's hard to say the same for Papelbon. And with most other members of the bullpen being far from sure things, it would be pretty big to have that third solid option in late innings instead of the mess we saw last year.

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We've put it off for long enough. Now we have to get Jon Lester out of the way before tomorrow's game, when he will finally take his well-deserved spot as the team's opening day starter against the Texas Rangers.

Will he finally cast off his early-year troubles and make a run at the Cy Young? Will he collapse because you are a Yankees fan and would really appreciate it if he did? Or will he be the same old Lester?

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