Alex Speier of WEEI is reporting that the Red Sox are set to announce Curt Young as the replacement for Pitching coach John Farrell. Young was the pitching coach for the Oakland A's pitching staff which, under him in 2010, recorded the lowest ERA in the American League, and has led their pitchers to consistently low ERAs during his time as pitching coach there (which began in 2004)
This is his first time leaving the Oakland organization since he was drafted by them in 1983, apart from short stints with the Royals and Yankees in 1992. After retiring as a player in 1993 and a few years off, he spent 4 years as a pitching coach in the minors before moving up to the major league level.
Personally, I'm pretty excited about this. When I first heard Farrell was the main candidate for the Blue Jays managerial opening, I was disappointed until seemingly right after, Young announced he wouldn't be back with the A's. It's hard for me, as an outsider to see exactly the effect that a pitching coach is having on a staff, but it is easy to see that over his time coaching, he has had a lot of successful young pitchers. From what I've seen in interviews, he's always seemed like a pretty intelligent, articulate coach. Maybe he's what the Red Sox are going to need to get their pitchers performing as we know they should in 2011.
EDIT: This is now official. The Sox have released a lovey-dovey press release and everything.