The "story" this preseason for the Red Sox has been the rather large turnover in the starting lineup.  Four changes – three new infielders and a new center-fielder.

I think this angle has been slightly overblown.  The core of the Red Sox the last several seasons has been Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Jason Varitek, Trot Nixon, Bill Mueller and Johnny Damon.  Four of those six players return in 2006.

The other positions, first base, second base and shortstop, have been revolving doors in recent years.  First base has belonged at various times to Kevin Millar, John Olerud and others.  Second base has been manned by Todd Walker, Pokey Reese, Mark Bellhorn and Tony Graffanino.  Shortstop – since Nomar left, has been a trip also.  Orlando Cabrera, followed by the late, great Edgar Renteria.

Still, since there have been some changes its always fun to compare year to year and see whether we think there’s been an upgrade.

Coco Crisp (CF) – I love this guy.  His numbers, and age (26), tell me that he’s going to make people forget Johnny Damon in no time.  He is not Rickey Henderson – that is, he will not get on base over forty percent of the time, but he’ll be plenty good enough with speed and a little power.  Damon, on the other hand, is due for a decline.  (SLIGHT UPGRADE)

Mark Loretta (2B) – The Sox must see second base as a spot where you can put an aging guy who can provide some offense at relatively low cost, because that’s what they’ve been doing there since Walker arrived a few years back.  Loretta fits that mold nicely.  If he is over his recent health problems, he should be an upgrade offensively.  One more thing – when is someone going to mention the classic Beantown punk classic from the 70′s, "Talk To Loretta" by the Nervous Eaters?  I still have the single in my juke box.  (SLIGHT UPGRADE)

David Ortiz (DH) – Doesn’t he remind you more and more of the Bambino?  He is a phenomenal offensive player, showing no signs of slowing down.  My only concern – most Red Sox stars eventually turn sour.  Its an iron law – think of Williams, Yaz, Rice, Boggs, Roger, Nomar, Mo, Pedro.  The media get to them, and they get grumpy.  This guy’s greatest contribution to the team could be overcoming that trend and setting a great example for the others.  (NO CHANGE)

Manny Ramirez (LF) – They just can’t get rid of this guy.  Oh well, I guess we are just going to have to suffer through another season of 40 home runs, 120 RBI and a high OBP.  Yes, there were times last year when he went to sleep for a while – but by the end the numbers were there.  If he’s around in 2007, we will have to start worrying about his age – but I say he’s got one more historic year in him.  (NO CHANGE)

Trot Nixon (RF) – When I penned a column for Masslive a few years back, I loved this guy and promoted him every chance I got.  I’m done.  Staying healthy is part of the deal – whether its his fault or not is beside the point.  Yes, there are certain situations when I still want to see him up there (Yankee Stadium against a righty comes to mind), but most of the time he’s just a gimpy guy with modest power.  A nice what-might-have-been kind of player, but that’s all.  (SLIGHT DECLINE)

Jason Varitek (C) – Eventually, a catcher breaks down.  True, Varitek is a tough guy, but at times last year his bat seemed slow and its inevitable that we will eventually see a decline in production.  With my April, rose-colored glasses firmly in place, I say he’s fine.  For now.  (NO CHANGE)

Mike Lowell (3B) – This is a pure guess.  He’s produced at high levels in the past, but last year was a bust.  He started poorly this spring, but came on with a vengeance late.  As one Globe columnist pointed out, Bill Mueller was a pretty good offensive player (about like Damon).  No superstar, but no liability either.  The rose-colored glasses come off for this one.  (SLIGHT DOWNGRADE)

Kevin Youkalis (IB) – This is likely to be a rough-platoon with J.T. Snow getting a fair amount of time, ala Olerud.  Youkalis – formerly known as the Greek God of Walks – will be expected to get on base and provide some spark at the bottom of the order.  Snow is a decent offensive player with a good glove.  (SLIGHT UPGRADE)

Alex Gonzalez (SS) – His history suggests that although he will not get on base with great regularity, he will hit for occasional power.  I like that.  It means from time to time he actually might hit a home run when they need it.  I have a theory, born of experience, that players acquired mostly for their defense lose their luster very quickly – fans and club officials lose patience with all the outs.  But overall, Gonzalez for Renteria is a good move.  (SLIGHT UPGRADE)

So there you have it – four slight upgrades, two slight downgrades and three positions where I see no change.  For an offense that already was among the best in the game, I think that’s pretty good.

It is no surprise that the Red Sox traded pitcher Bronson Arroyo.  One, he is at best a serviceable major league starting pitcher.  Two – although GM Theo Epstein denies there is such a thing – the Sox have excess pitching.  Three, the club was not enthused about Arroyo’s intense focus on his music career.  They’ll deny that too, but trust me – they thought he overdid it.

What is surprising is that the Red Sox traded Arroyo for a player – Reds outfielder Wily Mo Pena – that seems to stand for everything Bill James, Epstein and company loathe – a guy that looks the part, but does not produce.

Indeed, on WEEI yesterday Epstein sounded positively Dan Duquette-like, raving about Pena’s physique, power, potential and “tools.”  Anytime you hear talk about a player’s “tools” your alarm bells had better ring, because chances are the word is being employed to justify either acquiring, or hanging onto, a player that hasn’t put up numbers worth mentioning. 

One recalls the excess praise Duquette heaped upon the Adonis-like Wes Chamberlain when the club acquired him back in the ‘90’s.  Chamberlain looked like a guy that should have been a perennial All-Star.  Big, strong, Dave Winfield-like.  Problem was he couldn’t hit before he showed up in Fenway, and couldn’t hit once he got there.  He was out of baseball shortly thereafter.

Pena’s career numbers are as curious as they are unimpressive.  His on base percentage is just over .300 (.303), which is remarkably bad.  Certainly in the bottom five percent of outfielders.  And although his raw power produced 45 home runs in his last 647 at bats, he accumulated only 27 doubles during that time and struck out 224 times, or more than once every three at bats.  That sounds like a guy who rarely makes contact, but is strong enough to muscle one out when he does.  And it also looks like a major departure from the club’s philosophy of acquiring players that have good strike zone discipline – Bellhorn, Mueller, Loretta – regardless of their physical attributes.

So what does Pena have going for him?  Well, he’s big, strong and young – just 24. And as Epstein points out in his defense, Pena was drafted in his teens and has spent little time in the minors learning the game from the ground up.  The theory is there is still a lot of room for him to grow.

Nice try, Theo, but I am not sure how we solve that problem now.  After all, Pena supposedly is slated to make the big club and platoon with Trot Nixon, which means Pena will get maybe 200 or so at bats, all of them in the Fenway pressure cooker.  Hardly a minor league training experience.  And although his best years could be ahead of him (the whole late twenties thing), getting to those years may prove difficult if his production stays near the level it has reached to date.

David Ortiz recently played with Pena in winter ball, and he raves about his power and work ethic.  That’s good.  But I just can’t think of too many guys that significantly turned their games around like Pena needs to in order to succeed with the Red Sox.  The bottom line is this – I don’t think this is John Tudor for Mike Easler, but it could be one of those unnecessary gambles the Sox regret a year or two down the road. 

In the second of our series breaking down this year’s roster, we look at Josh Beckett’s new rotation mate, Curt Schilling.

For the Red Sox to contend in 2006, conventional wisdom dictates that the team needs Curt Schilling healthy and winning games.  Schilling was magnificent in 2004, posting a 21-6 record with an ERA of 3.26 in 226 innings.  And his exploits in the postseason are the stuff of legend – the bloody sock in game six of the ALCS, and the heroic win on a blustery night in game two of the World Series where he could barely walk.

Unfortunately, Schilling’s momentous achievement in 2004 contributed to an ankle problem that cost him almost the entire 2005 campaign.  The right-hander compiled just 93 innings pitched last year, mostly in relief, with limited effectiveness.  He recently claimed on sports radio that he seriously contemplated retirement.

After a difficult off season of non-stop rehabilitation, Schilling threw against the BC Eagles baseball team yesterday and looked good.  He struck out three and reported no serious problems.  That’s really good news for Sox fans, because the team needs – perhaps expects – that he will find a way to make it all work out despite the severity of his injury and the normal wear and tear that comes with age.

Schilling is an interesting player.  He is on the verge of 200 career wins, a serious achievement.  His numbers are good – he has appeared in close to 3000 innings, tenth among active pitchers behind first ballot Hall of Famers Roger Clemens, Greg Maddox and Randy Johnson and six others.  Another season or two and he will reach the top 100 all time for innings pitched.  His best stat is his strikeout to walk ratio, which is otherworldly.  For his career, Schilling has 2832 strikeouts and 660 walks, a ratio of 4.3 to 1, third in all of baseball history behind Ireland-born Tommy Bond and Pedro Martinez.  (This means in 2004, the Sox had the two, all-time greatest strikeout-to-walk pitchers in modern history.)

Schilling’s notoriety results from his having played in a lot of big games.  Unlike some stars, who go an entire career largely outside the spotlight, Schilling has found his way into four postseasons (he sat out the 2005 Division Series), and three World Series.  In those situations, he has delivered.  He has 7 postseason wins in 15 starts with an ERA of 2.06 (take away his disastrous start in game one of the 2004 ALCS and he’d be under 2.00).  And on the biggest stage of all, the World Series, Schilling has a record of 3-1 with an ERA of 2.11 in six starts.

Still, official, individual honors largely have eluded him.  He has appeared in six All Star games, and he was the 2001 World Series MVP with the Diamondbacks.  But he has never won a Cy Young Award, despite three twenty-win seasons.  In fact, in his entire career he has only gotten two first place votes.

I think Curt Schilling has had a career worthy of the Hall of Fame.  Unless he continues into his forties ala Roger Clemens and achieves great success in doing so, his win total – just over 200 – will put him on the low end of the spectrum.  This will only be highlighted by the fact that some guys with crazy win totals like Clemens (341), Maddox (318), Tom Glavine (275) and Johnson (263) will be up for a vote at about the same time and make his numbers look less stellar by comparison.  Still, one must take due note of Schilling’s incredible notoriety, his track record of postseason success, and his undeniable place in the recent history of the game.

If Schilling can deliver more goods in 2006, it will be great for the Red Sox and great for his place in history.

There are some parallels between the Red Sox’ off-season acquisition of former Marlin Josh Beckett and the club’s 1997 off-season acquisition of Pedro Martinez.

Both players were right-handed starting pitchers.  Both came from National League clubs, and therefore were something of a mystery to American League players and fans.  Both were young.  Beckett will be twenty-six on All-Star Day, the same age Pedro was in his first campaign with the Sox. Both arrived with some injury concerns.  Perhaps most importantly, both pitchers were acquired based in large part on the assumption that they would get a whole lot better in the future.  (It is common knowledge that players peak in their late twenties.)

Pedro made good on his promise, posting Hall of Fame numbers in four of his first five seasons with the Sox.  The question facing Red Sox fans is whether they can expect a similar kind of performance from Beckett.

Pedro arrived in Beantown with impressive numbers – a career record of 65-39 (.625) and an ERA of 3.02 in 120 starts, most of which had been with marginal teams. Beckett comes to town with a career record of 41-34 and an ERA of 3.46 in 103 starts (.546).  Beckett’s numbers are good, but not Pedro-like.

Looking a little deeper, it appears in hindsight that Pedro was poised to really turn in up in 1998-2001.  His last season with the Expos was spectacular.  His ERA was 1.90, and he rang up 305 strikeouts and just 67 walks in what is still a career-high 241 innings.  In other words, Martinez came aboard on the heels of a season for the ages.

Beckett has done well, but his achievements have been more modest, even recently.  Last year, he posted an ERA of 3.37, 11^th in the league.  Not bad, but not otherworldly either.  More concerning is the fact that he worked only 178 innings.  Among the league’s top twenty pitchers measured by ERA, Beckett ranked 19^th, and 39^th in the league as a whole. Even old, “sore-armed” Pedro made it to 15^th in the league with 217 innings pitched, and the Greatest Right-Handed Pitcher in the History of Major League Baseball himself – Roger Clemens – was 20^th with 211.

Beckett’s innings total reflects two stints on the disabled list – one for a blister on his pitching hand and another for a left oblique strain.  He finished strong, so it appears he got over these problems, but one has right to be concerned about the guy’s durability.  Note – despite posting just 178 innings last year, that total was his career high.

Don’t get me wrong, Beckett is good.  Darned good.  As a Sox fan, I’m glad to have him.  His price – $4.25 million – is positively bargain basement.  I’m just saying that Red Sox fans would be wise not to expect him to carry too big a load in 2006.  And as for his upside, it would be great if he could get up to 210 innings, and maintain his ERA around 3.30 in the American League.  Expecting more than that, this year, is wishful thinking.

So what do we think of the Red Sox’ newly acquired shortstop Alex Gonzalez? 

As I always say, the Sox braintrust is filled with young, highly educated guys that crunch numbers well into the night, if not the next morning.  Collectively, they have forgotten more about evaluating players than a whole bleacher section of fans know combined.

You will here two main arguments against Gonzalez – (1) to call his career .291 on base percentage low would be charitable – it is horrible and (2) he is coming off a poor year, by his own standards, with just 5 home runs.

Here are the arguments for him:

(1)   While Gonzalez does not get on base, his bat has a little pop.  The last three seasons he has averaged 31 doubles, and in 2003 and 2004 he averaged a very respectable 20 home runs a year.  If he hits 31 doubles and 20 home runs the Sox brass will be thrilled.

(2)   His career OBP and slugging percentage are not that terrible when compared to the average numbers for players at his position.  In other words, a .291 OPS and a .391 slugging percentage, while horrible for an outfielder or first baseman, are only below average for a shortstop.

(3)   Gonzalez can field his position.  His Range Factor (the number of balls fielded per 9 innings) has beaten the league average every year of his career.

(4)   He is durable.  The Sox can reasonably expect him to play 140 games, based on past experience.

(5)   Gonzalez is 29, so his best two or three years are probably right ahead of him.

(6)   He apparently has agreed to an incentive laden contract, which means the Sox will not be out a great deal of money if he fails to produce.

So here is what we have.  Without going into the kinds of things Bill James, Theo Epstein, Jed, Ben, Craig and the rest of the crew no doubt consider (balls hit to left field, balls hit in the air, tendencies in certain parks, etc.), it appears that the Sox have landed a durable, below average offensive shortstop with occasional power, who is an above average fielder.  Perhaps best of all, his best two or three years are ahead of him.

A note of caution is in order.  Players that can field but can’t hit always sound better in theory than in practice.  Remember Pokey Reese?  It sounded like a great idea when the Sox acquired him – a slick-fielding infielder that would solidify the club, defensively.  But once the games commenced, fans – and management – soon tired of seeing him make outs all the time.  If Gonzalez gets on base less than 30% of the time and fails to show occasional power, manager Terry Francona may find himself tempted to play someone else. 

One final thing.  With an on base percentage like that, it might not be a bad idea to bat Gonzalez eighth, not ninth, so that he will not make so many outs right before the leadoff hitter.  I haven’t exactly studied that but it appeals to me.