Heating up the Hot Stove

So it appears we have seen the last of Pedro Martinez in a Red Sox uniform (how many times have I said that over the past 3 months?). With the biggest piece of the Sox’ off-season puzzle falling into place, now seems to be a good time to take stock of where the Sox brass has gone this winter, where they are now, and where they are going.

Pedro signing with the Mets – At the price New York paid for him (4 years $56M according to the Herald), the Sox couldn’t afford NOT to let Pedro walk. With the $14M per year that Pedro would have commanded had the Sox re-signed him, plus the $10M per year the Scott Boras is asking for Derek Lowe, the Sox have almost $24M to fill out their pitching staff. And with Carl-apalooza seemingly setting up permanent camp in the Bronx, the Sox are gonna have to get creative.

The signing of Boomer Wellscosts them between $8 and $18M over the next two years, so assuming that the 42-year old lefty doesn’t live up to all off his incentives, we’re looking in the ballpark of $6-7M a year.

To fill out the staff, the Sox need to send Bronson Arroyo, SS prospect Hanley Ramirez and the Greek God of Walks Kevin Youkilis to Oakland for Tim Hudson. Hudson is 29 years old (four years younger than Martinez) has a career record of 92-39 (very comparable to Pedro during his tenure in Boston), is only making $6.75M next year (though he is apparently looking for 4 years in the $12-14M range for an extension—about what Pedro was asking for) and will be the ace of this staff in the post-Schilling era.

Then, they snatch up the Cubs’ Matt Clement (.220 Opponent’s BA, averaged almost 200 Ks over the past three years) for Jaret Wright/Jon Lieber money--3 years $22.5M--and, for the price of re-signing Pedro and D-Lowe, the Sox staff for next year looks like this:

Curt Schilling
Hudson
Clement
Wells
Tim Wakefield

Not too shabby, y’ask me. Mebbe even an upgrade over last year.

I’ll have my thoughts on the position players later this week, but for now I’d like to sketch out an idea of how I’d like the chips to fall. It would look something like this:

-Forget Edgar Renteria and his huge contract demands. Re-sign Pokey Reese to play SS and spend that money on:

-Re-sign catcher Jason Varitek, possibly the best catcher in the game for 4 years, $40M.

-Sign a first baseman that can wallup the ball. The Sox need another bat in the middle of the line-up and the Millar-Minky combo at first will not suffice. Carlos Delgado is available, but his 4 years, $64M may price him out. A cheaper alternative (if the Mariners haven’t already scooped him up at the time of printing) is Richie Sexson, who’s injury last year brought his price down into the $10M per year range.

If these decisions come to pass, we could be looking at a lineup something like this come April:

CF Johnny Damon
2B Mark Bellhorn
DH David Ortiz
LF Manny Ramirez
1B Sexson
RF Trot Nixon
C Varitek
3B Bill Mueller
SS Reese

Again, not a bad looking line-up.

Of course, the rose-colored glasses of a World Championship have a way of making every line-up permutation look promising.