Lineup
3B - Betts - Kid is special. He is like a less muscular more patient hitting Castillo. Awesome batspeed/power for his size 5'9/160 pounds.
2B - Pedrioa - Our 2nd baseman for a very long time to come
DH - Ortiz - Heart and soul of the team. Hope he can play until 45
LF - Cespedes - It was all worth it to give up Lester for half a year
CF - Castillo - Expecting a 275 average hitter, 30 home runs, cannon of an arm
1B - Napoli - Its looking like a nightmare for any opposing pitchers to go through this lineup
RF - Victorino - hopefully can be healthy moving fwd. Gamer
SS - Boegarts - streaky right now. Good power and fielder
C - Vazquez - Needs to improve as a hitter but is a good catcher/calls a good game for his age
Starting rotation
- Lester. 90 percent he is going to be back and stay as a redsox for the long term
- De La Rosa
- Kelly
- Owens
- Ranaudo
Redsox weakspot is pitching help for next season. One more ace calibre pitcher and a closer (Uehara is done imo). Bucholz needs to go/be traded and is at his last year of his contract . I don't think he will ever be the same again. All eyes will be on Owens, who hasn't even played one major league game yet but is considered to have one of the nastiest curveballs of all of baseball. De La Rosa also has potential to be a top three pitcher.
Prediction: Our offense is going to be awesome. If everything goes well with pitching and the youngsters overachieve, we will be contending for one of the wildcard spots. Likely the team is going to need a legit #2 to really get anywhere. Not many good starting pitchers will be available through the 2015 FA (Scherzer is going to get paid big, but not likely from the sox). Through a trade or two is another option but if it doesn't involve anyone listed above.
thoughts?
If you are expecting 30 homers from Castillo you are going to be disappointed. He projects as a guy to hit 15 homers? He doesn't have a cannon for an arm either, he profiles as a good defensive CF with an average major league arm. I think he will be a good player but more in lines of what Brett Gardner is....
Owens is a nice prospect but his out pitch is his change-up, he has a great change up, some think it's the best in all of minor league baseball. He will start the year in triple A though, he still needs to iron out his command ( much like Lester when he was that age ) and continue to develop his curve ball, which is a fringe major league pitch right now. Owen is 6'7 and lanky, so an issue that he has is repeating his delivery, which will come in time.
I think the Sox are going all in next year - Here is my line-up
1 - Bett 3B - only way he is not on this team next year is because they acquired Stanton and Betts is the center piece
2 - Pedroia - franchise 2nd baseman, will hoover around .300 and play GG defense
3- Ortiz - hoping he has one year left in him
4 - Cespedes - RF - a full year in Boston and hitting behind Ortiz should produce 30/100
5 - Napoli - 1B, hope he gets healthy and continues to drive in runs
6 - Craig - LF, get that foot healthy and get back to his .300 and 100 days
7 - Castillo - CF his Brett Gardner type of game will play really well in Boston and in this line-up
8- Xander - he will explode next year, he will play average defense and hit 25 homers
9 - Vazquez & Ross - you can have a hole in the line-up with this deep line-up...
They need to get an Ace, I think Lester is in play here and it's a good story:)
1 - Lester
2 - Clay
3 - Kelly
4 - Ruby
5 - Raunado
If the Sox don't get Lester, I can see James Shields here, he is not Lester but he is a good pitcher and he could help bridge the gap until all the kids are ready....
This team will compete for a division....