To much of this in the offseason wears on that shoulder....

Patting himself on the back.

the four horsemen

I see two No. 1 starters in that picture and that means there's a good chance for a World Series.

I see a No. 1 a 1A and 2 giant question marks... hopefully I'm wrong

The whole rotation is a question mark. Can Beckett reproduce a career year? Can Daisuke make the leap to being a legit #2? Will Lester's velocity come back now that he's had a full healthy offseason? Can Wakefield stay healthy? Then there's Buchholtz who ran out of gas last year and is still a rookie. There's potential there for either having the best pitching staff in baseball again or for a total debacle.

is it just me or is ellsbury bulking up?

He looks like someone Congress might like to speak with.

back to business:

Spoiler: show

shit, who told him how to get there!!

Spoiler: show

ellsbury - 1
crisp - 0

Do you think Francona is saying that Ellsbury's going to have to take the job from Coco so that he doesn't lose Coco before the season even starts?

So it's essentially the same thing but instead of letting Coco do what he does Tito's gonna let Theo do what he does.

and BINGO was his name "O"

I was reading somewhere today (Herald or Globe, can't remember which) and it said Bucholz would be held to a max of 190 innings. If that's the case my guess is that Tavarez or Snyder gets the nod in the 5 spot and Clay starts the year in AAA where they can pull in after 4 or 5 innings regardless of the score. What also leads me to believe this is that they offered Odalis Perez a contract before he signed elsewhere today. I would think if they thought Clay was going to be in the rotation from Opening Day they wouldn't be bothering with guys like Odalis Perez.

right. i don't understand what the deal with kyle lohse is, i mean, he seems like a servicable guy. sign him and throw him in the mix with snyder, tavarez and david paulie. i mean, what happens if wake or, zod-forbid, beckett gets hurt? where's the rotation then?

Well I think the hope is that Wake's injuries (because you know they're coming) hold off until mid season or later. That way Bucholz can be brought along at a rate the Sox are comfortable with. I know we talked about a 6 man rotation a long time ago and, although Francona and John Farrell said they weren't going to do that, Francona did say the other day that they absolutely will look to skip starts with guys when they get the chance. If they did something like that it would certainly help to prevent Bucholz from hitting the 190 mark before the playoffs. But I also think that if they were to make the playoffs and Bucholz hits 190 in the division serious or the ALCS, SHOULD THEY MAKE IT THAT FAR, then they wouldn't shut him down. Sorry for the bold and italics but after the last few months around here I felt the need to do that.

i still don't understand why some team hasn't offered colon or lohse a contract.

My guess with Colon because he's had injuries to his right elbow and shoulder for 3 consecutive years. As far as Lohse, it's because of this:

"An overlooked story coming out of the November GM meetings was the fact that, according to ESPN’s Buster Olney, free agent starter Kyle Lohse is seeking a $40M contract, presumably over 4 years. And, yes, his agent is none other than Scott Boras.

Kyle Lohse is coming off ERA’s of 4.62, 5.38 and 4.18 over the last three years (and that 4.18 era in 2005 is not supported by his 1.43 WHIP that year). His career WHIP is 1.43. He hasn’t won 10 games since 2003. And Baseball Reference has his most comparable pitchers as John Thompson, Brian Moehller, Mark Redman and Dave Mlicki. Basically, he’s as mediocre as they come."

Exactly. No more jinxing championships.