Day 1: Boston Red Sox

The entire schedule of when team recaps will be.

Team: Boston Red Sox

2007 Regular Season Record: 96-66

2007 Postseason Record: 10-3; won World Series

Cost per win: $143,026,214 / 106 = $1,349,303 per win

2007 Season Recap: Well things really couldn’t have gone any better for the Red Sox this season. They won the World Championship and did it by leading their division for most of the regular season and tied for the best regular season record in baseball. They rolled over the Angles in the ALDS, won in 7 games over the Indians in the ALCS, and easily pulled off the sweep of the Rockies in the World Series. Their big name guys played like planned most of the season. Josh Beckett contended for the AL Cy Young award and high profile import Dice-K Matsuzaka came close to matching the hype that surrounded him from the time it was announced that he was signed.

While it’s hard to find problem spots with a team that had as good of a season as the Sox did it would have to be the overpaying of a couple players who had sub-par seasons. One spot of weakness in the Red Sox armor was at short stop in the form of Julio Lugo and his $8 million salary. Lugo batted .237 on the season and had 19 errors through the season, definitely not worth the money they spent on him. Another questionable pick-up for the Red Sox was J.D. Drew who they paid $14 million in 2007. Drew ended up with a .270 batting average and 64 RBIs definitely not the numbers to justify a salary higher than David Ortiz. Drew however made up for his bad regular season by shining in the postseason.

On the plus side the Red Sox got some surprise performances from low salary and very young players. Leading the pack was AL Rookie of the Year Justin Pedroia. Pedroia took the starting second baseman duties for the Sox and hit .317 and only had 6 errors in 137 games. Another young player stepping up this season for the Red Sox was Jonathon Papelbon. He built on his strong 2006 season and converted 37 of 40 save opportunities. There were several other big time performances for the red Sox this season but that is expected for a team with a $143 million payroll, the second highest in baseball.

Key Free Agents: 3B Mike Lowell and RP Mike Timlin; that’s really all for the Sox free agents, they have already resigned Julian Tavarez, Curt Schilling, and Tim Wakefield so they really won’t have any major losses to free agency. Eric Gagne is a free agent but I don’t think anyone in Boston will be upset to see him go after how little he performed for the Red Sox this season.

Offseason Needs: The Red Sox are in great shape this offseason. If they are able to resign Mike Lowell then they don’t have any glaring problems from top to bottom. I’m assuming that both Lugo and Drew will get out of the slumps that they were in this year and if they don’t the Sox are pretty much stuck with playing them because of their big long term contracts that will be hard to convince any team to take on. The Red Sox may need to bring in some pitching help to increase the depth of both the bullpen and the starting rotation but 3 or 4 of the 5 days they can be pretty sure they will get solid starts from Beckett, Dice-K, Schilling, and Wakefield. So any additions the Sox will make this offseason will be more for depth rather than to add an impact player.

Prediction for the 2008 season: Their isn’t going to be a whole lot holding the Red Sox back from putting up another very good season. The one thing that could slow them down is injuries to a roster that is aging. I could very easily see them making it to the NLCS or World Series once again. I’m not sure if I see them winning it all again but I will give that some thought and get back to you after I’ve looked at all the teams.