FanHouse JulioLugo

For a guy who only has a .695 OPS over the past two seasons, Julio Lugo still looks like a wanted commodity -- at least now that the Red Sox had to designate him for assignment. There are at least two teams rumored to be connected with Lugo at the moment.

The strongest rumor seems to have Lugo landing in New York, with the Mets. He'd fill in at shortstop until the injured Jose Reyes returns to the lineup. The rumors are circling because the Mets reportedly are looking to cut ties with Tim Redding.

Let's get this straight: The World Baseball Classic is far from perfect. If you want to hate the event, and believe it should never occur again, that's well within your rights. I won't argue, although I'm personally enjoying it. I do, however, have a problem with the constant complaining done both in the media and by fans of Major League Baseball when it comes to injuries.

Injuries are part of baseball. They occur whether you are playing in your local summer bush league, Spring Training, the World Baseball Classic, or in the regular big-league season. This spring, there have been a rash of injuries across all of the majors, but the overwhelming majority of them had nothing to do with the WBC.

From now until the regular season begins, Fantasy Flings is where you'll find interesting story lines about your favorite teams from Spring Training. If there is a position battle, a nagging injury, a comeback story or a youngster making a surge for the "big club" we'll let you know the fantasy implications.

Boston Red Sox
The shortstop battle between Jed Lowrie and Julio Lugo is heating up. Lowrie has six hits in sixteen at-bats with two doubles and a triple while Lugo has eight hits in fifteen at-bats with two doubles.

Lugo has made changes the Sox hope will help him recapture the power he showed before his arrival in Boston. He added muscle this offseason and, this spring, he slightly altered his batting stance.

Hitting coach Dave Magadan has been telling Francona he expects to see more power from Lugo this season.

There aren't enough positions on the field for both of these guys to play full-time and the DH spot is going to be occupied by David Ortiz. That can only mean one thing; a who's hotter at the moment platoon. No fantasy owner wants to hear that. This is one of those situations where what's best for the Major League team isn't so good for your fantasy team.

Fantasy baseball draft season is coming, so you best be prepared by delving through every major player on each team. Fantasy FanHouse is here to help with a quick once-over.

Meet the ...
Team that decided not to spend big bucks in the offseason. Reversing course from the normal offseason spending spree in New England, the Red Sox team headed into 2009 looks remarkably similar to last year's squad. You'll recognize all nine hitters in the starting lineup and a majority of the starting rotation. Key acquisitions were made in the bullpen, bringing Takashi Saito from the Dodgers and Ramon Ramirez from the Royals. John Smoltz will look weird without a Braves uniform, but should make a major contribution to the pitching staff when he returns from shoulder surgery. And if Brad Penny can return from injuries to his 2007 form, he should provide a nice spark to the rotation as well.

It's easy to group the Red Sox and the Yankees together. Heck, during the Rays' amazing run last summer the two ancient rivals almost became one word. ('Can the upstart Rays really hold off the YankeesandRedSox?'). And the rush to mash them into one Northeast superpower makes sense, at least on the surface.

Rabid fanbases that are more alike than they would like to admit. Century-old tradition. Deep coffers. Expectations of success that would seem ridiculous anywhere else. There's no doubt the franchises have plenty in common.

But from a baseball operations standpoint, it's getting harder and harder to see numerous similarities. Consider the players Boston has signed this winter: Brad Penny, Josh Bard, Rocco Baldelli and John Smoltz. CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and A.J. Burnett those guys ain't.

Of course, the Red Sox are still big spenders. They were something like $12 million short in the Teixeira sweepstakes, depending on who you believe, and they've given out a few whoppers over the years like the Daisuke Matsuzaka ($103 million between the posting fee and his contract) and J.D. Drew ($70 million) deals.

Coming off of a last-place finish in the AL Central, the Tigers are desperate for upgrades all over the place, including at shortstop, but after splurging big last winter, they're looking to do it at a discount.

As such, Detroit has targeted the Red Sox, who have a logjam at shortstop with rookie Jed Lowrie overtaking Julio Lugo in midseason, and the ability to absorb an albatross contract, namely Nate Robertson's or Dontrelle Willis', in recent weeks.

But according to Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald, those talks have stalled and the chances of a deal between the two clubs is "remote."

The question becomes what now for the Tigers. They'll probably revisit trade discussions with Boston and kick the tires on San Diego's Khalil Greene and Pittsburgh's Jack Wilson, but with the Sox increasingly likely to hold on to Lugo and with the acquisition cost of Greene prohibitive, their options are limited in trade.

They might be even more limited in free agency. Detroit already declined Edgar Renteria's 2009 option and appears unwilling to walk down that road again after only one season. It will certainly be priced out of the Rafael Furcal market and probably the Orlando Cabrera market as well. Add it all up, and the Tigers might be forced to punt the shortstop position in 2009, settling for a platoon of Ramon Santiago and one of the bargain infield options like David Eckstein or Alex Cora.

Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2009.

The Red Sox may have fallen short of the Rays in the AL East and in the ALCS in 2008, but despite the frustrating end to their season, they actually proved something quite significant and positive. The team that was once known mostly for a championship drought that spanned eight decades is now known as the premier franchise in baseball.

Boston has won the World Series twice since 2004 and been to the ALCS in four of the last six seasons. Perhaps more importantly, GM Theo Epstein has proven deft at mixing in new talent -- at providing stability while also keeping the roster fresh and young. Indeed, the Red Sox have won two championships with two almost entirely different groups of players.

That's going to be more important than ever going forward. The AL East has become a cruel beast and Tampa Bay, not Boston, has suddenly become the young, deep power in the division. With the Yankees looming as well, Epstein is going to have to keep working his magic. Get younger, Theo. Get better. Oh, and be a perennial World Series contender while you're at it.

The Red Sox ended their season one win short of another improbable comeback and their third World Series trip in the last five years. Considering all the success they've experienced this decade, it'd be easy to call 2008 a failure.

But that would be folly, a twisted Boston-flavored version of the Steinbrenner Doctrine. You can't define success in the era of the three-tiered postseason by championships. There's simply too much parity and too much variance in a short series to expect any team to wind up in the World Series every year.

So instead, let's take a quick look at what the Red Sox accomplished this year and spin forward to 2009.

Despite major injuries to David Ortiz, Josh Beckett, Mike Lowell, Julio Lugo, Daisuke Matsuzaka and J.D. Drew, lost seasons from Jason Varitek and Clay Buchholz and the departure of the team's best hitter, Manny Ramirez, at the trade deadline, Boston managed to win 95 games. There probably isn't any other team in baseball who could have gone through all of that and still had the organizational depth to qualify for the postseason in the AL East.

The Red Sox have several question marks heading into the offseason. Varitek is a free agent and Boston will have to make a very difficult decision about its captain with his best years behind him. GM Theo Epstein will need to figure out what to do with Lugo, who has been displaced at shortstop by Jed Lowrie, and once again deal with the logjam at center field created by having Jacoby Ellsbury and Coco Crisp on the same roster. And, of course, the tempation will be there to upgrade via the free agent or trade market, with CC Sabathia, Mark Teixeira and Jake Peavy just a few of the big names out there.

But all in all, there isn't that much for Epstein to do. Making a big free agent splash after falling one win short of the World Series is a solution for the turn-of-the-millennium Yankees. The Red Sox have one of the best farm systems in the game. They won't be shy about splurging for a big free agent if he's the right player -- Matsuzaka being a perfect example -- but most of their improvements are going to come from within.

That's been Epstein's vision since he took the reins as general manager, and it will keep Boston in contention for years to come.

In the Playoff Pulse Series, our MLB editor takes on a hot October topic.

There's something fitting, or poetic, or maybe even perfect about Boston's season coming down to a start by Tim Wakefield. Putting your season in the hands of a knuckleball pitcher like Wakefield is a bit like betting a year's salary on black at the roulette table -- it's an awful lot to wage on just one thing, but the odds aren't all that bad.

Wakefield is unique -- the one true practicing knuckleballer with a regular gig in the major leagues right now. When he's on, you wish there were more pitchers around like him, but part of his success comes from the fact that he's a complete novelty. For all the talk about Jamie Moyer being a crafty, soft-tossing veteran, Wakefield has been around nearly as long as Moyer and he throws even softer.

He has arguably the best contract in baseball, a never-ending team option for $4 million a year. That's tremendous value for a back-of-the-rotation starting pitcher. Wakefield can be even more than that when the knuckler is fluttering in the wind. Of course, things can turn quickly on him if his signature pitch starts to rotate and flatten out. The 2003 ALCS is a perfect example -- ha baffled the Yankees in two starts and was on his way to being series MVP, and then Aaron Boone got a hold of one of the bad knuckleballs.

The final week of the 2008 season has been one long requiem for all things Yankee. On Sunday, Yankee Stadium closed it doors after 85 years. Two days later, the second longest string of postseason appearances was officially snapped. The eulogies have been written, but the game presses on.

Five days from now, the Yankees will finish their final game of the season at Fenway Park and they hurtle headlong into an offseason of transition the likes of which hasn't been seen in the Bronx in more than a decade. Moving across the street might be one of the smaller changes.

It's clear that the Yankees have fallen a step behind their hated rivals to the north. But they've also fallen behind the Rays and the Blue Jays and Orioles are improving rapidly. A massive payroll just isn't good enough on its own anymore.

That's a lesson the Red Sox learned back in 2006. Boston wilted down the stretch under the weight of injuries to Jason Varitek, Manny Ramirez and Coco Crisp and a woeful pitching staff and ended up winning a disappointing 86 games. That Red Sox team let Mark Loretta, Alex Gonzalez and Trot Nixon walk and replaced them with a prospect named Dustin Pedroia and free agents Julio Lugo and J.D. Drew.

This Yankees team never really got going because of significant injuries to Jorge Posada and Chien-Ming Wang and a patchwork pitching staff. It will probably wind up with a win total in the high 80s. It will let Bobby Abreu and Jason Giambi walk this winter, and possibly Andy Pettitte and Mike Mussina as well.

So what now? Given all the similarities, can the Yankees get back to the playoffs and beyond in 2009 as the Red Sox did last year?