Without Baldelli, the Red Sox enter the postseason with Brian Anderson and Joey Gathright as their backup outfielders behind Jacoby Ellsbury, J.D. Drew and Jason Bay. Baldelli, who hit .253 with seven home runs and 23 RBI in 150 at-bats this season, is a more capable hitter than Anderson or Gathright, though both Anderson and Gathright provide better speed and defense.
Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action with a quick nod to what is ahead.
You Oughta Know ... That the Rangers aren't going away, at least not yet.
On the eve of a critical series with the AL West-leading Angels, Texas got seven innings of three-run ball from unheralded rookie Tommy Hunter to beat the A's and stay 4 1/2 games back of Los Angeles in the division. The win also pulled them within two games of Boston, which lost to the Yankees, in the wild-card race.
Hunter is now 4-2 in seven starts since being recalled from Triple-A in late June -- a span over which he has a 2.32 ERA.
FanHouse continues its 2009 MLB Preview with a look at the Tampa Bay Rays.
Although they ended up falling short at the end, 2008 was the year of the Rays. After being the butt of jokes for the first 10 years of its existence, Tampa Bay turned an impressive collection of baseball talent into an impressive team, finally assembling a competent bullpen, and utilizing some position shifts to put a much improved defense on the field. With the pieces in place, everything came together, and the Rays increased their win total by 31 games on their way to winning both the AL East and AL pennant.
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.
From the Windup is FanHouse's extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.
While there is still time left in the Hot Stove season, and there are a few high quality players left on the market -- Ben Sheets, anyone? -- the Yankees have been the team who has made the biggest splash in all of baseball thus far. That splash was seemingly a reaction to missing the playoffs for the first time since the strike-shortened 1994.
A Major League club in the US's richest and most populous metropolis, its own cable channel, three consecutive years of record-breaking ticket sales, and a brand new stadium should be more well off, shouldn't it? A team with that kind of financial support shouldn't be thinking twice about eating Luis Castillo's salary, bringing in Manny Ramirez, or rolling the dice on Ben Sheets. Should they?
But hey, let's give credit where credit is due: the Mets aren't completely sitting on their hands, they're building a "bigger, shinier and more advanced" Home Run Apple!
Other than a dalliance with Mark Teixeira, Boston's offseason has been almost entirely about tying up loose ends -- keeping the core that has brought so much success lately intact and building up the depth around it.
The Red Sox kicked off their winter by locking up American League MVP Dustin Pedroia for the next six years. In recent weeks, they've added a host of familiar faces to their bench and pitching staff -- including John Smoltz, Takashi Saito and Rocco Baldelli. Now, they're "close" to a contract extension with Kevin Youkilis that could keep him in Boston for the next five years and pay him $53 million, according to Tony Massarotti of the Boston Globe.
The Red Sox have been among the most active teams in free agency since the calendar turned to 2009, inking the likes of Takashi Saito, John Smoltz, Brad Penny, Rocco Baldelli and Mark Kotsay to deals in the new year. Those are good signings for an organization as deep as the Red Sox, but a major hole at catcher remains on the big league roster.
Boston has already signed Josh Bard to a non-guaranteed deal this winter, but unless it is willing to hand a significant portion of the catching duties to an untested backstop like Dusty Brown or George Kottaras, it is going to need another catcher.
Longtime backstop and team captain Jason Varitek is still a free agent, but, at least for now, the Red Sox seemed resolved to pursue other options in an effort to get younger behind the dish.
As former President Andrew Johnson reported earlier this week, the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox are not, in fact, the same team. I've never thought of them as an autonomous unit, but rather a set of bookends. Between them lies history, science, geography.. all of the important stuff, everything you need to know. Everything outside of them is just crap on your shelves.
As Andrew pointed out, the teams are run very differently. The Yankees have unzipped their, uh, coin purse and put their dense, cylindrical wrapped coins on the table, scooping up the available big names in a grand fashion that leaves nothing but a cloud of smoke and gold-laced footprints in the faces of the competition.
The Sox have responded by holding up a picture of Dustin Pedroia and trying to find every free agent who looks remotely like him. It's been a running gag in our strip for a while now, but the Red Sox need to sign Delmon and Dmitri Young to keep me from going snowblind next season.
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.
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.
Due to concerns that he won't be healed from a hip flexor injury in time, the Red Sox have opted not to include outfielder Rocco Baldelli in their ALDS roster. Baldelli's not a regular starter, but he would have provided depth off the bench against the Angels. Instead, the Red Sox don't believe he'll be healthy in time to contribute. 
Other than a dalliance with 
The Red Sox have been among the most active teams in free agency since the calendar turned to 2009, inking the likes of 
As former President 
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.
