What Are Your Expectations for the 2007 Boston Red Sox?

Expectations can be overwhelming, especially in a city full of passionate fans such as Boston. Expectations can be derived from many different aspects. Many fans set the expectations bar high when a free agent signs a bulky contract. ‘Can he live up to the worth of it’? they ask.

Expectations don’t necessarily need to be connected to the almighty dollar sign. In many cases, these expectations are modeled on previous output, albeit in the Minor Leagues or on a different team. If a Major League player can exist in one city, they must be able to exist in any city, right? Not quite so in Boston. Sorry Edgar Renteria.

Injuries can also have a vast impact on the expectations of certain athletes in this city. After injury-plagued seasons, the questions ricochet around like racquet balls as to whether expectations have changed and what to expect from these freshly-healed baseball players.

The Boston Red Sox have very high expectations coming into this season. Reading the two prominent newspapers that circulate the city, the bar is set high: World Series or Bust. With this expectation comes pressure and questions from both the media and the fans. Who knows which entity creates more chaos in this town when it comes to the Red Sox.

Every Sox player will be under a microscope this whole season, their every move caught, analyzed, talked about and then analyzed once more. But there will be some players who have more media attention and fan frenzy swirling about them for various reasons. These are The Five Sox to Watch in 2007. This list is dedicated to those particular Sox who will be watched with magnifying glasses and picked through with fine tooth combs.

Players arranged with regard to level of expectation, from the bottom up.

Josh Beckett

Questions: Can he lower his home run total and ERA?

What has he learned since last year?

With one year under his belt in the Heavy Weight division know as the AL East, Beckett’s expectations have risen from last season. This spring, Beckett has slowed his delivery for better mechanics and has thrown more curves and changes than he did all of last season. Beckett also vows to listen to his catcher more than he did last season. Beckett is confident that these changes will allow him to take his game to the next level. The bottom line is that Josh Beckett threw two 83 mile per hour changeups and started more than half of his opposing batters with a curve in his last spring start. If Beckett can keep healthy and pitch like he did in that spring game, the Red Sox will have a ace waiting in the wings when Schill moves on.

Expectations: 18 wins, 150-200 K’s and an ERA below four.

A Cy Young Award or damn close to it.

Jason Varitek

Questions: Will his bat return to pre-2006 form?

Can he handle the work load and stay healthy?

For Jason Varitek, the questions become almost endless, between learning the new pitchers, learning Japanese, working on his offensive game and staying healthy as a soon-to-be 35-year-old catcher, Varitek is inundated with questions at the start of the 2007 season. In only the second season of a four year $40 Million contract, Varitek posted five-year lows in total at-bats, total bases, batting average, hits, homeruns, runs batted in and extra base hits. Varitek is all alone atop the Games Behind the Plate as a Red Sox Catcher all-time list with over 1,000 games in his career. This doesn’t bode well for Varitek because older age and being a catcher for as long as he has brings serious and chronic (don’t you hate this word?) injury questions into the foreground. I know I’m not alone when I say that I am concerned about Jason Varitek’s ability to be a consistent bat in the Sox line-up come this season. (Even though he can handle the pitching staff better than anyone in baseball, he still needs to pull his weight in the line-up. $40 Million is $40 Million no matter what way you look at it.)

Expectations: .265 BA / .470 SLG / 14 HR / 67 RBI

135 games played and a happy pitching staff.

Coco Crisp

Questions: Can we see the Cleveland version of Coco this year?

Is he healthy enough to play 150 meaningful games in 2007?

I was as big a Coco Crisp enthusiast as anyone last spring when he was hitting the cover off the ball and started the season quite the same. One broken finger and a sub-par season later, Coco’s go-go is in question after he hit .184 with only two extra base hits in 38 at-bats this spring. Crisp denied throughout the spring that his finger and shoulder (which he hurt swinging too hard) are healthy and that he really doesn’t care what fans say about him. Perhaps Coco should have a chat with Keith Foulke before addressing the media again. Crisp can return to the form he was in at Cleveland if he is 100% healthy to begin the season. As Red Sox fans we should see more stolen bases from Crisp than last year due to his spot (eighth) in the line-up. Newfound freedom should equal more stolen bases and less pressure to perform at the top of the line-up.

Expectations: .285 BA, 30-35 SB, 16 HR, 68 RBI

A healthy season in centerfield and in both batting boxes.

J.D. Drew

Questions: Can he play 150 games a year?

Does he have the mindset to play in Boston?

J.D. Drew has flown under the radar this spring because of a certain player receiving considerable notoriety for his arrival to the team. Flying under the radar seems to be one of Drew’s favorite past times, along with being patient at the plate and quiet in the club house. All of that will just be water cooler talk if he can stay healthy and be that safety net behind Ortiz and Ramirez that the Red Sox have lacked since Kevin Millar had a productive season here in 2003 (25 homeruns and 96 RBI). The presence of Drew in the line-up brings a left-right-left counter balance to the 3-4-5 meat and potatoes of the line-up and optimistically brings up the RBI production of a five-spot in the batting order that ranked near the bottom of the league in 2006.

Expectations: A healthy (150 games played) season, with more to come.

.280 BA/.400 OBP/20-25 homeruns/ 100 RBI’s

Daisuke Matsuzaka

Questions: Can he learn enough to stay ahead of the hitter’s learning curve?

Will the pressure of the Media / Fans take a toll on him?

Arguably the player with the highest expectations coming into 2007, Matsuzaka has more questions surrounding him than a Bar Exam. Anybody who has followed Dice-K Mania this spring knows what it has been like. Matsuzaka seems to have taken most of it in stride aside from the silent treatment after five innings of no-hit spring training ball. I have watched Matsuzaka start twice this spring and he has allowed one hit and thrown at least one gyro ball. I think. Maybe. The comparisons to Pedro Martinez are right there in front of you. Ability to change speeds and movement on changeup? Check. Ability to dial the fastball up when needed? Check and check. Ability to bewilder batters and send them away talking to themselves? So far, so good. Matsuzaka has been in the spot light most of his adult life so I don’t see the increased media attention being a problem.

Expectations: 18-7 W-L / 3.40 ERA / 200 IP / 179 K

As with Beckett, Cy Young consideration and health (30 starts).