Boston Red Sox

Last week, WEEI's Alex Speier reported that Mike Cameron had no wish to leave Boston. Despite an offseason that clearly puts Cameron as the fourth OF on a solid outfield—both offensively and defensively—the 38-year-old vet with 16 years of MLB service is content with his role as a backup.

The Red Sox have listened to offers for Cameron and probably will continue to do so for the rest of the offseason. After all, Cameron is due a hefty $7.25 million for the remainder of 2011.

I am the first sports fan to admit that statistics spin tall tales as much as they inform.

While number-crunching has allowed us to distill fact from fiction when it comes to performance, stats have also cloaked deceptively bad players under the immunity blanket known as triple crown categories.

Stats are as damning to players as much as they immortalize (see Maris, Roger), and despite several encyclopedic volumes of evidence to the contrary, they are why Yuniesky Betancourt keeps finding work.

I would be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn’t think Adrian Gonzalez landed in the perfect place for the 2011 season.  He moves out of spacious PETCO Park to the friendly confines of Fenway, a ballpark perfectly suited to his inside-out swing.

Anthony Richard ("Tony") Conigliaro was born in Revere, Massachusetts, on January 7th back in 1945.

As the 2010 season unfolded, the Red Sox front office declared it was interested in re-signing soon-to-be-free-agents Adrian Beltre and Victor Martinez.

And as the offseason began, GM Theo Epstein insisted retaining both players was one of the organization’s top priorities.

But actions speak louder than words. The Red Sox failed to make a substantive offer to either player and watched as both departed for other destinations.

Did Boston Red Sox GM Theo Epstein have a coupon to buy one underachieving Texas Rangers catcher and get one free?

Max Ramirez is on his way to Boston, according to MLB.com's T.R. Sullivan.

The move comes after the Rangers designated the former top catching prospect for assignment in order to make room for Brandon Webb and Arthur Rhodes.

Theo Epstein's interest in the young catcher have been well documented. Ramirez was the player involved in the Mike Lowell deal that was and then wasn't last offseason after Lowell failed the Rangers' physical.

Entering his final year of salary arbitration, Jonathan Papelbon will likely cash in on a big pay day following the 2011 season. 

However, with a declining skill set and Daniel Bard as the closer of the future, there is next to no chance he signs a long term deal with the Boston Red Sox.

Papelbon is due to make roughly $11 million for the coming season.

The presence of Bard and the acquisition of Bobby Jenks makes the possibility that Papelbon does not finish the year with the Red Sox all the more likely.

In order to be the World Series contenders that many people expect them to be this season, the Red Sox will need all five of their starters to pitch up to their potential. 

Last season, Red Sox starting pitching was inconsistent, at best. Despite the rash of injuries, poor starting pitching—more than anything else—was the reason for the Sox' disappointing season.

Blockbuster trades at the major league level often tend to shake things up at the minor league level, and the Boston Red Sox trade for Adrian Gonzalez last November was no exception. The Red Sox were forced to ship three of their top prospects off to San Diego to seal the deal: RHP Casey Kelly, 1B Anthony Rizzo and OF Reymond Fuentes. That trio were ranked, respectively, as the No. 1, No. 3 and No. 6 prospects in the Red Sox organization by Baseball America just prior to their being traded.