Josh Beckett

Injuries continue to dominate the news, but today it is far from all bad.  We have multiple pieces of good news concerning injuries tonight as well as some bad as one of the top pitchers in baseball suffers a tough injury. There is also news of the AL Rookie of the Year and what his role will be this season, along with news and notes from today's games from Arizona and Florida on some players that you surely have questions about heading into your drafts.

One hundred and fifty million five hundred thousand dollars. That's an obscene amount of money. With that kind of cash, you could open thirty of your own Dunkin' Donuts franchises, buy the high school I attended, acquire all of the Honus Wagner rookie cards that may be left on Earth, and a Fenway Frank.

Or, if you're like the Red Sox, you craft a multi-year commitment to two pitchers that went a combined 20-17 with an ERA above five last year.

Ladies and gentlemen, the calendar has turned to March and that means that spring training is well underway and the start of the 2011 Major League Baseball season is just weeks away. It's the best time of the year, forget football and all those other sports, baseball is where it's at.

With a new year comes new and in some cases renewed optimism. Whether or not your favorite team is able to put together a great year is irrelevant right now because everyone believes that they have a chance, they just need one or two things to go right for that to happen.

Spring training is a great opportunity to get a sense of how a player's offseason went, and what to expect in terms of improvement or regression. How a player performs during spring training often helps scouts see how players are recovering from injury or whether or not to expect a player who disappointed the previous season to bounce back.

Josh Beckett, John Lackey and Jonathan Papelbon each face the daunting challenge of regaining the old velocity and movement on their fastballs.  That's a hard thing for any pitcher to do when their fastball has begun to decline.  

In trying to assess players at Spring Training for the Boston Red Sox this season one can take several different approaches from a few different angles. You can look at those current roster players on the depth chart and say you need to pay attention to those guys since they are slated to play in the majors as it stands today, or you can look at the guys who have made their living in the minors and are ready to make the jump by replacing the major leaguers if they slip up in Ft. Myers this spring.

Pitchers in hitter-friendly ballparks or tough divisions may benefit from being traded. The same applies to struggling pitchers in search of redemption.

The Seattle Mariners would be a good destination for such pitchers. The home of the Mariners, Safeco Field, is the most pitching-friendly venue in the American League and the AL West division isn't too frightening.

The following ten pitchers would benefit from moving to Seattle. Interested to find out who they are? Read on.

We here at Baseball Professor think about our readers first and ourselves second—albeit a close second. That’s why we decided to reach out to other bloggers (who follow their respective teams more closely than we do) to give you a deeper look into the important issues every fantasy owner has to come to grips with this season. Our seventh installment is with the Boston Red Sox and comes courtesy of Mike Silver from Fire Brand of the AL.

Josh Beckett was a train wreck last year. He’s been alternating between great and decent years since 2004.

2004:  9-9, 3.79 ERA, 1.22 WHIP
2005:  15-8, 3.38 ERA, 1.18 WHIP
2006:  16-11, 5.01 ERA, 1.29 WHIP
2007:  20-7, 3.27 ERA, 1.14 WHIP
2008:  12-10, 4.03 ERA, 1.19 WHIP
2009:  17-6, 3.86 ERA, 1.19 WHIP

The Red Sox have one of the most solid rotations in baseball, both in terms of on-field quality and stability.  They have six major league-ready starters and, barring injury, not many of their prospects will see a start. 

Jon Lester is one of my favorite pitchers in baseball.  I’ve loved him since 2008, when I stupidly refused to trade Shawn Marcum for him, and made sure I drafted him in 2009 and 2010.  

I mean, what’s not to like?