Jan 24, 2008

Quiet? I'll take quiet

From USA Today's list of off-season winners:
Boston Red Sox: It's been an eerily quiet winter in Boston but a success
considering they re-signed Mike Lowell and Curt Schilling and the Yankees didn't bring in any
high-profile free agents.


It's not exactly the exciting postseasons that have netted Curt, Josh or Dice-K, but I'll take it. The Sox could afford to be quiet. Last year, they won the top prize with a young nucleus beginning to supplant the veteran superstars. The young Sox will continue to develop, and there are even more of them down in the minors. You have to love an off season where the biggest questions revolved around the backup catcher and fifth outfielder.

Contrast this with the Empire, the Mets and the Braves who did little to improve their teams this year, which weren't good enough last year.

At first thought, I was down on the Phillies improvements too. I didn't think they did enough to retool a team that won the division by one game largely due to the Mets collapse. But then I realized that overlooked a few factors: their contenders' lack of improvement, all the injuries the team had throughout the year and getting Brad Lidge to send Brett Myers (assuming he has a second straight year with no extracurricular problems) back to the rotation.

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