Finally, the Mike Lowell issue should be more or less put to rest. After the botched trade attempt and the rough fallout afterwards, the team has finally got their man to have surgery. Happy New Years to him. But some of the damage has already been done and will be tough to change. Lowell, hopefully, will be back at full strength at some point early in the season. His thumb surgery doesn’t appear to be very serious but it is important to get him back on track for the next few seasons. Can we still trade him? Possibly, but I doubt it. That’s about all the big news there is in Red Sox world, so we’ll see you in 2010!

When Mike Lowell hurt his thumb awhile back, it would appear that the Sox should have taken a look at it before it got to the level that it did. Especially if you’re going to shop the guy out. This is the problem. We should have taken a look at Lowell before we started offering him for a trade. If he has a sore thumb, you look at it to make sure it isn’t a problem. Since we let the Texas Rangers check it out and release the news, it’s a bigger problem and becomes a news story. These other teams aren’t going to want to bring him in, or at the very least, they’re going to approach it all very skeptically! If he’s hurt, we need to check for that kind of thing so that the people who want to have him can say “ah, he’s hurt, but we can definitely count on him halfway through the season.” That’s how you can trade a guy like Lowell.

Mike Lowell needs surgery. I know it’s a bit of a surprise for all of you, but it’s true. When the Texas Rangers were looking at him during the trade talks this was not part of the deal. The Red Sox never disclosed that Lowell’s jammed thumb was actually something that needed a bit of operation. So instead, we might not get to play him right away at the beginning of the season, but instead we will have to wait until he recovers. It doesn’t look like it’s going to be something really serious with lots of physical therapy, but it’s still going to be tough. Alternately, the Red Sox have been trying to shop him out recently too, so we’ll have to keep that in mind as the time goes by too, though with a bad thumb it might not be clear that someone is willing to take him.

Matt Holliday was going to get a deal from our Sox before we got Lackey, but it was going to be a big deal for Mr. H. We had hoped that we would get to see Holliday on the Fenway field, but it didn’t work out that way. It’s not that we’re having so much trouble with the pitching, but this is the division where you want to keep your team extra strong to be able to compete with the Yankees, so I can see why Lackey was needed. I read something the other day where they were lamenting that we and the Yankees are looking likely to take the division and wild card for a lot of time in the future. Well, that’s what happens when the teams are that good. I won’t say that the Yankees are good, but the Red Sox are amazing. With their new pitcher and some good new hitting, they’re looking like they’ll be even more impressive this year!

John Lackey is headed to Boston and it means a lot. While the Red Sox pitching hasn’t been called into question much in the last few years, it’s good to keep bringing in new prospects. Lackey has pitched admirably for his previous teams and will continue by giving the Red Sox an advantage down the stretch. This has importance in other parts of the country too. Seattle has missed out on another free agent pitcher that they badly need. This might give the Yankees a little bit of fear in the next few seasons, possibly even making them spend resources on raising their own pitching staff another notch. Either way, Lackey’s probable arrival in Boston is definitely the best news we’ve had in awhile.

Mike Lowell is the talk of the city right now. The player is being talked about as a player to be sent over to the Texas Rangers. He was the World Series MVP back in 07, but hasn’t been able to produce the way he could before. We would like to see him stay in town, but it’s possible that we might get to see an even better player come into Boston next time. The trade isn’t official yet, but it’s starting to seem more and more likely. Lowell has been able to raise his stock since the last time he was in free agency and the team has been trying to deal him out for a couple of years already. Not because he’s a bad player, but perhaps we just need something different right now. Thanks for the good time Mike, and good luck in your new place if this trade is true.

It seems that everyone in Boston is talking about the Red Sox’ various issues with the shortstop position. There is good reason for this. This position has been shaky for many years now. We would love to see them get a good solid person in there, but they haven’t been able to. The pitching has been fine, the hitting decent until this year. Most of the fielding positions have been held reasonably well too, though the infield has fallen off a bit in the last couple years. But what we’re looking is someone who can play the position and hit reasonably well. We don’t need a Gold Glove and a Barry Bonds-type hitter. Of course that would be nice, except for some of the drama that accompanies that. But let’s just get something steady in there and things will be great. Hopefully Scutaro is that guy!

Marco Scutaro was able to join the Red Sox this year as their shortstop. They’ve needed one since Gonzales went to Toronto after Boston gave up their option on him. Instead, they got Scutaro from Toronto, not in exchange, but off the market. We will be hoping for this to finally settle down that position for the next couple of seasons at least. It’s a two year deal, but we are hoping that it’ll be good enough to become more permanent. At least the team can figure out the rest of their lineup and roster for next season. We will be waiting to see if they can add a few pitchers and some more infielders to bulk up the lineup card a bit better. It’s going to be interesting to see this team next year, since they have a lot of great options to go to, especially with their batting!

Having lost Gonzalez, the perennial problem of the Red Sox shortstop position continues into another season. Since 2004, they have put out 19 different people at short. It hasn’t turned into anything much yet, and there will continue to be problems at that place for the next little while. The commentator that I’m reading says that the team should simply focus on getting the position filled respectably rather that worrying so much about trying to get some of the big players from elsewhere into town at other positions. Hopefully the team will be able to find someone at that position, now that they accidentally let the other one leave town by waiting around on him too long.

What happened to the Red Sox? They were supposed to re-sign Alex Gonzalez to a new contract for several million dollars. Why didn’t they just do it right away? Instead, now he’s going to be playing for Toronto, who aren’t just another team, but they’re division rivals! Luckily, Toronto hasn’t been as good as some other teams, but it’s still a big challenge. But why didn’t we keep him. He has been a valuable member of the team for many years. It’s hard to imagine that the GM could have been that far out of the loop that Gonzo just ended up somewhere else, but there we are. It’s pretty clear now, so we’ll have to wait and see who our new shortstop is going to be. It wasn’t supposed to be that kind of offseason. We don’t need to start unloading assets, just bring in a few new guns!