Pitchers and catchers report

It has been almost six months since the devestating "Boston Massacre" ended the Sox hopes for 2006, and today the hurting can finally come to an end. Pitchers and catchers are reporting to Fort Myers for six weeks of soft toss, meaningless exhibition games, and golf. Meanwhile, those of us buried under snow in the Northeast will have six weeks of sporadic media coverage to hope and dream and predict what the upcoming season holds.

As the predictions for spring training have already been submitted from Boston, I'll play soothsayer and make ten spring training predictions of my own, for the sake of healthy competition. Please note this column would have been up yesterday, but certain other contributors to this website have grown complacent at their beat writing gigs and decided to take an extra day. We'll work through it though...if I show rust in the next ten picks, blame the extra day of rest.

1. Jon Lester will NOT break camp with the big club. This man has been in chemotherapy for months and months, and the fact that he has even made it to Florida is a minor miracle. In addition, the front office has shown great restraint in putting too many pitches on these young arms, and Lester will be the most carefully handled commodity on the roster. Barring a rash of devestating injuries to the bullpen, Lester will head to Portland or Pawtucket to regain the arm strength required of a starter, and we will see him coming out of the bullpen as a swingman/sixth starter after the All-Star break.

2. Joel Pineiro will head north as the de facto closer. I think Theo is taking another shot at the Bullpen by Commitee this season. The difference between the 2003 and 2007 BBC models, however, is that this year's pen has the versatility and talent to pull off such an arrangement, and we have a manager who will read the reports coming from upstairs and enact them accordingly. Pineiro will have the closer title, but all arms will be on deck in late inning situations.

3. Coco Crisp will have a miserable spring and will be the subject of trade rumors. Crisp played miserably last season, and although he had a terrible series of injuries befall him, we mustn't forget that he really isn't all that good. He is only 27, but he will push himself too hard this spring and knock him off his game. Crisp's very moveable contract, combined with excellent camps turned in by Dr. Wily Mo Pena and Jacoby Ellsbury (who won't get the ticket to Kansas City but will raise some eyebrows), will make Crisp an expendable commodity.

4. Tom in Boston will make at least one passing reference on this website that the Sox would be better off trading Manny for bucket of baseballs.

5. Curt Schilling will become the gaijin darling of the Japanese media. You wanna talk about Daisuke? He'll talk about that. You wanna talk about the American League? He'll talk about that. You wanna talk about his extension? You know he'll talk about that.

6. They may not be the talk of camp, but Brendan Donnelly and Hideki Okajima will solidly establish themselves as the set-up tandem of this bullpen. Last year with the Angels, Donnelly put up a 3.94 ERA over 64 innings. The lefty Okajima earned a 2.14 ERA and struck out 63 over 55 innings with my favorite Nippon Pro Baseball franchise, the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters; Donnelly will be 35 this year and Okajima 31. I picture these two guys becoming the equivalent of Mike Timlin and Alan Embree for the 2003 Sox, who anchored the 7th and 8th innings that year for 139 innings of 4.24 ERA baseball. (Remember, "Timlin in the eighth, Williamson in the ninth?" Grady didn't.)

7. Screw the Twins. Santana will look good on the Mets in two years.

8. Beckett and Papelbon will become inseperable this spring, much like when Fulton Reed and Dean Portman led the Mighty Ducks to victory at the Junior Goodwill Games. Daisuke Matsuzaka will play the role of Kenny Wu.

9. Red Sox Nation will demand George Kotteras get a plane ticket to Kansas City instead of Dougie Mirabelli, but Greek-Canadian backstop will end up on the bus to Portland with Jon Lester.

10. Beckett will get hammered all spring, and the media will be all over him. He'll go over all the old cliches and say he's working on his control or a new pitch or something of that order. These claims, however will be true, and his poor March ERA will be forgotten by Patriot's Day.