He has finally arrived

He is the shortstop the Red Sox have needed for quite a while and his name is Marco Scutaro. Now before I give you my opinion about this interesting man, lets go straight to the facts.

A 34 year old player who came up in 2002, but played his first full season in 2004. This past season was his best ever where he hit .282, an OBP of .379, had 12 HR, 60 RBI, 14 SB, and scored 100 Runs. All of which were career bests for him. He has played the last two seasons with Toronto and four with Oakland before that. If you put a player who gets these stats in Fenway Park with the line-up that Boston can provide, those numbers should only go up. One last interesting thing to note about his hitting is that at home this year he hit .242 with a .353 OBP, away he hit .322 and had a .405 OBP. The same follows in 2008 as well. So get him out of Toronto and life should become much better.

Now I don't know how much better he can get at age 34, but I am one who believes anything is possible and never say never.

People were thinking that that he was going to get a nice long term deal from some team and get overpaid as well. Luckily, that was not the case when it came to signing with the Red Sox. Essentially they got him for two years of $12.5 million. With a 3rd year as a mutual option.
If you really want to know how the deal breaks down go here:

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2009/12/marco-scutaro-rumors-thursday.html

For the deal that the Red Sox acquired him, I am in favor of it. He fills a big void the Red Sox had in getting a shortstop, he didn't cost too much and in my opinion is worth the amount he got, and to get him for only two guaranteed years, I am more than happy. Originally I was not in favor of the Red Sox signing him at the price tag of rumors floating around, but for the price and what he can provide, I like it.

They have had some big shoes to fill at shortstop since the 2004 season after winning the World Series. That year they acquired Orlando Cabrera when they traded away long time shortstop Nomar Garciaparra, but kept him til the end of that season. Which is probably for the best because I only want people on my team who are physically strong enough to break a bat. Then in 2005, they go out and get Edgar Renteria who gets a four year $40 million deal. He makes only 30 errors in 2005 and gets traded away. To bring some defense to the table they go and get Alex Gonzalez, but he barely provides any offense. In 2007, they get Julio Lugo for 4 years at $36 million. Things did not go well for him because of injury and they bring up farm raised Jed Lowrie during the second half of the 2008 season. He gets injured as well and last year they bring back Alex Gonzalez who filled in nicely. Now they have Scutaro though and let Alex Gonzalez go. In fact they both switched teams.

As far as where he will hit in the Red Sox line-up, I imagine it would be near the bottom because the batting order is pretty solid as is.

Only two other big issues to address left, getting a starting pitcher and figuring out who's going to play left field next season.

-As always this is, Corey Sobel, with a special report