Now that Reddick is gone, I checked out the Red Sox depth chart on MLB.com and it had McDonald as first choice RF ... scary!! When looking at the numbers though, Darnell finished the season on .236, Reddick .280 and Drew .222. So while Reddick had that booming start, as we all know he came back to Earth in the latter part of the season. So if we look at RF for the Sox last season, it probably yielded about .250 from that position, which isn't that hard to replace (there's probably somewhere that will show the exact average, but I don't know where)
The team average was .280, which was good for 2nd in the AL. We topped Runs, OBP and Slugging % as well. So looking at team lineup as it stands, I don't think it looks very different from an offensive point of view.
Thought we could work off the .280 benchmark:
ALMOST CERTAINS
CF Ellsbury
2B Pedroia
1B Gonzalez
MAYBES
DH Ortiz - I would say he is very likely to hit >.280, but lots of doubters and he is getting along in age
SS Scutaro - Tough to say, he had his best BA year ever with .299 last year, but probably hard for him to produce these numbers again next year, should get close though
3B Youkilis - Had his worst season ever with .258 after a injury riddled year. IF he stays fit, big IF, hard to not see him best this mark and get pretty close to .280
LF Crawford - Ended the season in .255, easily his worst BA since his rookie season. Hard to believe a career .300 hitter will not bounce back to at least post something closer to .280
UNLIKELY
RF McDonald/Sweeney/Kalish - Not sure how this is going to pan out, but I hope Sweeney kills it in Spring Training and gets the starting spot. He went .286/.293/.294 in 2008/2009/2010. In 2011 he batted .265, but this may have been a blip and hopefully will bounce back in 2012. Hard to see Kalish being fully fit to play all year and Darnell is definitely not a .280+ hitter.
DEFINITELY NOTS
C Saltalamacchia/Shoppach - Until Lavarnway is ready to catch, can't see the catcher's spot producing anywhere near a .280 BA. Salty batted .235 last season (felt a lot higher), some good power with 16 HRs.
Of course the above doesn't take into account the upside of batters who bat .320, etc which heaps out the lower end averages.
Looking at this list, the catcher's position is the weakest point in terms of offense (as it should be) and there's a few IFs around on some aging players. However even if Ortiz and Scutaro drop off a little, good chance that Crawford and Youk can pick up some of the slack for the other two's decline.
All in all, fairly confident that our offense in 2012 will yield pretty similar figures to last year. If not top, we should still stick near the top in offence. Our pitching on the other hand was atrocious and I think we still need another arm in the rotation for sure. Unless Lester/Buchholtz/Beckett/Bard/Aceves stay healthy the whole season, we are screwed. That's assuming Bard & Aceves do well at starting.
What do you think?
PS. The more I think about it, trading Reddick for Bailey/Sweeney is a friggin' awesome deal. Not only do we get someone with upside to bat .280+ in RF, but we get an All-Star closer as well!!
