Buchholz Doings & All The Bill James Numbers In A 24 Page Special Feature

Peter here on this still cold Thursday morning. It's March 13th, and the days are slowly but steadily getting warmer, but the nights, the early morning hours especially, remain bone-chillingly cold. But that's the norm for mid-March.

Clay Buchholz pitched four innings against the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday, his third time pitching against them this spring. And he was flat out tremendous for the first three frames, HITLESS ones, before tiring in the fourth. The general feeling right now is that he will start the season playing for Triple A Pawtucket, not because of the quality of his pitches but to hold down the season-long innings pitched and the wear and tear on his arm. I ask you this...isn't the "wear and tear" on his arm and the total innings pitched the same when pitching for Pawtucket as it would be for the parent club? Simple logic says to me a resounding YES! So I don't get it, especially when I think of Tavarez being our number five guy in the rotation. No, please no! I know there are other candidates to take over that fifth spot, one of them, Bartolo "Rollo" Colon, pitches today, but if Colon isn't ready and Tavy remains Tavy, WHY NOT START CLAY IN THE FIFTH SPOT and use all the early days off to minimize his innings early in the season? An answer to that, as well as to the many other queries I have, will be answered in time, time that is growing short until the games count.

I have a treat for you if you haven't perused the Boston Globe today. Bill James has released his yearly projections for major league ballplayers, the Boston Red Sox included. This is important...when you click on the title of this post, you will be immediately directed to a 24 (twenty four!) page special Globe feature that will show you, position by position, James' projected numbers for every starting Soxer. Then you can vote if you agree or disagree. And after that? You can see the results of the thousands of responding Red Sox fans. It should be fun! I'm going there to take the "quiz" as soon as I finish writing this to you, my Constant Readers. As always, be safe. BE WELL. I treasure every one of you. Now click and enjoy that Boston Globe feature. I'll go over the Bill James' projections, position by position, player by player, with you tomorrow. It should be fun. CLICK AWAY!