Red Sox Front Office Strategy

The 2009-2010 off-season has been a busy for Red Sox Nation. It has also demonstrated a clear strategy by the baseball operations staff as they make a strong commitment towards run prevention. Instead of targeting a high profile bat (Adrian Gonzalez comes to mind) they have signed two of the best defenders at their respective positions in Adrian Beltre and Mike Cameron. Oh yeah, both can hit a little bit as well. Again with the signing of John Lackey they have also shown their willingness to pay top dollar for run prevention, pitching and defense.

There have been several studies done on post-season performance and most of the results seem to indicate that its pitching and defense, not run production, that is most important in winning the World Series. Obviously luck has something to do with it as well, but this off-season the Red Sox have done their best to assemble a team that has the right ingredients to make a deep post-season run. This may look like a different Red Sox team that in years past, but, on paper at least, this may be the best team we have had in years.

Even better is that the Sox will have a significant portion of their payroll coming off the books following the 2010 season which will certainly pave the way for the organization's top prospects, many of whom may be ready to make an impact by 2011.