Watching and reliving the broadcast of “World Series Winter” on NESN the past few weeks, all the emotion of last season’s playoffs came screaming back from what seemed like only a month in hibernation. But as the Red Sox players, coaches, and the following horde of media flock to the Gulf Coast of Florida, the cycle begins again.
For the players, both old and new, now starting to go through their first workouts, 2004 should now feel as far removed as 1918. Save for a slight moment on the home opener when the Fenway Faithful welcome the team back with thunderous applause and for the first time in most of our lifetimes, a world championship banner is unfurled, the time to bask in the glory of 2004 is over.
Less than a week after winning the prize that this ownership bought the team to accomplish, Theo Epstein and team were back at the drawing boards. With former faces of the franchise gone, Pedro to the Mets, Nomar to the Cubs, and DLowe to LA, Theo spent most of the offseason looking to rebuild a champion. After shoring up his bullpen with a few new arms in John Halama and Matt Mantei, the Red Sox decided that Edgar Renteria was the better option at shortstop over Orlando Cabrera.
But having learned from the moves that turned the 2003 ALCS losers into World Champs in 2004, Epstein then turned his attention to the pitching staff. In an offseason that kicked off with the Mets setting the premium for slightly better than average pitching with their signing of Kris Benson, then setting the high end of that market with Pedro Martinez, the Red Sox looked at the landscape and made a few unexpected moves.
Starting with the incentive laden deal given to left veteran David Wells, the Red Sox pitching staff started rebuilding itself with an aim to field a deeper rotation that could fend off the injury bug that while knocking around the position players, stayed away from the starting rotation throughout 2004. Matt Clement and Wade Miller were brought in to round out a starting rotation that now includes Curt Schilling, Wells, Clement, Miller, Tim Wakefield, and Bronson Arroyo with John Halama and Byung-Hyun Kim hanging around in case of emergency.
In 2004, Theo placed his bet on two horses. In 2005, he hedged his bets with a much deeper rotation. But one of the most important decisions that may impact the 2005 Red Sox pitching staff was the decision to resign the staff’s unsung leader, Jason Varitek. It has now been said enough times by enough respected people in baseball, and backed up by his new captainship, that we must believe that Varitek’s impact on a pitching staff is real.
While the Red Sox have incrementally improved themselves over the offseason vs. the team that they fielded through most of the 2004 regular season, so have the Yankees. That will be no more apparent than on opening day of the 2005 season, when the Red Sox take their four game rivalry win streak to Yankee Stadium to face Randy Johnson, Mike Mussina, and Carl Pavano.
So put 2004 in the rear view mirror. Think back on it often and fondly as a treasured memory. But if the World Series was the “end”, then this spring does “spring new beginnings.”