Major League Baseball

BASEBALL - RED SOX;A healthy outfield needed

Published Oct. 8, 2010 10:22 p.m. ET

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(Third of a six-part series on the outlook for the 2011 Red Sox. Today: the outfield)

Something's obviously wrong when Ryan Kalish becomes the player to whom all other outfielders are compared, but that's almost where the Red Sox found themselves in 2010. Even though Kalish had never before played a major league game, he made his Red Sox debut on July 31 and quickly became the team's most reliable outfielder.

Kalish has some speed, ending as the club's stolen bases leader with 10. He made several fine catches, highlighted by a diving grab of an Aug. 28 BJ Upton liner at Tampa Bay. Mostly, he was steady.

That, of course, was part of the problem. Steady meant reliance on a 22-year-old who batted .252 with a .305 OBP and .405 slugging. It's just that once Mike Cameron finally succumbed to his torn abdominal, Kalish's numbers were comparable to his (.259/.328/.401).

Sad but true, the Red Sox became dependant on youngsters, including Daniel Nava, and an older (31) outfielder who had kicked around the majors and minors for years, Darnell McDonald. Meanwhile, veteran J.D. Drew was less than exciting, batting only .255 with a weak .341 OBP and .452 slugging.

"He never really got hot like he can," said Sox general manager Theo Epstein. "In previous years he's gotten on fire for a month or two. I think the strike zone bothered him. Probably more than any hitter we have, he's really reliant on working the count and using his discipline to put himself in position to get a good pitch to hit later in the count. His walks were down (60 - 22 fewer than 2009) and it got him out of his natural swing a little bit. It's something he's gonna have to reconcile going into next year, getting on base 40 percent of the time instead of 34 percent of the time."

The Red Sox outfield batted a collective .245 in 2010, far and away the worst in the A.L. Its OBP of .319 was next-to-worst.

The Sox need their health back, having lost Jacoby Ellsbury for all but 18 ineffective games. Neither he nor Cameron ever hit their stride. First off, Ellsbury was forced to shift over to left field, where his speed wasn't as much a factor, and Cameron never got untracked in center field, suffering from the injury just about from the very beginning, coming up with a sore groin in late March.

The Sox were forced to rely on the Nava/Kalish/McDonald/Bill Hall combination, and they did a fine job, but they were not starting material and it cost the club in the long run.

Ellsbury was coming off a club-record, A.L.-leading 70-steal season. The club is praying that he can pick it up again in 2011. "We expect him to be healthy and be a significant part of the team, an everyday outfielder for us," Epstein said, "not only with the bat but also defensively and on the bases."

Likewise, the club feels good about Cameron, but don't necessarily expect to see him patrolling center field again. It's likely time for him to shift over to left, a position he has played, uh, never in his 16-year career.

"We're pretty confident based on the medical reports, which are outstanding right now," Epstein said of the veteran, who had surgery on Aug. 27. "He's feeling better than he has in years, so we'll see. It doesn't matter what they say now. It matters how it looks in April, his ability to go out there and play.

"He's feeling pretty confident. That said, we're not dealing with a player in his prime age years now. We're dealing with someone who's on the other end of the aging curve, so we'll be smart about it, but I think we feel he's gonna show us more next year certainly when available than he did this year."

If anything next season, the real battles will be as the backup outfielder. The team would have that covered should it re-sign Hall, but his option is a hefty $9.25 million. McDonald, whose defensive skills are adequate, would be a more likely backup given his minimal salary. Ditto for Eric Patterson, who played 35 games in the outfield and, like Hall, can also play the infield. Patterson also has the kind of speed the club likes.

As for Kalish, he's almost ready, but some more seasoning at Triple-A Pawtucket would seem to be in order.

"I think there's a difference between being ready to handle responsibility that comes your way out of necessity and being absolutely ready to reach your full potential and be the very best you can be," Epstein said. "So if it turns out next year that we have an opening, I think we all trust in him in this organization to handle himself the right way and play good baseball and grind his at-bats and play defense and run the bases.

"At the same time, I think we all feel he has even more growth left. He's got an even higher ceiling than what he's showed right now. So if we feel like he can continue that development in the big leagues and it's appropriate given the rest of the roster, then so be it, but it may be appropriate to continue that growth and development at Triple A."

Mike Fine may be reached at mikefine@ledger.com

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