Stirner wrote:

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jbuth31 wrote:

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Ummm, don't we need a RH outfield bat?

Aviles has a history of hitting lefties well.  Combined with his outfield experience (see Yirm's post), I think the front office is expecting Aviles to be our right-handed outfield bat.  

Also, some quotes from Francona and Aviles himself:

http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/red-sox/post/_/id/12958/sox-pick-up-kc-utility-inf-aviles

Aviles had expressed some discontent this week about being a backup in Kansas City. That won't be an issue here, he said. 

"The situation here is completely different," he said. "We're in first place, and we have an opportunity to win a world championship. It's going to take more than 25 guys to do that, so I'm more than happy to be one of those guys. 

"It's definitely a different atmosphere," he said. "When I was over there, we were having tough seasons, and now I'm on a team where every year, you're in contention. It's definitely a good thing for me, and, hopefully, it's going to be the best thing for me." 

Francona also suggested that the addition of Aviles, 30, may bear fruit in the future. Marco Scutaro's contract expires after this season, so the Sox may have put his replacement in place. Francona also said the Sox want to see whether Aviles can play the outfield. 

Aviles said he hadn't played outfield since summer ball when he was still in college, but was willing to give it a try. 

"He's kind of a guy I think the organization has liked from afar for a while,'' Francona said. "He's a guy who can really hit left-handers, and play second, third, short. Then he had the arm surgery, kind of slowed him down, derailed him for a while, but he can run, hit the ball out of the ballpark. How we would use him, I don't know. 

"Some of that depends on Jed. Jed's not too far away. At some point, we'd like to get him to the outfield, because I think we think he can do it. He hasn't done that yet, we'll see.