Steve of Charlotte wrote:

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Figuring with some extra inning games, we need to be able to cover around 1500 innings.  Our starters may not reach 900, let alone 1000 (5x200). Lets figure Beckett gives us 195, Lester 210, Buchholtz 180, Bard 150, and the 5th starter 150 (Cook, Padilla, Dice-K etc.), that only gives us 885.

Of course I'm (praying) for good health.  Bailey 60, Melanson 70, and (old faithful) Aceves 100....somewhere we need to cover close to 385 MORE innings.

Archie is probably correct, we need some more insurance by adding someone now.

No way can we count on Andrew Miller.  Morales may give us 60.  Our starters, to me, look like the problem.  I'm pulling hard Felix Doubront!!!

The pitching staff is suspect, but I don't understand why fans keep looking at "innings" in such a manner. I promise the Red Sox won't run out of pitchers, it isn't a question of getting innings, it's getting quality performance in those innings. ST hasn't started yet, and trying to guarantee where all your 2012 innings will go is an exercise in futility, we don't even know who the 5th starter will be. If the top three stays healthy, and if Bard's conversion is successful, the Red Sox are fine...those are the big questions, not which collection of AAAA pitchers will make spot starts and pitch 10-30 innings each in mop up/emergency duty. If the top three starters get hurt or are ineffective, it's probably too late to add the necessary depth anyways. You can't assume there will be only 5 starters over the course of the season, and the 4th and 5th spot will produce more than 300 innings even if it's a mix and match collab effort. I feel like looking at last year's staff is a better (but still very flawed) comparison.

The Red Sox staff is losing Wake and Lackey's 314 innings..I fear Bard might not make it as a starter, and the spaghetti isn't that exciting, but I have a hard time envisioning worse production out of the 4th and 5th spot, at worst it should be a wash. As far as Buchholz goes, you'd essentially be giving him the ~125 innings Weiland, Miller and Bedard gave last year, assuming health. I expect injuries to the rotation over the course of the season, but that's where it stands assuming health right now. The SP depth is flawed, but it's better than last year. If the top three guys stay relatively healthy, the staff should be fine. Getting a Saunders (before he signed) just because he's capable of throwing a bunch of crappy innings is pointless to me...the Red Sox got that from Lackey and Wakefield last year.

As far as the bullpen goes, you are only looking at the top three or four guys giving innings out of the pen, but last year just Dan Wheeler and Matt Albers gave over 100 combined innings. Last year the bullpen got innings from 22 different players. Injuries happen, and a lot of guys who aren't being counted on now will get innings out of the pen over the course of the year.