Pitchers and catchers don't report to Fort Myers for more than another month. But this week, something will take place in Arizona that could be as significant as anything that happens once spring training begins:
Dustin Pedroia is set to start to running and testing his surgically-repaired left knee.
Pedroia underwent significant micro-fracture surgery in November of 2017. He was activated in late May last season, played a total of three games and was shut down again, sent home to Arizona, and though the Sox didn't announce it until months later, underwent a second arthroscopic procedure in August.
What Pedroia needed, the Red Sox said last season, was more time. Time to heal, to recover from the surgery he initially underwent. (As a parallel, pitcher Steven Wright had the same surgery before Pedroia in 2017, and though he plays a far less demanding position, had several flare-ups during last season, including a setback hours after being placed on the Division Series roster which resulted in him being removed from the roster).
Both the Sox and Pedroia remain hopeful that the additional time off and a winter's worth of rehab and strengthening will do the trick.
"Listen, I'm in a lot better position right now than I was last year,'' Pedroia told BostonSportsJournal.com. "I'm very confident and excited that I'm going to be able to do it and go forward. Now I understand a lot more than I did last year. I was trying to heal while I was rehabbing and that probably wasn't the smartest thing to do. I've taken time and changed my rehab philosophy, let my knee heal a lot more and I feel good.''
Pedroia pushed back against the notion that this week will represent some sort of epiphany. Instead, he's looking at the bigger picture.
"It isn't like it's the 'be-all, end-all' this week,'' he noted. "Don't get me wrong -- I've run (some) already. That's why I'm confident. It's not like I'm going out and running triples. There's a right way to do this and the build-up needs to be executed perfectly. To try and blow it out on Jan. 14 is probably not too bright. It's a progression of doing more.''
Asked to contrast how he felt last May to how he feels now, Pedroia said: "I feel a lot better. We were following the doctor's order and were told there was supposed to be some discomfort and I was pushing through things that I probably shouldn't have. Looking back on it, that wasn't the smartest thing to do. Right now, compared to when I came back and (briefly) played, I'm a lot better. I'm very confident and doing all I can to come back and prove a lot of people wrong.''
And perhaps Pedroia's confidence is well-founded. Perhaps he'll arrive in Fort Myers with no physical limitations, use spring training to prepare for the rigors of the regular season, and at 35, resume his career.
Of course, such optimism has been expressed before, only to have Pedroia be sidelined again. As recently as late July, before he had the arthroscopic procedure, he was hopeful of contributing in September and the postseason.
But Pedroia's case is a reminder that all rehabilitation efforts are not linear. Setbacks intervene and progress is sidetracked.
Still, there's a great deal of unknown surrounding Pedroia. Few baseball players have had the surgery performed (it's far more common among basketball players), so there's little precedent. And it probably doesn't help that Pedroia has long played with a recklessness that often puts him in harm's way on the field.
And what if Pedroia either isn't ready to start the season, or faces other long-term obstacles in his comeback attempt? What does that suggest about a player who has three years and $40 million remaining on his contract? And what does it mean for the 2019 Red Sox' efforts to repeat as world champions?
For the short-term, the Red Sox have adequate depth at the position, with Brock Holt and Eduardo Nunez part of the 25-man roster.
But as recent history demonstrated, Holt is more effective as a utility player who moves around the infield and plays sporadically rather than every day. And while Nunez is versatile, capable of filling in at second, short and third, he was a true liability at second in 2018, with minus-14 defensive runs saved above average at the position.
Sure, Nunez could fill in once or twice a week at second without greatly compromising the team. But anything more would be ill-advised. And while Holt is more sure-handed at second and displays additional range, he, too, is a below-average defender at the position, to say nothing of the fact that anchoring him at second means he can't contribute elsewhere on the field, nor spell teammates at other positions who could use the rest.
There are other in-house options on the horizon. Marco Hernandez, who has great offensive upside, has missed all but 21 games in the last two seasons to a series of shoulder surgeries and needs to resume playing in the minors before he can be considered part of the solution in Boston.
Michael Chavis, too, has shown promise as a hitter. But he's had a total of 33 at-bats above Double-A and has never played second base -- though he's expected to get some work there in the spring.
At the winter meetings in Las Vegas, Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, when asked about the contingency plan with Pedroia, said: "I think we have plenty of time (to add somebody). If it was an addition, it would be more minor league addition-type contracts. It would not be big league contracts that we're looking to do.''
Well, that's just as well since most of the major league alternatives are off the board. The Mets' signing of Jed Lowrie and the Yankees' signing of D.J. LeMahieu ate up the two best remaining veteran infield options.
Could the Sox get by with some combination of Holt, Nunez, and, later in the season, Hernandez and Chavis? It would seem so, since they did without Pedroia for very nearly all of 2018 and still managed to win the World Series.
But expecting that to happen again might be pushing things. And there are physical concerns with some of the alternatives: Nunez still battles a chronic knee (recall his almost comical pratfalls during the epic Game 3 of the World Series) and Hernandez is at far from full health. Chavis, too, offers no guarantees -- either about his ability to hit major league pitching, or to switch to a heretofore unfamiliar position.
The best scenario, obviously, would be a healthy (or healthier) Pedroia, one who could play 120 or so games at somewhere near his previous level.
"In my mind,'' added Pedroia, "I'm coming into (spring training) not as a rehab guy, but as an everyday player that, yes, is coming back from an injury. But I don't see myself having any restrictions.''
This week will go a long way in determining how realistic that is.
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