Lowell leaves Red Sox thin up the middle

CSNNE.com's Sean McAdam reported this week that Mike Lowell likely will open the season with the Red Sox and likely will not be traded during spring training. It makes sense: With so many free agents signing for bargain-basement prices, there's no need for a team to part with prospects for a question mark like Lowell. If Russell Branyan had to settle for a $2 million deal, why would another team assume anything but a fraction of the money owed Lowell?

Should Lowell stick around, the Red Sox bench would seem to be set in stone before exhibition games even begin. Jason Varitek will be the backup catcher. Lowell will back up the two infield corners. Jeremy Hermida will back up the two outfield corners. Bill Hall will back up everywhere else.

But that leaves the Red Sox awfully thin in the middle infield. Hall was acquired as a jack-of-all-trades utility guy. Here's the problem: He last played shortstop in the major leagues four years ago, and he last saw even semi-regular playing time at second base five years ago. He's spent the last three seasons almost exclusively as a third baseman and as an outfielder.

This leaves Hall as an adequate in-game replacement for Dustin Pedroia or Marco Scutaro in the event of a fluke injury like a foul ball off the shin. At the other end of the spectrum, should either Pedroia or Scutaro suffer any sort of long-term injury, Tug Hulett or Jed Lowrie could be called up from Triple-A Pawtucket and jump into the starting lineup.

It's in the middle that things start to get hazy. What happens if Pedroia sprains an ankle and is sidelined for four games? What happens if Scutaro gets the flu and is laid up for a week?

Should either middle infielder suffer an injury that's not quite severe enough to land him on the 15-day disabled list -- and the Red Sox aren't going to deactivate Pedroia for 15 days if he's expected to be back in 10 -- Hall would have to play second base or shortstop every day for a week. He hasn't done that since 2006.

For a team banking its fortune on being able to catch the ball, being so thin at two key defensive positions seems unnecessarily precarious.

Jed Lowrie might need more time

Other than the back end of the bullpen, one could take a pretty accurate crack at what the Red Sox roster will look like on Opening Day. Jason Varitek will be the backup catcher. Mike Lowell likely will be on the disabled list or traded away. Bill Hall and Jeremy Hermida will have spots on the bench.

One of the only toss-ups is in the infield, where either Tug Hulett or Jed Lowrie likely will break camp as the utility infielder who can spell Adrian Beltre, Dustin Pedroia and Marco Scutaro once every couple of weeks apiece.

Hulett got to the plate 19 times with the Kansas City Royals last season but otherwise played most of the season at Triple-A Omaha, playing mostly second base but also a little shortstop, third base and right field. He hit .291 and OBP'ed .384 with 11 home runs and 27 doubles in just shy of 442 plate appearances.

But this doesn't have much to do with Hulett. That has to do with Lowrie and whether the Red Sox believe he could benefit more from regular playing time at Triple-A Pawtucket or whether he's ready now to take over a full-time job should something happen to Beltre, Pedroia or Scutaro.

A wrist injury limited Lowrie to a little over 175 plate appearances combined between the major leagues and minor leagues last season -- and a good chunk of those were rehab plate appearances used less for development than for strength-building. Here's how things break down for Lowrie in the upper levels of the minor leagues:

Double-A: 413 plate appearances
Triple-A: 494 plate appearances

Compare that to another doubles-hitting middle infielder who recently came up through the Red Sox system:

Double-A: 298 plate appearances
Triple-A: 733 plate appearances

In all, Dustin Pedroia played a season and a half at Triple-A Pawtucket before the Red Sox summoned him to the major leagues. He hasn't been back.

Lowrie, on the other hand, made a midseason jump to Triple-A in 2007 and then another midseason jump to the major leagues a year later, finishing with about 400 plate appearances in the process. Even then, though, he was fighting a wrist injury that wasn't resolved until his surgery at the end of April. He hasn't swung a bat without having to think about his wrist for almost two full seasons.

The guess here is that the Red Sox will have him play at least half a season at Triple-A Pawtucket to make up for lost time. He won't turn 26 years old until mid-April, but he's coming off a year in which he didn't get into any sort of rhythm. A full-time bench job this season -- and the irregular playing time that comes with it -- could stunt his development even more.

Three more months in Pawtucket might give him the at-bats he needs to be able to contribute if and when he's called upon.

Update: “You can look at this season as a rebound season, but I’m looking to have a long career. I’m not looking to just have one season,” Lowrie told reporters in Fort Myers. “Every year that I come into camp, I want to be the starting shortstop. I don’t look at it as just this year, all or nothing. I look at it as, I want to build a career. That’s why I want to make sure that I fix this and I get this right. I’m not looking at it from just a this-year standpoint.”