With Major League Baseball's free agency season just getting going, there hasn't been much in the way of breaking news or reports to scoop for baseball writers. So, they've gone back to doing what they do best: playing make-believe.
↵In a report from the Providence Journal's Brian MacPherson, the results of a polling of MLBTradeRumors.com's editors about potential landing spots for this offseason's marquee free agents are displayed. And Red Sox fans are likely to be pretty happy with them.
↵Scott Downs, Adrian Beltre, Jayson Werth and John Buck all had the majority of editors voting that they'd be donning Red Sox uniforms come March.
↵John Buck, you ask? That's right. Not one of MLBTR's editors suspected that Victor Martinez would be back in Boston. In fact, most of them had him landing in Detroit.
↵Others who received a voting consideration to make it to Fenway: Derrek Lee, Joaquin Benoit, Koji Uehara and Brandon Webb. Expect the team to go hard after relief pitching but, as MacPherson points out, Theo Epstein noted that "If you look at the history of higher-paid, non-closing relievers on multiyear deals, it's not pretty."
↵The Red Sox' biggest competition, according to MLBTR? The Los Angeles Angels. The Yankees figure to be big players in free agency again, but their targets (Cliff Lee, Carl Crawford, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera) aren't names that the Red Sox have expressed a serious interest in.