There will be opportunities for Jeremy Hermida in Boston, to be sure.

But there could also be long stretches of idle time for an outfielder used to seeing his name on the Marlins’ lineup card nearly every day. That means adjustments and heeding plenty of advice from veteran players who have filled a reserve role.

The 26-year-old is only two years removed from a season in which he hit .296 with 18 home runs and 63 RBIs with an .807 on-base-percentage. He hasn’t fulfilled the hefty “potential” tag he’s been branded with since being a first-round pick. Instead, Hermida is likely to develop into a fourth outfielder and left-handed bat off the bench with such a stacked group of outfielders playing in front of him in Boston.

Hermida said watching former Marlins teammate…

Victor Martinez was thrown into the fire of an American League East pennant race after joining the Red Sox as a trading deadline acquisition last season. The catcher didn't have time to learn and adapt to the nuances of all the pitchers on his staff. It's different now. "It was something that I was really looking forward to coming into spring training, just having a chance to work with…

Victor Martinez was thrown into the fire of an American League East pennant race after joining the Red Sox as a trading deadline acquisition last season.

Anytime a baseball player who had a good career retires, the debate begins on whether or not they belong in the Hall of Fame. Most of the time, the answer is no, and the topic should not even be brought up. The Hall of Fame is for the best of the best, not the most popular.

But in the case of Nomar Garciaparra, I think the answer is yes.

When the question was first asked, my initial reaction was no. But looking at his stats, it is hard for me to leave him out.

A .313 lifetime batting average, 229 home runs, 936 RBI, and 1747 hits seem very pedestrian at first glance. But when you take into account his traditionally light-hitting position of shortstop the batting average especially jumps out at you.

Although Nomar doesn’t have the totals that some other Hall of Fame players have, he was an elite player for the better part of his career.

His first four full seasons he averaged 28 home runs and 105 RBI, batting .337 over that span, including back-to-back batting titles in 1999 and 2000.

After missing most of 2001 with a wrist injury, he was back to his old form. Over the next two seasons he hit 52 home runs and drove in 225 runs, hitting .305 along the way.

Once he turned 30, though, his career started to head downhill as he become plagued by injuries. He lost his home run power, posting just one more double-digit home run season (20 in 2006).

However, his average was still strong. In his first 10 full major league seasons, he hit .300 or better in nine of them.

A six-time All-Star, Garciaparra put up numbers that were almost unheard of from the shortstop position. He had seven seasons that were Hall of Fame-quality seasons.

The Hall of Fame is reserved for the best players in baseball, and Nomar Garciaparra was one of the best players in baseball. The best shouldn’t be determined by who played the longest and racked up the best stats, but who displayed they were in fact the best on the field.

There was a time when Garciaparra was routinely mentioned in the same sentence with Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter, both first ballot Hall of Famers. Had Nomar stayed healthy, maybe he still would be on the same level as those two. But either way, they should all end up in the same place: Cooperstown.

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In a list of greatest players in the history of one of baseball’s most storied franchise, the names at the top of Boston’s list are Hall of Famers.

Williams. Yastrzemski. Rice. Doerr. Young.

So it is not every day that a player comes along with enough caliber to crack the top part of such a list.

One such player did emerge in the summer of 1997.

Nomar Garciaparra’s emerging talent preceded him. During the mid-’90s, the Red Sox had a more than decent option at shortstop in John Valentin. But the prospects of Garciaparra’s bright future earned him the job for Opening Day 1997.

Garciaparra, who signed with the Sox for the purpose of retiring with the team earlier this week, spent parts of nine seasons in Boston from his debut in 1996. Due to an injury in 2001 and being traded in 2004, though, he accumulated only six full seasons. So how can he be considered among the greats of a franchise that has been around for more than a century?

As will likely be the case for sometime, the impact of player like Garciaparra may not be completely recognized until a later point because he played during the steroid era. At the time he was an excellent contact hitter and the star player on a star franchise.

In retrospect, he may have been the most dominant hitter in the game during his tenure in Boston.

Garciaparra’s numbers over that time certainly paint an impressive picture—.323/.370/.553, 178 home runs, and 279 doubles during his time in Boston. But it is his versatility as a hitter that made him the best during that time.

Garciaparra was most naturally a gap, line-drive hitter. But he changed his offensive approach so the team could get the most out of him.

During his first two seasons with the club he hit 30 and 35 home runs, respectively, a feat that at the time had been accomplished only four other times in the history of baseball (and two, Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco, have been linked to steroids).

He set records for RBI by a leadoff hitter and home runs by a rookie shortstop on his way to the Rookie of the Year award.

After those seasons of great power numbers, Garciaparra changed to still be able to put up good power numbers but increase his on-base percentage and cut down on strikeouts. By his fourth season, the Sox had signed a rather well-known power hitter by the name of Manny Ramirez, which took some of the burden of being a power hitter off of Garciaparra.

After that transition, Nomar, named after the reverse spelling of his father Ramon, became a much more balanced hitter. He crossed the 50-doubles plateau twice, and also twice pulled off the very rare accomplishment of recording more doubles than strikeouts.

He cemented his legacy as one of the most dangerous hitters by leading the league in hitting in back-to-back seasons in ’99 and ’00, at .357 and .372, respectively (nobody has finished the season in the AL with an average above .372 since George Brett in 1980).

Garciaparra had the ability to do whatever he wanted as a hitter. If he wanted to hit 40 to 45 home runs, he could have. There were times where it seemed like he could take every single pitch he was given and bang it off of the Green Monster, something he did better than maybe any player in Red Sox history.

Ted Williams, in an interview during the 1999 All-Star Game festivities in Boston, said that if any player were to ever hit .400 again, it would be Garciaparra.
 
Red Sox fans are well aware of the impact that Garciaparra had on the diamond for Boston’s teams in the late ’90s and early 2000s. But his impact stretched much further than just that. He was drafted and signed by John Harrington and Dan Duquette, the predecessors of the John Henry/Larry Luccino/Tom Werner ownership and Theo Epstein at general manager.

The current Sox ownership saw what affect drafting quality players and revamping the minor league system could have on a franchise. In Garciaparra, the Sox not only got a great player, but someone who was taken as the fan favorite and face of the franchise.

No matter where you rank him among Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter in the “Trinity of Shortstops” of the late ’90s and early 2000s (to say nothing of Miguel Tejada, Omar Vizquel, and others), Garciaparra will get some votes for the Hall of Fame—and deservedly so. A player like Garciaparra exemplifies the reason why players remain on the ballot for 15 years. He is not a first-ballot player, but he will be there eventually.

He was a dominant, versatile hitter, and it is in Boston where he deserved to end his career.

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The Boston Red Sox not only ended their 86-year drought of not winning a world title last decade, but they also tacked on another one three years later.

Can they add to their trophy case in 2010? You have to think they will be one of the favorites to do so.

Boston is one of the biggest-spending teams in the leagues, and while they do have to battle through the toughest division in baseball, fans can rest assured that the Red Sox will do whatever it takes to field a winner.

Now let’s see how they are going to stack up in 2010.

Pitching

This is one of the best and deepest rotations in the league. This offseason the team went out and signed John Lackey to the tune of five years and $82.5 million. He joins an already stacked rotation that includes Josh Beckett and Jon Lester.

Lackey has had three solid seasons in a row pitching for the Angels, posting a 3.78 ERA or better each year. Beckett was touched up a little bit in 2008 but bounced back last year to go 17-6 with a 3.86 ERA. Lester is a rising star who was 16-6 with a 3.21 ERA in 2008 and 15-8 with a 3.41 ERA a year ago.

The other two starters are Daisuke Matsuzaka and Clay Buchholz, but Tim Wakefield is also making a run to fill out the rotation. Dice-K was great in 2008, but health issues contributed to a disastrous 2009 campaign.

When the game is on the line, you don’t have to worry about the Boston bullpen falling short. Jonathan Papelbon is a top-notch closer, and Daniel Bard is a young, hard-throwing setup man.

Lineup

Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia return as the major forces to be reckoned with on offense. Both guys are solid .300 hitters and gritty players that Red Sox fans love. David Ortiz had a terrible first half but still ended up with 28 home runs and 99 RBI.

In the outfield the Red Sox have the speedy Jacoby Ellsbury in left, new addition Mike Cameron in center, and the often injured J.D. Drew out in right.

A couple of other new guys round out the infield with Adrian Beltre brought in to play third and Marco Scutaro coming over from Toronto to play short. Neither is a world-beater, but both are pretty solid. The team held on to Mike Lowell, and he can fill in at first or third.

Prediction

This team’s baseball odds show their over/under win prediction at 94.5 games. In my 2010 Boston Red Sox predictions I went into a little more depth about why I think this team goes OVER that number and has a good shot at another World Series. If you want to cash in this summer, take a look at the MLB picks offered on our site for the individual games.

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Cuban shortstop Adeiny Hechevarria defected from his home country back in July and has apparently gotten a ton…

John Lackey is off to a nice start with the Red Sox. The right-hander threw three shutout innings in Boston's 8-2 victory over Jason Bay and the New York Mets on Thursday. Lackey allowed three hits and has yet to allow a run in five innings over two outings this spring. The former Angels star joined the Red Sox in December when he finalized an $82.5 million, five-year contract.

Manny Delcarmen had reason to be optimistic about his 2009 season. In his first 11 appearances, spanning 14 innings, he did not allow an earned run, holding opponents to a .184 batting average with 12 strikeouts and eight walks. But his ERA increased in each month of the season: 0.00 in April; 3.00 in May; 4.00 in June; 4.66 in July; 5.25 in August; and a whopping 14.14 in September.

John Lackey is off to a nice start with the Red Sox. The right-hander threw three shutout innings in Boston's 8-2 victory over Jason Bay and the New York Mets on Thursday. Lackey allowed three hits in his second spring outing and has yet to allow a run since he finalized an $82.5 million, five-year contract with the Red Sox in December.