NESN's Red Sox blog roundtable debut

Myself along with the rest of the Red Sox blogging community were asked to participate in the inaugural Red Sox Blog Roundtable on NESN.com.

Production Assistant Evan Brunell will have a roundtable and alternate between the Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox each week.

This week he asked us five questions and two of my answers are posted.

You can check out the full entry here.

Here are my answers:

The rotation saga is the story line to watch during spring training. Assuming everyone is healthy, who should go to the bullpen?

Amanda Bruno, Batter-up With Bruno: This is literally a no-brainer. It absolutely has to be Wakefield. Yes, we all know Wake needs 17 more wins to tie Roger Clemens and Cy Young for the most wins in a Red Sox uniform, but keep in mind that Boston wants to win. Wake is the most versatile of the group and can be a key long relief guy and eat up innings. It would be absurd to send Buchholz to Triple-A or the pen at this point in his career.

Do the Red Sox have what it takes to overtake the Yankees and hold off the Rays?

Bruno: It's really tough to tell. Boston bolstered its starting rotation, but that's really all it did.

The Yankees lost Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui, but they also acquired Curtis Granderson, Nick Johnson and Randy Winn to fill in the holes. They also added another arm in Javier Vazquez to the starting rotation for his second stint in pinstripes.

Everyone keeps saying the Rays will be better this season and will make a run for the wild card, but what did they really do this offseason? They didn't sign any big players, and both the Red Sox and Yanks did.

The key factor is that everyone has to stay healthy for the Red Sox or there will be issues. If not, the Yankees will win the East again easily.