Red Sox Right Field Position: Reddick, Kalish or a Free Agent?

While those interested in turning baseball into a reality-television type of dramatic tale focus on the tales of beer and chicken and clubhouse discord, the 2012 Red Sox have some very real question marks at a few positions. 

The bullpen, the closer, starting pitching and right field are where the real drama could play out in the buildup to the 2012 season. 

The Red Sox took a step toward improving the bullpen earlier this week when they dealt Jed Lowrie and Kyle Weiland to the Houston Astros for reliever Mark Melancon. Notably absent from the trade were either Josh Reddick or Ryan Kalish.

In fact, so far this offseason, Reddick's name has popped up in a few trade rumors, Kalish's has not, but that doesn't mean that he's not being bandied about as a trade option with general manager circles.

Kalish missed nearly the entire 2011 season recovering from shoulder surgery so his value is not what it was one year ago when he was coming off a 2010 season in which he was thrust into a starting role on an injury-riddled Red Sox squad. 

Kalish didn't dominate the league, but he did display a tantalizing blend of both power and speed, as well a good glove in centerfield.

Josh Reddick was the young outfielder who got the chance to showcase his potential in 2011. He filled in for the oft-injured JD Drew for the better part of the summer, and then extended that period all the way to the catastrophic end of the regular season.

Reddick's numbers were solid, in fact he was one of the few members of the Red Sox whose road numbers were better than his numbers at Fenway Park.

While both young players have shown flashes of ability that may suggest that they could be solid everyday right-fielders for Boston, both have also shown some weaknesses that may give new Red Sox General Manager Ben Cherington pause when considering handing the starting job over to either young prospect. 

This is going to be one of the key decisions made in this offseason. There is no big ticket, franchise type of right fielder on the free-agent market. There are a number of free agent options, though.

Yet, that pool of players is drying up. Both Josh Willingham and Michael Cuddyer signed contracts this week. That still leaves players such as Carlos Beltran, Jason Kubel, Coco Crisp and highly touted Cuban defector Yoennis Cespedes as options. 

It's not a great set of options for the Red Sox. There is risk everywhere.

Beltran could produce great numbers, but he will cost a fair amount of money and is also an injury risk. Kubel may represent a nice option and his price wouldn't be a budget buster, but Kubel also suffered from a number of injuries last season, and his low walk and high strikeout totals are not what the Red Sox organization usually looks for in a potential starting offensive player. 

Coco Crisp is of course a familiar name to both Red Sox fans and management. The constant threat of injury hovers over Crisp as well. His skill set is one that the Red Sox already have plenty of as far as base-stealing ability goes.

That being said, adding Crisp to an outfield with Carl Crawford and Jacoby Ellsbury would give the Red Sox one of the fastest and most dynamic outfields in all of baseball. All three players can seemingly steal a base at will, and Crisp has one of the best gloves in the game. 

He's a switch hitter but he's not a disciplined one. Crisp isn't great at taking pitches. He's cut from that B.J. Upton ( career .342 on-base percentage ), Alfonso Soriano ( .323 on-base percentage ) cloth as displayed by Crisp's own .330 career on-base percentage.

That, combined with his previous tenure in Boston, makes a Crisp acquisition unlikely.

That leaves the intriguing Yoennis Cespedes. Cespedes is the Cuban defector who has created both skepticism and intrigue among the baseball world. He's a gifted athlete whose ability to consistently perform at the big league level is relatively unknown.

His combination of speed and power will likely net him a fairly large contract. The overall lack of depth at the outfield position in the free agent market is also driving his price up.

The Red Sox are a franchise looking to continue the overall success of the past decade while eliminating some of its consistent disappointments.

The biggest disappointments have been big-ticket free-agent signings. Edgar Renteria, Julio Lugo, J.D. Drew, Daisuke Matsuzaka, John Lackey and Carl Crawford are just some of the more memorable free agents acquired under former Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein who failed to produce numbers that would validate their contracts.

That would seem to make Cespedes an unlikely target.

The Red Sox could still try and enter the trade market. They've been linked in talks regarding both starting pitchers and closers recently.

There hasn't been as much chatter with regards to outfielders, but that doesn't change the fact that the starting right field position remains unclaimed as of now. It won't be by Opening Day 2012, though, and the Red Sox will have some decisions to make between now and then.

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