It was a relatively quiet off-season for the local nine. The one notable subtraction was the loss of Jacoby Ellsbury to free agency, who agreed to sign with Boston’s division rival, the New York Yankees. Also gone from the team are two other key cogs from last season’s machine: catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia (signed with the Miami Marlins) and shortstop Stephen Drew (currently unsigned). There were also a few notable additions, too, including catcher A.J. Pierzynski, outfielder Grady Sizemore, and reliever Edward Mujica, all of whom made the Opening Day roster.

Otherwise, the team taking the field this afternoon at Orioles Park at Camden Yards is for all intents and purposes the same one that we saw playing for postseason glory this past October. The starting rotation carries over from last season, as does the right side of the infield, the corner outfielders, and the key bullpen components.

Defending a championship is not easy and, in fact, nearly impossible: the last team to win back-to-back championships were the Yankees, who won three straight titles between 1998 and 2000. Only time will tell if the 2014 Red Sox can match the success of last season. With that, here are five thoughts on this year’s club as the season opens.

1. Will Middlebrooks will rebound from his sophomore slump.

After an eye-opening rookie campaign in 2012, cut short by a wrist injury, Middlebrooks got off to a poor start offensively last season and was optioned to Pawtucket in mid-June. He returned in early August and, over 41 games, had a BAbip of .320 and an OPS of .805 but factored little into Boston’s postseason run, batting .160 with one RBI over three playoff series. Bill James projects that he should bat .266 with 32 home runs, 104 RBI, and an .800 OPS, which if healthy should be attainable since they closely match what he was on pace to do in 2012. Signs were promising this spring, with four home runs and 1.056 OPS in 19 games this spring.

2. Koji Uehara will not repeat his performance from last season.

Uehara had an unbelievable season in 2013, posting a WHIP of 0.57 in 74.1 IP during the regular season. He was just a filthy during the postseason, combining for seven saves and a 0.51 WHIP in 13.2 IP and earned ALCS MVP honors. It would be hard for any closer, whether it’s Uehara, Mariano Rivera, Dick Radatz, or Dennis Eckersley, to match those totals in back-to-back seasons, but it’s going to be even more difficult given that he turns 39 years old this week. Farrell and pitching coach Juan Nieves will need to manage the bullpen more effectively this season and keep his innings down if he is to be effective as the team’s closer; Mujica, who had 37 saves for St. Louis last season, is the team’s backup plan.

3. Xander Bogaerts will make us forget the name “Stephen Drew.”

I mean no disrespect to Drew, who was a solid performer in the field and held his own at the bottom of the order, but Bogaerts, ranked second in the 2014 Baseball America Top 100 Prospects and eighth the previous year, is the real deal. His sample size at the major league level is small but he did prove himself in the 2013 postseason, taking over for Middlebrooks at third and posting an OPS of .893 while scoring nine runs in 34 plate appearances. In 2012, he was rated the best power hitter in the Boston farm system, so he and Middlebrooks should add some power to compliment Ortiz and Napoli in the middle of the lineup. It will be to no one’s surprise if he walks away with AL Rookie of the Year honors at the end of this season.

4. Jackie Bradley will be back in Boston sooner than later and to stay.

Grady Sizemore, who had been limited over the past four seasons due to injury and has not stepped on a baseball diamond since 2011, signed a contract with the Red Sox this January much like the one Mike Napoli signed last winter where his salary increases as performance goals are met. Then he played like a man possessed this spring, making some sensational outfield plays and  posting an OPS of .784 in 13 games played. Meanwhile, Bradley, the supposed heir apparent to Ellsbury, struggled at the plate and finds himself starting the season in Pawtucket. However, part of the reason for this was because Boston has a glut of outfielders and Bradley has options to burn. With the health of Shane Victorino in question to begin the season and questions still lingering about Sizemore’s durability, do not be surprised to see the young prospect back with Boston before long.

5. Jon Lester will have the best season of his career.

This may not be a stretch since Lester will become a free agent at season’s end. After contract negotiations this spring failed to bring about an extension, his agents and the Red Sox agreed to revisit talks at season’s end. It’s a risk both sides are willing to take at this point and I believe that it will be more to Lester’s benefit. True, his last two seasons have seen a dip in his ERA+ (87 and 109 in 2012 and 2013, respectively) but he was solid in the stretch last season and was almost lights out in the 2013 playoffs, pitching into the eighth inning in three of his five starts and winning four of those starts. In three starts this spring — granted a relatively small sample size — he posted a WHIP of 0.79 and allowed just one run in 12.2 IP. With something to prove, he is geared to post big numbers this season.

However, when it came time to award the Most Valuable Player honor, Ivan Rodriguez, then of the Texas Rangers, won it with his .335 average, 35 home runs, and 113 RBI, arguably the best season of his career as his team won the AL West Division. Martinez, who earned one more first-place vote than “Pudge,” finished second by a margin of just 13 points.

Votes are cast by members of the Baseball Writers Association of America, the same people that decide what former ballplayers deserve enshrinement in the Hall of Fame. Unfortunately for Martinez, he was handicapped by some writers who believed that an MVP should go to an everyday player and not to a starting pitcher who only has to work every fifth day. In fact, a couple of writers even left him off the ballot, robbing him of some crucial votes that might have tipped the results in his favor.

Not surprisingly, history shows that pitchers, even with a season as great as the one Martinez enjoyed that year, have been hard-pressed to take home that hardware. The last pitcher in either league to win the award was Dennis Eckersley in 1992, but he won that award in the closers role, pitching in 69 games and collecting 51 saves. In fact, the last starting pitcher to win the award was Roger Clemens who took home the trophy following his spectacular 1986 season. Go back fifty years, and only six pitchers total have won the award in either league.

Fast-forward to 2005 and Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, who has started all but a handful of games in the designated hitter’s role, is on a tear. Through Sunday, he had batted .296, stroked 46 home runs, and amassed 140 RBI. In the month of September alone, which in recent years has sometimes been the decided factor in the vote – witness Vladimir Guerrero in 2004 – Ortiz has clocked 10 round-trippers and push 22 runners across the plate while batting a cool .305.

Time and again this season, he has delivered when Boston has needed him, often times driving home the run that helps tie the score or put the Red Sox ahead for good. Nine times this season, he has hit home runs in “close and late” situations; twice, he has ended games with walk-off home runs, sending the Fenway crowds into a celebration that shook the foundation of the 93-year-old park.

For the moment, the only other player in the American League putting up numbers worthy of consideration for the award is Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, who won the honor two years ago in his third and final season with Texas. On the season, he has equaled Ortiz in the home run category with 46 and has knocked in 124 RBI while batting at a .319 clip. In September, he has averaged .321 while hitting six home runs and sending home 19 base runners.

On paper, these two players seem fairly evenly matched, but some would argue that Rodriguez deserves the nod again because he plays both offense and defense. Twice, he has won Gold Glove awards at the shortstop position and, since switching to third base after coming to New York, has transitioned well into his new role sharing the left side of the infield with teammate Derek Jeter. Ortiz, on the other hand, has made just 10 starts in the field at first base, committing just two errors in 82 chances; otherwise, on paper, his only contributions to this team have been at the plate. In his own defense, Ortiz told reporters two weeks ago in Toronto: “I never saw anybody win the MVP because they won the Gold Glove and hit .230.”

What perhaps some writers don’t see is that Ortiz does so much more than take his cuts and then sit on the bench reading the latest issue of The Sporting News. Between at-bats, he’s either taking hacks in the batting cage, riding on the stationary bike in the clubhouse to stay loose, or reviewing video of his last at-bat or the pitcher’s tendencies, trying to find any weakness that will allow him to produce those timely hits. What they also don’t see is how much of a catalyst he is, making those around him that much better; with Rodriguez, he is surrounded by some of the best players that money can buy and his absence, though large, would not hurt the team as much as the loss of Ortiz would be to his. With everything that’s happened to the defending World Champions this season – Curt Schilling‘s prolonged absence, the bullpen’s ineffectiveness, and some down years at the plate for other key members of the offense – an injury to Big Papi would have been truly devastating, knowing how much his heroics have rescued his teammates on more than one occasion this season.

With seven games to go in the season and the two teams deadlocked in a tie atop the AL East, it may just come down to whose team makes the playoffs and whose team hits the links a little earlier than last year. If the Sox win a division for the first time since 1995, Ortiz is a lock; if instead the Yankees win their eighth straight division title, Rodriguez will have another MVP trophy in his case. Should Cleveland fall off the wild card pace and both teams make the playoffs, then the debate will continue until the results are announced in November.

Ortiz’s own teammates and even his manager have told the media in recent days how much of an impact he has on this team, how his very presence and that infectious grin inspires his team to go out, against all odds, and win every night. One anonymous AL general manager stated without hesitation: “There is no player who means more to his team than Ortiz means to the Red Sox.”

Each writer has his or her own method of deciding who deserves an honor as revered as Major League Baseball’s Most Valuable Player award. However, beyond the numbers, the vote should go to the player who has had the biggest impact for his team and for whom his absence would have left an unimaginable void. In the minds of Red Sox fans everywhere, that would be David Ortiz, and being the designated hitter does not make him any the less valuable to his team.

Just as the Baseball Hall of Fame was ready to announce that former baseball greats Dennis Eckersley and Paul Moliter had been deservedly elected as its newest members, Peter Edward Rose, the disgraced former player and manager, revealed the worst-kept secret in modern history: that he had bet on baseball games as a player and as a coach. Lucky for us, we can read all about it in his new book, Pete Rose: My Prison without Bars, for just $24.95. How fortunate for those of us who have been living in a cave on Mars with our eyes closed and our hands covering our ears.

I have long believed that, on paper, he belongs in the Hall. He collected 4256 hits in 24 seasons, a major league record that will likely never be broken. He also won an MVP award in 1973, and helped three teams collect World Series trophies. One of those came against my beloved Red Sox in a classic seven-game series in 1975 and, for his efforts, he was named Series MVP. “Charlie Hustle” was indeed that, as he played the game at full speed, even running to first when he managed a walk, and there were countless times that he was captured on film sliding head first into second or third to beat out throws.

But, while his numbers are deserving, his character is not. He knowingly broke Major League Baseball Rule 21, which everyone who stands between the foul lines on the baseball field, whether player, manager, or umpire, must recognize without failure. After he willingly signed an agreement to accept a lifetime ban from baseball in 1989, he suddenly felt that he had been victimized and that there was no hard evidence to support the allegations of the baseball commissioner’s office. Now, he finally admits his guilt but still asserts that it was a victimless crime and continues to blame everyone but himself for the mess that he created, even suggesting that Major League Baseball is out to settle some unspoken score with him.

Allowing his reinstatement into baseball, thus clearing the way for possible Hall election, would be a huge mistake for two reasons. One, it would send a clear message to young ball players that the rules of baseball, especially this one, are meaningless if you win batting titles or Cy Youngs. Two, it would be yet another black eye for baseball as it struggles to maintain a declining fan base that has dwindle even further in recent years with the rising popularity of the NFL and the huge gap between big-market powerhouses and small-market also-rans. While Pete Rose may think otherwise, the survival of baseball does not depend on whether his plaque hangs in Cooperstown.

One last thought: Paul Hornung, the great Green Bay Packer back, was punished by then-commissioner of the NFL, Pete Rozelle, for betting on football games with a one-year ban in 1963. He was reinstated the following season and played for three more seasons. He eventually was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame 1986, but only after being passed over several times for reasons that were credited to his mistake. While some might compare this story to Pete Rose, the major difference is that Paul Hornung, upon initial questioning by Rozelle, came clean immediately and did nothing to hide the truth. Even during his suspension, Hornung was diligent in keeping tabs with the commissioner’s office to ensure that his activities during that time were approved.

Yes, what Hornung did was wrong, but he admitted his mistake, accepted his punishment, and served his suspension without question or placing blame on anyone other than himself. The answer is obvious, but it bears the question as to why Pete Rose could not use the lessons taught by Hornung’s example.