Red Sox sign Marco Scutaro, Bloggers chime in

I woke up at 7:00 AM this morning (EST mind you) to find that the Red Sox and Marco Scutaro have agreed to a two-year deal with an option - pending a physical. New information to me... but not to Red Sox bloggers!

Here's the reaction to the first big move of the Red Sox offseason:

Rob Bradford, WEEI - Bradford has a few testimonials from Blue Jays coaches and teammates.

"His hands are as good as any hands I’ve ever coached in major league baseball, and I’ve been in the big leagues for 14 years and I’ve had the opportunity to be around some great infielders," said first base/infield coach Brian Butterfield.

"The reality is is that for the first time in his career, he was given the starting job at short, his best defensive position. His defense is ABOVE average at short, WEEI's Lou Merloni said. "If you ask me, the American League Gold Glove should have gone to either Eric Aybar or Marco Scutaro.

"People have no idea how good this kid is because we will always view him as the utility guy for the Oakland A’s. He’s much better than that. I actually don’t see much difference between Scutaro and Alex Gonzalez defensively."

In fact, he has had some excellent indicators over the course of his career that point to his baseline talent. Perhaps most exciting is his ability to judge between balls and strikes. Since 2002, he has posted a combined 4.3 Z-Swing:O-Swing ratio, which is among the better tallies in the league over that time span. Last year, his O-Swing total, 12.3 percent, was second best in the league. In addition, his contact rate is excellent, standing at 91 percent over the course of his career. These are not flukes. At the very least, we can expect Scutaro to repeat these aspects of his performance, which have also helped him to produce a .721 OPS over the course of his career.

Marco, welcome to Boston. Your first task: prove us wrong. Please prove us wrong as quickly and effectively as possible. Please.