INDIANAPOLIS – If the 2010 baseball season began this week (inclement weather be damned), the following assessment would be made of the Red Sox:

• The team’s starting rotation would be considered one of the strongest in the American League, with two established aces (Jon Lester and Josh Beckett), two pitchers with swing-and-miss stuff (Clay Buchholz and Daisuke Matsuzaka) and one pitcher who, when healthy, was an All-Star (Tim Wakefield). There are functional depth options in Michael Bowden and Junichi Tazawa.
• Even with the departures of Billy Wagner and Takashi Saito, the bullpen would be regarded as capable of shutting down opposing teams, thanks to a posse of strikeout-producing arms in Jonathan Papelbon, Daniel Bard, Hideki Okajima, Ramon Ramirez and Manny Delcarmen.
• The offense … 

Well, the offense would represent the great unknown. The Sox are coming off a year in which they scored 872 runs (5.4 per game), the third most in the majors behind only the Yankees and Angels.

As a team – despite two lost months from David Ortiz, nearly two lost months from Jason Bay, a season of pitiful shortstop production and two months of terrible production from their catchers – the Sox finished in the top two in baseball in OBP, slugging and OPS, and fourth in homers.

Interestingly, after a year in which the Sox scored more runs than in any season since 2005, even their manager joined the chorus suggesting that the lineup’s production had its flaws.

“We were inconsistent. You know, I don't think we were ever as bad an offensive team as I think maybe we were portrayed, because we scored runs,” said Sox manager Terry Francona. “We just found ways – that's not the right way to say it. We ran into times, especially on the road, where we didn't score much. And then we get to the playoffs, and that's what everybody remembers, the way you finish.

“Unfortunately some of those road woes, they showed themselves in the playoffs. … We ran into good pitching on the road, and we didn't have a lot to show for it a lot of times.”

According to the Baseball Musings Lineup Analysis tool, the Sox lineup (based on the team's on-base percentage and slugging mark at each of its positions) should have produced 880 runs last year – almost exactly matching the team’s actual total of 872 runs.

Of course, that was with Bay, who gave the Sox more left field production than anyone in the game. The Sox led all American League teams with a .378 OBP and .535 slugging mark.

Right now, however, the identity of the Sox’ occupant at that position is very much in question. GM Theo Epstein said that the Sox are continuing to explore options in both trades and free agency – including, of course, re-signing Bay, whom Epstein deemed “definitely one of our priorities.”

But as of now, the position remains vacant, leading to plenty of curiosity about what will happen with Bay, Holliday, or anyone else at the position.

“I’m sure when we head down to Fort Myers [for spring training], we’ll have a left fielder. We always do,” chuckled Francona. “We are amazingly consistent, in that every year we always have a left fielder, and I’m guessing we are going to have one this year, too.”

That said, the identity of that left fielder has become perhaps the biggest single unknown in the Sox’ offseason. And given that there would appear at least the possibility that Bay could leave – with reports connecting him to the Angels and Mariners, and some team executives suspicious that the Yankees should not be counted out – it is worth asking: what then?

What would happen to the team if it were to lose Bay, fail to sign Holliday and instead use a platoon of Jeremy Hermida and another player that proved merely average for a left fielder?

According to the same Baseball Musings calculator, that would drop the Sox’ runs per game to 5.221, or a season total of 846 runs. That would represent an appreciable drop, but a mark that still would have ranked third in the AL.

However, the Sox believe they have already received an offensive upgrade to their offense in the form of shortstop Marco Scutaro. He brings not only solid defensive credentials – not quite Gonzalez, but better than anyone whom the team featured in its first 115-120 games of last season – while offering a hitter with  a better plan of attack than his predecessor.

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“You have to remember how much [Alex Gonzalez] stabilized our shortstop position the last couple of months,” said Francona. “So we’ll have that right from the beginning this year with a guy that has on-base skills. That should really be helpful to us.”

Taking Scutaro’s career averages in place of the Sox’ shortstop production from 2009, a Bay-less Sox team would bump up to 5.337 runs per game, good for 865 in a full year.

If the Sox enjoyed a repeat of Scutaro’s career year in 2009 – in which he set new career highs with a .379 OBP and .409 slugging mark – their run expectation, even with an average outfielder replacing Bay, would jump to 5.458 runs a game, or 884 on the season – just ahead of the mark that established the Angels as the second highest scoring offense in the game.

And all of those numbers, of course, fail to account for the possibility that the Sox will receive an offensive bump from a full season of Victor Martinez, or any potential rebound from David Ortiz, or improvement from the maturing Jacoby Ellsbury.

Moreover, those numbers reflect the notion that the Sox would achieve merely average offense from whatever replaces Bay; certainly, it is possible that the team could do do better than than. (Of course, they also fail to reflect the impact of potential performance dips or injuries.)

So, Scutaro will help offset any impact of Bay’s departure. At the same time, the Sox’ offensive output could look even more impressive if Scutaro was joined in the lineup by a returning Bay.

With Scutaro performing in 2010 at his career average level and Bay maintaining his 2009 numbers, the Sox project to add 5.563 runs a game, pushing them up to a total of 901 on the year.

If Scutaro and Bay both repeated their excellent 2009 performances, the Sox would project to score 5.683 runs a game, or a whopping 921 runs – more than the Yankees’ major-league leading total in 2009.

The conclusion? All things being equal, the Sox would love to have Bay back at the right price. His return, coupled with Scutaro’s arrival, would give them a formidable top-to-bottom lineup and put them in position to score with any team in baseball.

All the same, should Bay sign elsewhere, it is possible to exaggerate the potential impact. As was the case in 2009, even if they lost Bay and missed out on Holliday as an alternative, the Sox would likely feature a very good offense that would number among the better ones in baseball.

That lineup was good enough to win 95 games and make it to the playoffs – no small feat, given the division in which the Sox operate. Still, given that Francona acknowledged his group as “inconsistent” in 2009, the Sox certainly would seem to prefer an upgrade.

Will they be able to do that? The answer is getting closer.