The new-look Red Sox will officially look new come Feb. 21, the first day of workouts for pitchers and catchers. And for that image, you can, in large part, thank new bench coach Tim Bogar.

Bogar has been charged with the task of organizing new manager Bobby Valentine’s first spring training with the Red Sox, mapping out who goes where and does what as the team goes through its paces in the Sox’ new spring training facility, JetBlue Park.

As Bogar explains it, much like the team's new surroundings, the execution of the Sox’ first few weeks of will offer a somewhat altered appearance.

“Bobby, what he wants done is going to be a little bit different from what we've done in the past,” Bogar said. 

“We have a lot more variables going in at the very beginning. You have a whole new staff, a new manager, and then on top of that you have a new complex that nobody has been in before, along with the minor leaguers. So you have to work out the logistics between the major leagues and the minor leagues. You factor in all those variables and it's kind of a unique challenge this year.”

According to Bogar -- who has experience organizing spring training, having run Tampa Bay’s camp in 2008 -- there will be one noticeable difference when comparing this camp to others before it: less standing around.

The strategy is born somewhat from Valentine’s experience in Japan, where spring training offers very little downtime. While the Red Sox' spring training sessions don’t figure to run more than a half-hour longer than normal (“It's not a huge chunk of extra time we're out there, there's just a lot more going on in that chunk of time we're using,” Bogar said), the plan is to maximize the time on the fields by limiting inactivity.

“Bobby had told me over there they worked for a long time and did a lot of things and over here they don't work as long as they do there. But what we're trying to implement this year is that they're all going to be doing some type of baseball activity at all times during practice, so there's not a lot of standing around. There's not a lot of dead time,” Bogar explained. “There's a lot of different activity during the actual workout this year.

“I think what's going to jump out to them is all the skill work and the detail work that is being worked on constantly on all six fields down here. You're going to have your live BP, but you're also going to have guys working on pickoff plays, baserunning, reading balls off the bat, you're going to have guys standing in tracking pitches and doing all kind of things. You're not going to see the normal stand around the cage, watch batting practice and stand in the outfield and shag. Instead of shagging, players are going to be doing baseball activity which will benefit them in the long run.”

There are other differences.

There will be no physical conditioning test prior to the initial official workout, instead measuring fitness levels throughout various stages of the camp.

Also, in past years, the team has prioritized at least one aspect of the game, with pitchers’ fielding and baserunning serving as chief talking points during various camps. This time around, however, there will be no aspect of the game identified as more important as another.

“To be honest, I had that exact same question for Bobby when we first sat down and started talking about it. He said there wasn't going to be one emphasis. The emphasis is to play the game correctly in all areas,” Bogar said. “He doesn't want one thing more important than anything else. He wants everything to be emphasized equally and with the same importance. So when you talk about pitchers' fielding and their PFP, and you talk about cut-offs and relays and you talk about infield play, bunt plays, catchers' throwing … there's ton of areas that need to be worked on and improved, and Bobby wants it to be emphasized exactly the same. There's not one area. If it's one area, it's the game of baseball.”

Bogar is also using his experience from ’08 with Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon to alter the Red Sox’ approach this time around.

“One of the things I really liked when I was over with Joe is the fact when pitchers came into the bullpen in the non-throwing days they had a lot a chance to meet with the catchers and go over the intricacies between pitchers and catchers and get that relationship going. I brought that up to Bobby and he really liked that a lot, so we're going to be implementing that this year,” he said. “It's part of their workout. It's part of their rotation."

Then there is the issue of getting the lay of the land.

The first few weeks of spring training previously had been conducted at the organization’s minor league training facility, two miles down the road from City of Palms Park. That structure included five fields, all next to one another, allowing for quick transitions from station to station. The JetBlue Park situation offers a slightly different scenario, one that Bogar and Valentine have attempted to grasp well before the official start of spring training.

“We've had some of the strength and conditioning guys walk it off and they've given me the times,” Bogar said. “Bobby has walked it off. Now that I've got here and I've gotten to do it I can see by the rotations that we have in the schedule how far it is to get to one field to the next, so when they're rotating from Field 3 to Field 1 and Field 1 to Field 4, the guys on Field 1 have to be let go a minute early so they can make it to Field 4 on time to make their next group. That part of it has been great to get here and actually see it. Just going through it today, we're probably going to have some golf carts to shuttle guys because of the distance from one station to the next. There are probably going to be some adjustments as we go from day to day.

“It's been great. Obviously, Bobby and I get along very well. It's gone extremely well, and everybody is starting to see the vision in his head. It's coming along very well. It's exciting because it's a new start for everybody so in that aspect even though we've been here the last three or four years, being able to say this is how we've done it in the past, getting away from that and saying, 'This is new, and this is how we're going to do it going forward.' ”