The New Starting Shortstop

Welcome to Boston, Marco.

UPDATE 11:16 PM-- Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald reports that Scutaro's contract carries an option for a third year. The deal will be finalized Friday morning with a physical and a press conference scheduled by the team.

The Boston Red Sox have a new starting shortstop. Ed Price of AOL Fanhouse confirms that, pending physical, Marco Scutaro will be the newest member of the team. Scutaro, 34, has agreed to a two-year contract that will keep him in Boston through the 2011 season.

Originally a utility infielder with the New York Mets, Scutaro began to blossom when the Toronto Blue Jays gave him regular playing time and he set career highs in hits (162), doubles (35), home runs (12), runs scored (100), average (.282), stolen bases (14), and even tied his career high in RBI (60) last season.

The Red Sox will hope that the veteran can maintain his offensive statistics (they were all well above his career average) while not dropping off in his stellar level of defensive play at the shortstop position. All that talk of sliding Dustin Pedroia over to SS can now be quelled as the Sox will not be moving their all-star from his position. Scutaro has long since been linked to the club and was even predicted to come to the team in part one of our offseason preview found here.

Financial details of the agreement have not yet been released but we will update the post as soon as we learn more information regarding the freshly inked pact. Scutaro was a Type A free agent, so the Sox will forfeit their first round pick. Luckily they picked up the Braves' first rounder when they inked Billy Wagner.

It's a positive deal for the Red Sox as they only have to commit a short amount of years (two) to an aging shortstop coming off of a career year as they have been burned by long-term commitments to shorstops in the past like the contracts handed to Edgar Renteria and Julio Lugo.