BOSTON -- It was the year after Pedro Martinez walked away as a free agent. Curt Schilling was hurt. Boston's big free-agent signings that winter were Matt Clement, who had had some middling success with the Padres and Cubs, and 42-year-old left-hander David Wells. The rotation was rounded out by Bronson Arroyo, in his second full season as a big-league starter, knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, and Wade Miller, who had never gotten over the shoulder problems that had derailed his career in Houston.
There wasn't an ace in sight, except on the disabled list, where Schilling spent most of the season, then tried to come back as a closer.
That team won 95 games, carried by an offense that averaged nearly six runs per game (5.62) and was the only one in the majors that scored at least 900 runs (912).
That was in 2005. A decade later, with ace Jon "They'll have to rip this uniform off my back" Lester taking more money to rewrite history for the Cubs, Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington has assembled a team modeled in similar fashion. He added Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval, the most potent bats on the free-agent market, to upgrade an offense that could be explosive with Dustin Pedroia and Mike Napoli healthy again, and reconstructed his rotation around five starters who, on paper at least, offer greater depth and upside than what Terry Francona was working with in 2005.
Four of the starters -- Joe Kelly, Rick Porcello, Justin Masterson and Wade Miley (Clay Buchholz was absent) -- took advantage of last weekend's fan convention at Foxwoods to begin a bonding process they hope will translate into a successful unit this season. Their comments suggested that you underrate them at your own risk.
"If I was in a different profession, I'd say what I really want to say about [the importance of] No. 1's," said Kelly, the 26-year-old right-hander who blithely jumped onto a radio interview to say he planned to win the Cy Young Award this season, then tweaked the hosts for not believing him.
"Obviously I can't. But I don't know about the No. 1 thing. We had Michael Wacha [in St. Louis]. A rookie, he was our NLCS MVP [in 2013]. No idea what this guy has -- media, players, teams - and you wouldn't be like, 'Hey, this rookie's a No. 1.' But he dominated better than everyone else who's a No. 1 for a solid month.
"That's what sports are about, that's what baseball is about, that's what pitching is about. You get on hot streaks. I'm not going to say you don't need a No. 1, but we had Michael Wacha put the team on our backs and go into a rowdy environment with 50,000 people and crush the Pirates.
"He's not a No. 1, he's a rookie, he just got called up. It's baseball. The numbers are there for people to talk about, that's what I feel."
Last season was supposed to be Kelly's first as a full-time starter, but he blew out his hamstring, missed nearly three months and was dealt by the Cardinals to the Red Sox at the trading deadline. Coming to camp for the Sox for the first time, and being healthy, represents a whole new start, he said.
"You hit the nail on the head," he said. "I've been -- knock on wood -- healthy my whole life. I skateboarded. Any extreme sport you can think of, I never got hurt. Last year getting hurt, it was horrible for me. I've got to get out there, I've got to play, I've got to run around.
"Getting hurt, I was gone for three months and then traded, I felt like I didn't even have a season last year. It's something that I'm looking forward to this year. Hopefully -- knock on wood -- I'll pitch the whole year healthy and get through it and be pitching in October and not having any arm problems or any leg problems. Just go out there and kick some butt."
Porcello, a right-hander who was compared to Josh Beckett when he was drafted out of high school by the Tigers, was a 15-game winner for Detroit. Like Kelly, he too is just 26, and already is entering his free-agent season.
Porcello said he had only exchanged text messages with his new rotation mates before last weekend.
"We spent quite a bit of time hanging out, getting to know each other," he said. "It seems like we're all going to get along really well, which I think is important. When you have that camaraderie with a starting staff, you're able to kind of learn from each other and build off of it, one start after another. I'm looking forward to it. I really like the guys.''
Porcello was planning to be in Fort Myers this past Monday, and not because he'd heard that a blizzard was coming.
"It's exciting," he said, "when you look at the opportunity we're all being given. I'm not looking for just one of us to step up, I'm looking for all of us to step up and do something special. I'm thrilled. For me, coming over to this staff and now having a fresh start, it's something new and a challenge we should all take head on. I'm just looking forward to it. You can't ask for a better opportunity than this.''
Miley comes into the season as the rotation's only left-hander, acquired from Arizona in a trade for young pitchers Allen Webster and Rubby De La Rosa. Miley is a ground-ball pitcher on a staff full of them, and is coming to a team with a Gold Glover at second base in Pedroia, two above-average corner infielders in Sandoval and Napoli, and a shortstop, Xander Bogaerts, who spent much of his offseason working on improving his first step and range.
"I think that word's a little overrated," Miley said, expressing the consensus sentiment about the value of having an ace. "I think we just need to go out, whoever's turn it is to pitch.''
Masterson, who began his career with the Red Sox before going to Cleveland in 2009 in the Victor Martinez deal, was headed toward ace status with the Indians in 2013, when he averaged better than a strikeout an inning, posted a 3.45 ERA, won 14 games and went to the All-Star Game. But injuries to his oblique muscle and knee led to a huge dropoff in stuff last season, a trade to St. Louis and questions about how strong his shoulder still is.
Masterson, who used to come into games throwing his fastball in the high 90s, admits that the uncertainty about his shoulder is warranted, but feels that he is coming to camp healthy again. Masterson, who turns 30 in March, is just seven months younger than Buchholz, who also will need a major return to form for the Sox to succeed in '15.
"It's kind of crazy," Masterson said about his return to the Sox. "In one respect, I felt like I might be in Cleveland for quite some time. But in the other, it was almost like things happen that made it almost the perfect circle to come back and be a part of this. And who knows? Maybe this one year turns into multiyears. Maybe it's just one year and we move on to something else.
"It is pretty improbable, but it's pretty neat. Because who would have thunk that you have an All-Star year and then you stink the next year and then you get traded to St. Louis and all that? But it all did, and I'm happy to be here."