Lackey done, Red Sox work to get Cameron

Update: Rosenthal reports that a two-year contract worth $15.5 million is nearly done.
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According to FOXSports.com’s Ken Rosenthal, the Red Sox, who have already come to terms with John Lackey today, are working on a two-year deal with Mike Cameron.
It’d be nice to see the perpetually underrated Cameron finally get a chance to work in a true hitter’s park for the first time in his career. He’s still a strong defensive center fielder, and he’s been completely healthy the last three years after missing time each of the previous three seasons.
Still, he’s not a perfect fit for a Red Sox team in need of a Jason Bay replacement. Jacoby Ellsbury’s defensive statistics were well down last year, but it was probably more a fluke than anything. Besides a poor throwing arm, his only flaw is that he takes some bad routes to balls and that’s something he’ll continue to improve at with experience. The Red Sox would likely push him to left with Cameron in the fold. Considering that Cameron has the significantly better arm, it’d make no sense to stash him in front of the Green Monster and leave Ellsbury in center.
The Red Sox also have Jeremy Hermida in the fold. Now, Cameron has about 70 points of OPS on Hermida these last two years, but if the Red Sox really believed that Hermida was going to post another 740 OPS, they never would have acquired him in the first place. I’d say the two project pretty similarly as hitters next year, which means the Red Sox would be mostly paying Cameron for his defense, and that might not be the right strategy given that Boston’s left fielders have little ground to cover 81 times per season.
Cameron had previously been linked most frequently with the Cubs, under the assumption that they’d sign him once they traded Milton Bradley. It looks like they’ll miss out now, which might force them to turn to Marlon Byrd or Coco Crisp in center.