Sox take scout's word

This, ladies and gentlemen, is about pure scouting.

It's not about numbers or spreadsheets or anything you can download from a computer. This is old-fashioned scouting. The type that projects a player into a role he's not used to. Starter to closer? It worked for Tom Gordon and Dennis Eckersley, but it's failed for many others.

So if Joel Pineiro is Boston's newest closer, which category will he fall into?

"Wow. It's kind of shocking to talk about him as a closer," said Eckersley, a NESN analyst -- and Hall of Famer. "But I haven't seen enough of him to really offer an opinion. I remember him being a really good pitcher early in his career, but his numbers lately haven't reflected that. Confidence is a big thing in that role and he's going to have to build that back before he can go forward. It's quite a find for an organization if he succeeds. Closers are hard to find."

"You don't have to have a postseason roster set in April," said assistant general manager Jed Hoyer yesterday at a press conference in the Red Sox clubhouse to announce Pineiro's one-year, $4 million deal.

Closers the Red Sox looked at were either too expensive (in terms of prospects) or had medical issues. Red Sox special assistant Allard Baird went to Seattle late in the season and watched Pineiro come out of the bullpen after he was demoted as a starter. He watched his stuff, how he conducted himself, how he approached the job. And Baird came away thinking this is a guy who could successfully work out of the bullpen.

Baird advised the Sox to sign Runelvys Hernandez, who played for Baird when he was general manager of the Royals. Hernandez has an electric arm but was not consistent as a starter. Hernandez doesn't fear any hitter or any situation. So Pineiro and Hernandez will get big-time looks.

The Sox are looking for someone who can pitch in the ninth inning and if it doesn't happen right off the bat, they'll keep searching.

So Pineiro will get spring training and the early season to show what he can do. He has one save in 185 major league games.

Pineiro sounded enthusiastic about the opportunity in Boston and turned down other offers to start because he felt it was time to try something different. Some of the confidence to commit to a new role came from speaking to an old friend, ex-Mariners teammate Eddie Guardado.

"I did it [closing] a little bit at the end last year -- after Rafael Soriano got hit with a line drive in the head," Pineiro said. "J.J. Putz was our closer, but I'd come in for an inning and give it all I had. I wasn't happy about doing it at the beginning because I wanted to keep my starter's job, but that's the way the ball rolls . . . it worked out pretty fine. A lot of people told me it made quite a difference. I dropped down my arm angle a little bit. I was very excited by it."

He thinks he will feed off the adrenaline of Boston fans because, "I did it in Seattle, but this is Baseball Nation here. Hopefully, I can take that aggressiveness out there, and I know that having Jason Varitek behind the plate is going to help me out an awful lot."

Pineiro acknowledges that when he hurt his elbow in 2004, things went south. He did not regain the success that made him a 16-game winner with Seattle in 2003. He's thought about starting vs. relieving quite a bit. General manager Theo Epstein, manager Terry Francona, and pitching coach John Farrell have mapped out their expectations for him and their selling job was key.

"I wanted to go somewhere where I had a chance to win every day," Pineiro said. "I had chances to start other places. But I thought to myself that I might not have the chance to wear this jersey again."

No, they don't have Mariano Rivera or B.J. Ryan. The Red Sox are relying on their scouting to project the next closer. It is a "wow," as Eckersley put it.

Nick Cafardo can be reached at cafardo@globe.com.