"After a season of shuffling center fielders, the Red Sox will no longer have that luxury or that problem. Instead, with yesterday's trade of Coco Crisp for Kansas City righthanded reliever Ramon Ramírez, the Sox were able to shore up their late-inning relief corps while dissolving their logjam in the outfield.

Not only does the trade open room for Jacoby Ellsbury to play every day, it provides a key piece to a bullpen that was inconsistent through much of last season. The addition of Ramírez, who is particularly tough on righthanders, could also mean Justin Masterson is headed for the rotation.

"In Ramírez we believe we've acquired a young, controllable reliever that can really help our bullpen," general manager Theo Epstein said on a conference call. "He has a plus fastball, 92-95 miles per hour, and an outstanding power changeup. A lot of people think it's a split; it's actually a changeup, 87-88. That's a swing-and-miss pitch for him against lefthanded and righthanded hitters. And [he has] a pretty good slider.

"He's very quietly had a tremendous amount of success in the major leagues over the last two seasons. We were looking for that type of upgrade to add to our bullpen."

The 27-year-old Ramírez blossomed this past season, with a 3-2 record and 2.64 ERA. He had 70 strikeouts in 71 2/3 innings, with a 1.23 WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched), and limited righthanders to a .198 average. From the Dominican Republic, Ramírez said he has spent the last three years working on that lauded changeup.

"It's become a better pitch as I've improved my fastball command," Ramírez said through interpreter Eddie Romero, the team's coordinator of Latin American operations. "That's what's allowed it to become a plus pitch."

Epstein called Ramírez "an extremely hard and diligent worker, fearless, and the manner in which he pitches reflects that."

Ramírez said, "As far as my demeanor, I like being aggressive. I like attacking the strike zone. It doesn't matter the count, I just want to be as aggressive as possible and go after hitters."

Crisp's agent, Steve Comte, said he and his client were happy the Sox were finally able to accommodate a trade request Crisp originally made in spring training. But the Sox stuck with Crisp through 2008, leading to a flexible center-field situation in which neither he nor Ellsbury was guaranteed a spot in the lineup.

"It was a learning experience, definitely, first and foremost, is how I'd classify it," Crisp said on a conference call. "It was a great experience for me, coming from a contending team like Cleveland, coming to a team that was already in the mix.

"I've learned I guess on the field and off the field, which helped me grow. The one negative aspect that came out of the whole thing was that I was plagued by nagging injuries primarily the whole time I was there with the exception of a month here and a month there until the end of the season, when I was fully healed from my hand injury. It's been an up-and-down ride.""