David Price

FORT MYERS, Fla. — David Price will be the third Opening Day starting pitcher for the Boston Red Sox in the past three seasons Monday in Cleveland.

Boston hopes Price will be the man for that job for the next seven years, and his biggest fan on the 2016 team may be one of his biggest former enemies, David Ortiz.

The Boston Red Sox's major offseason addition will be on the mound when they begin their 2016 regular-season slate on April 4, as David Price was announced as the team's Opening Day starter Tuesday.  

The organization announced the decision on Twitter:

FORT MYERS, Fla. — A little sugar on your Grapefruit?...

1. He's Got Friends in Low (and High) Places

He is the Rick Steves of the American League East, a man so well-traveled he could author a guide, rate beaches in St. Petersburg and tell you where to get the best Szechuan in Toronto's Chinatown.

So while other starting pitchers work on command and secondary pitches this spring, David Price has one other item on his to-do list.

They signed within days of each other last December for more money per year than any pitcher had ever received. They left first-place teams but didn't leave their division, both joining sub-.500 clubs itching to win.

What was once a sputtering offseason jump-started into high gear over the last week.

Two blockbuster free-agent signings are now in the books since Sunday. Jordan Zimmermann’s agreement with the Detroit Tigers whet the appetite and David Price’s monster deal with the Boston Red Sox put the rest of the market in a post-Thanksgiving contract coma.

The Boston Red Sox made their seven-year, $217 million commitment to starting pitcher David Price official Friday with a press conference at Fenway Park, and the southpaw had plenty of positive things to say about joining the franchise after closing out the 2015 season with the Toronto Blue Jays. 

Coming off a last-place finish last season, their third in the last four years, and armed with a new leader in the front office, next week’s winter meetings figured to be a playground for the money- and prospect-rich Boston Red Sox. 

David Price's path began in Tampa Bay, and it has since passed through Detroit and Toronto. Along the way, he's made five All-Star teams, won a Cy Young and has been generally awesome.

1. The Budding Red Sox-Tigers Rivalry

The beautiful thing about sports is that the landscape is ever-changing and the competition is ever fiercer, and a couple of years after Torii Hunter lands upside-down in a bullpen in Boston in October, things between the Tigers and Red Sox can get even stranger.

The market for starting pitching has begun to move, with J.A. Happ signing with the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday and Jordan Zimmermann agreeing to a deal with the Detroit Tigers on Sunday.

They're significant deals for significant money, as Zimmermann's reported $110 million-for-five-years price tag caused Matt Ehalt of the Record to tweet: