What Happens with Lowell?

[a700hitter]

I think he gets DFA'd, because the rest of the league knows that we have no room for him.

[Dojji]

We don't?

 

C: Varitek, VMart

IF: Youk, Beltre, Lowell, Pedroia, Hall, Scutaro

OF: Hermida, Camreon, Drew, Ellsbury

DH: Ortiz

 

That's 13 position players. As long as we're counting on Hall to back up SS, we've got our positions covered too. So what am I missing?

[a700hitter]

I screwed up putting in a poll. The choices would have been:

 

1. Comes north with the team as part of the bench.

 

2. Gets traded for someone who doesn't come north with the Sox.

 

3. He gets DFA's

 

4. He wins the job from Beltre.

[WhiskeyBreath]

I think he should stay.

 

This team is better with him on the 25 man roster. He's nice insurance for Ortiz as the DH and he could be a nice RH bat off the bench.

 

I don't care how much whining he does about playing time, we are better off with him in Boston.

[YAZMAN]

Mike Lowell will be a big part of this team's success this year.

[Dojji]

Where I'm not that enthusiastic about Beltre, I don't object to having 3 other guys who can cover third if needed.

[YAZMAN]

Where I'm not that enthusiastic about Beltre' date=' I don't object to having 3 other guys who can cover third if needed.[/quote']

 

Lowell played decent with one hip. With Youk and VMart, I think he's just what we need. The guy's a gamer, and he plays with ball.

[Imperial59]

Lowell will get dealt for a prospect. He's supposedly healthy and will be swinging a bat soon. He said his hip feels 10 times better than it did last year and he has first first step back. I think other teams will be interested once he proves he's healthy.

[a700hitter]

I just don't see there being room to give Lowell any significant playing time. Beltre and Ortiz will freak out if Lowell takes their playing time. They are both in walk years. Youk is not going to get sat down. I just don't see it working out with Lowell.

[YAZMAN]

I just don't see there being room to give Lowell any significant playing time. Beltre and Ortiz will freak out if Lowell takes their playing time. They are both in walk years. Youk is not going to get sat down. I just don't see it working out with Lowell.

 

I think Beltre will disappoint in Boston. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Big Papi, but I'm concerned because a lot of the big guys fall off a cliff statistically in their 30s.

[Spudboy]

I think he should stay.

 

This team is better with him on the 25 man roster. He's nice insurance for Ortiz as the DH and he could be a nice RH bat off the bench.

 

I don't care how much whining he does about playing time, we are better off with him in Boston.

 

I agree. It's a nice sentiment, but it just wont happen unless someone comes up lame or gets cut in spring training. Like Hall?

[Spudboy]

Lowell played decent with one hip. With Youk and VMart' date=' I think he's just what we need. The guy's a gamer, [b']and he plays with ball[/b].

 

:lol::lol::lol:

[Dipre]

I'm sticking my hand in the fire and saying Beltre has a good year on the field and at the plate with the Sox, if he sucks, you guys can all give me s***, but if he gets it done, some of you (Doiji, i'm looking straight at you) better take a short vacation after (maybe during?) the season.

[msubulldogs21]

I'm sticking my hand in the fire and saying Beltre has a good year on the field and at the plate with the Sox' date=' if he sucks, you guys can all give me s***, but if he gets it done, some of you (Doiji, i'm looking straight at you) better take a short vacation after (maybe during?) the season.[/quote']

 

I think Beltre has a solid year as well.

 

As for the Steed himself, I think he's eventually traded during the spring.

[BSN07]

I think Beltre put's up surprising numbers this season(if healthy). Lowell will be with the team for a little while at least IMO. He has to prove he's healthy first and foremost before any team trades for him. And the Sox need to be sure Beltre and Youk look good to go before sending a viable back plan packing.

[Dojji]

I think Beltre may be OK too, but if Lowell *is* still here, and he's as healthy as all that, I'm going to want Beltre to prove effective before he's named the presumptive starter. If for no other reason than to establish Lowell's trade value.

 

These player controversies have a way of working themselves out, and we have room for all of Lowell, Beltre, Youkilis and Ortiz on the 25-man roster right now. Since there isn't a ton to choose from between Lowell and Beltre when they're both healthy and it's mostly just a question of different skillsets (Beltre's got better range, power and athleticism, Lowell's got better positioning, hits for better average, and has some of the softest hands of any 3B in history) I think that it's very likely that the two will split 3B fairly evenly at first, until the play of the two men on the field establishes what needs to happen next.

[Dipre]

Defensively, Lowell in his peak was not in the same league as Beltre, and he's in decline now, trying to compare "defensive skillsets" is an exercise in futility, since one is clearly, head and shoulders better than the other. Besides, where do you get this about Lowell having "better positioning"? I'll agree on the soft hands point though.

[Dojji]

As late as 2008, Mike Lowell and Adrian Beltre were both well above average according to UZR/150. In fact 2008 was Lowell's best year of his career defensively. You are basically discounting Lowell entirely on the basis of one bad year in which he was hurt.

 

If he's recovered from his hip injury there's no reason he cannot defend well enough to be an above average player overall.

 

Both are very competent defenders when healthy. Beltre's range makes him a little better on the whole but not so much that Lowell can't make up for it in other areas if he has a good year or if Beltre has a bad one.

[VA Sox Fan]

Mike Lowell loves you. Yes, you

 

Posted by Peter Abraham, Globe Staff February 23, 2010 07:10 PM

 

Mike Lowell was asked near the end of his press conference what it meant to him to have the support of so many fans:

 

"I love the fans," he said, saying he has his wife check out what people say on web sites about him. "She says, 'You know how many people are really on your side in all of this?' I think they'll be more emotional if Adrian Beltre starts off slow and they'll be much less emotional if he starts off hot. That's kind of the way it goes.

 

"Things can change really quickly. But I don't want to discount the fact that I feel like I've had tremendous support. and I think the fans appreciate the way I played the last four years in Boston. I think they appreciate someone who comes to play every day. I think I showed that I played hurt, maybe to the detriment of their eyes because that blur across the screen running the bases was probably not me.

 

"But, yeah, that's a very flattering thing, I'll be honest with you. Very flattering when the fans feel like there's an injustice being put on you. That's a good feeling when you have the fans on your side."

[Dojji]

I think I showed that I played hurt, maybe to the detriment of their eyes because that blur across the screen running the bases was probably not me.

 

*Snrrk*

 

Seriously though this isn't a part of Lowell I actually appreciate. I don't think the decision not to get the surgery he needed in July 2008 when it was first obvious he was hurt was Lowell's. But it didn't help, and playing for an additional month on a torn hip labrum had to have its role to play in the complications that impeded him this year.

 

the decision to play through that injury hurt the team in the long run, and it wasn't hard to spot at the time. I said at the time that he needed to bite the bullet and do what it took to get healthy, even before we were sure it was a labrum tear. I don't know if we'd have gotten him back before the playoffs, but if he goes on the 60-day in July, we could at least have brought someone else in by the trade deadline and not have had to rely on freaking Kotsay. And he'd have had a few more months of rehab before we put him back on the field last year.

[Dojji]

So he didn't let them open his shoulder and take a look at its overall health?

 

Let me guess -- that's the shoulder that, if it's bad and he misses games because of it last year, he loses the last year of his contract.

[a700hitter]

So he didn't let them open his shoulder and take a look at its overall health?

 

Let me guess -- that's the shoulder that, if it's bad and he misses games because of it last year, he loses the last year of his contract.

I'm not sure what you are talking about here. Please elaborate.

[Dojji]

I have no freaking idea how that wound up in this thread. I posted it over in the JD Drew thread.

[jacksonianmarch]

If it takes 9 million to send Lowell away, the sox would just be better off keeping him as the righty portion of a DH platoon and good insurance should Youks, Beltre or Papi go down with injury. Hell, if Papi goes through another slump like pre ASB last yr, Lowell might be the full time DH by the ASB

[Dojji]

So other than Lowell who would our RH bench bat be? Our LH one is probably Hermida, but unless Hall recaptures his old glory, Lowell will be important.

[Dipre]

As late as 2008' date=' Mike Lowell and Adrian Beltre were both well above average according to UZR/150. In fact 2008 was Lowell's best year of his career defensively. You are basically discounting Lowell [b']entirely on the basis of one bad year in which he was hurt.[/b]

 

If he's recovered from his hip injury there's no reason he cannot defend well enough to be an above average player overall.

 

Both are very competent defenders when healthy. Beltre's range makes him a little better on the whole but not so much that Lowell can't make up for it in other areas if he has a good year or if Beltre has a bad one.

 

He was hurt on a hip injury which severely limited his mobility, and one from which you never fully recover your mobility from. You are discounting the facts in favor of defending what can't be defended.Also, that they were both above average doesn't mean one isn't better than the other. Please join us in reality, Lowell will never be an elite defensive third baseman again.

[Dojji]

Did I say I was expecting Lowell to be elite defensively?

 

No, I said he could be an above average overall player. Which Beltre won't be for all his defensive glory if he doesn't hit a whole lot better than he did last year.

[Dipre]

I'm going to ask you an honest question.

 

Which do you think is more likely to happen?

 

Beltre returning to 06-08 offensive performance levels, or Lowell regaining enough range to become at least an average 3B again?

[Dojji]

I'm going to ask you an honest question.

 

Which do you think is more likely to happen?

 

Beltre returning to 06-08 offensive performance levels, or Lowell regaining enough range to become at least an average 3B again?

 

I have to ask what you mean by an average 3B. Do you mean someone with average overall WAR? IE, with an above average bat and a below average glove canceling each other out? Or do you mean an average defensive 3B?

[Dipre]

Average defense. His bat is still there.