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You can plant me firmly in the camp of Wakefield has outlived his big-game starter ability. I'm sure at some point this year he'll go 8-0 with a 2.14 ERA, but I also suspect he will follow that up with an 8 run performance, a 2 IP 6 R performance, and then be injured for a week or two. He's a good value, and I have no problem with him on this team until he shows he's not worth the money over a long season, but I hate watching him pitch.

And from what you've seen, you've seen very little. So you assume that's all there is then? His statements to the press make up your entire opinion in this case, No benefit of the doubt, lots of jumping to conclusions... that, to me, reveals a bias of one sort or another. Yes, Gom. I was one of the people in Texas who was starting a fight club with clients. Hey Gom. Nobody is objective. We all try to be as objective as possible. I can be critical when needed, I just tend to give this FO the benefit of the doubt, especially in areas where their access would give them a decided advantage in scouting a player, or when their moves have tended to work out well. Ohh, a feeling that they pointed out the discrepency. They didn't have any clue whether their own player was a super two, or a 1+ or a 2+ who had cancer. Good thing they had second thoughts then, huh?

All that said Gom, I'm pretty sick of this discussion on the non-finalized deal. Enjoy your rage with John Henry.

I said "Nobody gives two shits about the precedent Gom!". I didn't say "Nobody gives two shits about precedent Gom!", nor did I say "Nobody gives two shits about a precedent Gom!". I said Nobody gives two shits about the precedent Gom!" Your precedent was pitchers with more than two seasons of experience. I don't agree that Carmona is an exact comparison. They have the same amount of experience, yet Lester signed his (theoretical) deal a year later. We disagree about that, but one of them played an extra season before signing the contract. More proof, more data, no precedent. That said, nobody gives two shits about the precedent Gom. It is arbitrary. Wins are what matters. And yet Lester (theoretically) signed a deal a year later than Carmona, and there is no reason that a pitcher's salary needs to be compared solely to other pitchers. Wins produced for the team are much more important... again. Hughes and Joba both have 1+ seasons of experience. Lester has 2+ seasons of experience. Lester and Joba could be compared to Carmona. Lester's experience equates him more closely with Hamels. They are both at 2+ seasons of experience. Right, but all that matters is what the Sox FO thinks of his on-field value, right? I mean, it seems that the Sox thought he was worth a lot and it seems like they were right. All of us who see a rookie with cancer pitch a few games can talk all we want, but pitching coaches, and GMs get a much better view. I didn't say every deal Henry made was a good deal. I said that there aren't examples of him wasting money. Lugo is a bad deal, we all see that. But in the 'hierarchy' of FA SS, he's lodged between the contracts of Edgar Renteria and Christian Guzman. He's well within the margin of starting shortstops on good teams... he's just disappointed. One player signed (in this hypothetical) a season earlier than the other. One player had 2+ years of MLB service, the other had 1+ season. The comparison is useful for you, but it is misleading. The point isn't that I can make s*** up or pretend stuff happened. The point is that you are making a character judgment based on what you think you know of one person's opinion. Am I wrong to presume that you don't know John Henry? Am I wrong to presume that you don't actually know he personal views on a salary cap, and what he actually wishes were the case? As a mental health professional, when I know someone has a big ego, and I hear them making all encompassing claims about someone who they don't know and only hear periodically, I assume that person is running more on ego and blowhardary than that they are being balanced and reasonable. Again, I find those words pretty harsh for someone that you don't know and have only limited knowledge about. You are assuming that he doesn't REALLY want a salary cap, which is questioning someone's ingegrity on limited facts. It takes a pretty small person (or pretty egotistical one) to go so far so boldly. I can just imagine you, lying on your bed, red marker in hand, going through your 2009 Baseball Yearbook, crossing out the faces of people you "hate" and writing exclaimation points next to the names of your faves. I can see you cutting out magazine pictures and posting them on your wall, and calling your friends "oh. my. god. Did you hear what Youkilis said today! What a luzr!" There's a lot more to be critical about concerning the Yankees than there is about the Sox. The Sox have a good farm system, a good team, they are on TV all the time, they have fun players to watch, and they seem interested in being competitive for a long time. They have won a World Series in the past two years and two of the past four, and they have made the playoffs under this ownership group in 5 of 6 seasons. :dunno: Just because you're able to be critical doesn't mean you're able to be objective. Sometimes a good thing is a good thing.

Apparently not much, Gom. One owner brags about being able to spend 40% more, calling themselves the "stimulus plan" for the rest of baseball... as if it is something imposed on him by baseball, rather than a choice he's making. The Yankees are spending more money than they have to to field a good team, and when challenged on it they pretend it is charity. To everyone else it doesn't appear that the Yankees are in the business of 'saving money'. They still 'make money' but they're not being very efficient. Nobody gives two shits about the precedent Gom! It's a useless and silly argument. The amount that the Red Sox value a pitcher relative to a hitter is a strategic decision. Based on WARP Lester was the 3rd most valuable player on the team last year (7.9). Ryan Howard had a WARP of 5.0. Cole Hamels had 7.9. If the Sox FO believes that Lester can keep up that level of production (3rd most valuable player on a playoff caliber team) then what is the flaw in paying him relative to other players at similar points in their careers? Why make the arbitrary distinction of pitchers? It's all about wins, on one side of the ball or the other. When/if he reached FA there would be no such distinction. Furthermore, I DO think the fact that Lester has been around as long in the league as Hanley Ramirez or Cole Hamels plays a role here. I think there is no chance that they would offer this contract if it was Lester's 1+ season. There's no precedent for Henry doing things that are patently stupid in terms of paying players too much just for the hell of it. In fact, given that this deal didn't actually happen, there's not even anything for you to be complaining about in the first place... If there's a single person who reads this statement and doesn't think you have the biggest ego of just about any poster, that person is a complete moron. Your grandiosity is alarming. I see virtually no correlation between Henry's desire to have a salary cap, and his reported willingness to sign a third year pitcher to a five-year deal that is well within the AAV range of other top third year players, and which pays considerably less than the top 4th, 5th and 6th year contracts. Furthermore, I have no way of knowing whether Henry has only advocated a salary cap twice in his life and frankly, neither do you. He could be a guy who talks about it openly at parties and in private discussions. The fact that you're so quick to make that assumption tells me that your so-called "objectivity" is very shallow. I see someone with a lot of distaste for the actions of the owner of his hated rival's baseball team. Nothing wrong with that, but you're not objective. Sorry.

I think an equally valid perspective is that John Henry dislikes bad deals and overspending on players and takes pride in fielding a competitive team despite that fact. I think that's a good precedent he has set. Look at the deals the Red Sox have signed that have made them competitive while also being cost effective, and their strong preference for minor league talent to FA talent. Look at the deals that have not been signed in the name of setting a price and sticking to it--letting Damon, Pedro, Nomar, Manny, etc., go when their demands and popularity was high. The Red Sox could have had A-Rod if they had not tried to renegotiate his contract in 2004, or if they had topped the Yankees contract in 2007. They didn't. They set their price and they didn't go above it. Of course, these players are more valueable to the Sox than they are to many other teams, but they aren't worth as much as they are to the Yankees. Similarily, the Red Sox could have had Teix if they had offered considerably more than they did. They didn't offer that. Not because they are stupidly cheap, and not because they didn't understand that Teixeira would sign for considerably more, but because they set a value and they try to stuck to it. The only parallell that I could draw here would be if Henry expressed concern--related to a salary cap or whatever--following the Yankees signing of Joba or Hughes (or another 2nd year player) for big money. If he complained about that I would understand your point. Instead he complains about the Yankees spending nearly 10 times (not double, TEN TIMES) the salary of the MLB's lowest spending team. To most non-Yankee's fans your complaint comes off as petty and misguided--whether you claim to be objective, or claim to not be talking about the Yankees. I've never heard Henry mention having any problem with a team spending 6m a year on a pitcher, whether a 2+ or a FA. That comment would be a meaningful precedent. The precedent that I see is that the Red Sox paid players the 2nd highest average salary in 2008: Avg Salary 08: Red Sox: $4,765,716 Yankees: $6,744,567 The Yankees pay their players an average of 40% more than the second highest team. There's nothing deceptive or related to arbitration about that fact. The best way to counter it is by signing players like Lester to longer term deals and it seems to work pretty well. This is why you're full of s***. What possible evidence do you have to back this up? The fact that he might be comfortable signing a pitcher to a $6m x 5 year deal? It seems to me that there are lots of things that Henry does to indicate that he's very interested in the 'real value' of players, not some arbitrary number ("I want more than 20m!"). Every step, from signing international FAs to resigning meaningful young players (pedroia, youkilis, maybe Lester) seems to show someone who does NOT like to throw around millions of dollars like they are monopoly money. My guess is that if JOHN HENRY were with the Yankees, the Yankees would be running a much tighter financial ship and WOULD STILL BE WINNING. Honestly, there is NO precedent of Henry happily paying anyone more than 20m a year, so why should we believe that he would spend more than the current Yankees? I think that is absolute BS. Such is baseball.... such is life.

Being a super-two is about acquiring service time. Lester missed at a considerable amount of time because he had cancer. Apparently the Red Sox don't strictly hold that against him when they value his playing time. That miniscule amount of 1 season difference between he and Hammels and Taylor Buchholz didn't make all the difference. And I would argue that the mere idea of teams signing their players to reasonable longer term deals is going to be good for baseball in general, as is the notion of not punishing a guy who missed nearly a season because he had cancer. Your premise--that promoting teams investing in their own players is an anti-salary cap move--is something that most people here dispute. This is the kind of move that allows teams to keep their better players into their FA seasons, so those players stay with their home team and don't simply go to the highest bidder--which is the very behavior that a salary cap would be trying to elicit. The player gets what he wants, the owners get what they want, and the fans get what they want... at least in theory. Here's the list of teams (from what I can tell) who have signed their younger guys (1+, 2+ 3+, 4+) to the highest deals. I posted it a few days back. BOS PHI ARI TB HOU LAA CHA FLA KC DET LAD MIL I bolded the teams that I would consider to be 'big market' teams... and I think I was generous--clubs who undoubtedly have the $$ and the incentive to lock up their best young talent. You'll notice that Arizona, Tampa Bay, Florida, Milwaukee, and KC are also in the list. It's not an exclusively large market list. What is interesting, IMO, is that each of those teams was contenders, with the exception of KC. The smart money--and the going theory in baseball--says that teams who are competing or on the cusp of competing benefit greatly by getting their young, high WARP guys signed up. Lester and Hamels both posted 7.9 WARPs last year. I guess the part that I missed is why being hypocritcal matters. It doesn't make either the move, or the statement by Henry good or bad. You acknowledge that the move, in a baseball sense, was a good one for the team, which is Henry's goal. His goal isn't to pretend there's a salary cap and win. His goal is to win. Whether someone is hypocritical or not has nothing to do with the validity of their argument, and your attempts to point at hypocracy in this case, or homerisms in another case, are nothing but transparent smokescreens to anyone who has seen your work before. The Ad Hominem Tu quoque. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque Your objective analysis of yourself is that you just happen to be the most objective one here? Coincidence? But even if this were true, which is disputable, this has nothing to do with the merits of a salary cap or the merits of this deal. Lester has plenty of negotiating power. He can say "sign me to roughly the same deal as Pedroia and I'll give you a FA season or two, otherwise, I'm out of here." And as the most symbolic team in the sport, I suppose you believe that the Yankees are taking a really weak stand against steroids, right? So wouldn't you agree, then, that the Yankees are hurting baseball considerably more with their $32m salary for A-Rod, or the $200m they are spending on him over the next decade or so? In their signings of Giambi, Pettitte, their huge pro-rated contract for Clemens and their gross signing of A-Rod, haven't they actually said, basically, "steroid users are winners in NY"? It seems to me they have. So who are they, and who are you--a season ticket holder--to start talking about which team does more damage to baseball with its moves, and which fans are stupid, or too subjective to see the world as clearly as you? They're going to trot that loser out there into the newest, biggest stadium in one of the world's greatest cities, and you're going to talk s*** about whether or not a Red Sox pitcher who may have been a super two if not for cancer, who has a playoff track record and, by all accounts, is a really good kid with a winner's head on his shoulders, you're going to talk about the damage HE did to baseball? Then you're going to brag about how objective you are?

Again, show me the precedent! Hamels had signed a larger AAV deal than Lester did not two months earlier. The precedent that has been set is the precedent for hard throwing lefties who hit the FA market. If Lester were to, say, win a Cy Young in 3 years, or multiple Cy Youngs, then wouldn't the precedent be that he would leave Boston for a 20+m contract in NY, like Santana and CC have? It seems to me that, if anything, they are responding to a precedent with this signing. It seems to me that, if anything, these types of deals are the answer to the precedent that teams like the Yankees have no problem setting, outbidding themselves by 40m to sign a pitcher who would rather play elsewhere. I haven't seen you respond to the list of teams that I cited earlier who had done these types of deals. You got hung up in your "I mentioned PITCHERS", but I want you to step back and talk about players. Look at the teams who have signed these young players to deals to keep them from hitting FA: teams like PHI, NYM, TB, KC, CWS, etc., have all done it. Some of those teams are large market, some are smaller market, but financially it makes sense to all of them. Furthermore, these teams weren't going to be getting Lester in the next 4 years anyway so your "competition" point is moot. Now they won't be getting him for 6 years. Not as long as you say so, I suppose. Prove it. Do you have reason to believe that Lester was willing to sign for a lot less than that? Do you think they did this just to jab other teams, or because they truly believed Lester was worth paying 30m over 5 years for? I laugh when I write that, because you're trying to argue that 30m over 5 years is some crippling move, while FA steroid users leave their small market teams and go to NY for hundreds of millions of dollars. I think the Red Sox would be at a distinct advantage if there were a salary cap. They have a better scouting department, better analysts, and a better minor league system. Their international scouting is on par or better than NYY, and they have a better MLB team (per recent records) for considerably less money. You and the Yankees better hope there isn't a salary cap or the Yankees could really struggle. I think ORS has thoroughly schooled you in this topic. Discussing the merits of a system is different from saying you wished the system didn't exist. Your black/white approach to which topics people are able to discuss without being hypocritical is pretty narrow-minded. Usually when you're the only one standing in a room shouting about something, it is worth checking to see if there is something wrong with your assessment. In this case that would be wise. Moves like Lester and Dice-K are SMART moves to make within the confines of a system that does not have a salary cap. Nobody is agreeing with you, because what you're asking for is: a: John Henry cannot advocate for a salary cap and b: John Henry cannot make moves that help his team win within the current system The only solution in your non-hypocritical matrix is that the Red Sox roll over, take it from teams like the Yankees, and lose. Meanwhile you're spending, what, 8 grand or something to support a team with overpriced, admitted steroid users on it, like Pettitte and A-Rod? Did you ever see a game with Clemens or Giambi playing? You obviously LIKE steroids in baseball and the role they had, or else you wouldn't have spent your money to support it, right?

So you're saying that teams are okay to overbid on hitters if they're sure they'll be productive for a long time, but not on pitchers? What makes you think hitters are more easily predicted? The fact that statistics seem to bear it out and that this is common knowledge, right? What if the Red Sox believe that THEY are privy to knowledge about players like Lester and how they will project out? If a team like the Red Sox sees reason to believe that a player like Lester projects well they should be allowed to sign them to long term deals. Their confidence in his future might be based on some sabermetric or medical edge that they have spent money to develop over the years. What is wrong with that? Hamels and Lester have the same service time, at least according to Cot's. They both have 2.+ service time, and they both signed deals in 2009. Your other comparison was Carmona, who signed when he had 1+ service time, which is not the case with Lester. To lock up a player before his arbitration years costs more on the front end, but saves it on the back end. That has been shown with pitchers and with position players. There is nothing precident breaking about this signing in the slightest. I think that there are MANY things that are worse for baseball. For instance, the Yankees rewarding steroid users with enormous contracts and continuing to play those players after they have admitted. Do I think they should just dump the players? Maybe not, but I think the mere act of promoting such things with Giambi, Pettitte, Clemens and now A-Rod is worse for baseball than some nuanced view about setting precedent with signing pre-arbitration players.

He tried to mention the 2nd year thing, but it didn't come out right. Carmona, Lester and Hamels all have 2+ years of MLB service. The Indiajs signed Carmona last year, when he had 1+ years of service under his belt. For that year of MLB service they paid him .5m (2008), as part of the 4 year contract that he signed. According to Cot's, Lester signed the deal at 2+ years, as did Hamels, while Carmona signed at 1+ years. That said, I think that Dojji's point is right: this is a stupid discussion the more we get into it. Lester is a homegrown talent and is someone this club wants to build around. He's pitched well in two playoff runs, winning a WS. He's going into his age 25 season and he's willing to sign a deal that gives the Sox control and choice about SIX of his seasons (with that team-option tacked on). This deal is NOT the biggest ever deal for such a young player, nor is it the biggest deal ever for a pitcher in the same situation. He's not one of the highest paid players in baseball, but he is one of the best at his position. Gom's a dumbass.

This oversight changes your whole argument. What's so strange about the Red Sox signing a young hard throwing lefty to a deal through the early prime of his career? It's a decent deal, given how good Lester is, his young age, and other similar deals for other young pitchers. For instance: According to Cot's Hamels has 2.143 ML service time Jon Lester has 2.072 ML service time http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/2000/05/most-lucrative-contracts.html They're both 2+ years of service time. There are 7 teams represented in the list of 10 above (Mets, Phils, Yankees, Red Sox, Expos, A's, D-Backs). Your claim is that somehow signing pitcher to a deal like that is intolerable or makes this group of Sox fans hypocrites. We also spend more in international scouting and in the draft than most teams. The difference in this type of spending and the FA market is enormous. It is to everyone else. You're trying to make it into some moral lesson for everyone, but it isn't, given the list of other teams who have made similar investments in pivotal parts of their team. The list isn't peppered with Yankees, which should tell you something about the types of teams might make this type of move. In fact, the top 12 "underage pitchers" signed come from: BOS PHI ARI TB HOU LAA CHA FLA KC DET LAD MIL A wide range of financial situations and team types if you ask me. I DON'T see the Yankees on there, but expect that Phil Hughes or Joba Chamberlain will have a similar offer at some point in the next year or two. If you trust Cot's then you agree that the comparison is probably Hamels, not Carmona. Carmona was a season earlier. The merits of that deal have nothing to do with Lester's deal. Two different FOs, scouting departments, and management groups. Just because you can point to an example that doesn't work doesn't mean it won't work. Again, I'll point to Hamels, or Kazmir, or Webb or any of the other options that have. Again, you're wrong about the service time. Per usual, Cot's has already updated it with the new contract information. Ahh, I see. So you don't care about the type of deals that the Yankees take advantage of, like signing the most expensive player around. But when other teams take advantage of their player development systems and sign their players to long ter deals that also benefit the club, you have a problem with it. At least you're transparent. The CC deal wasn't bad for baseball. It was bad for the Yankees. They outbid themselves for a guy who didn't want to go to NY. If they were determined to have him they could have him. All of the baseball world realizes this. I'm for a system that encourages all teams to compete. I think that stacking the rules for arbitration and 6 years of ownership encourages teams to use their farm system to its best advantage. I think it also encourages teams to sign players to longer term deals to reward performance, but which also benefit the team by letting them build around a player who they know they will have for many years. If there were a salary cap I'm pretty sure it would allow a #2 pitcher to be paid 6m. It wasn't. I proved that above. Your notion that this is precedent setting is wrong. It was a good deal for this club. Pitchers like Lester are hard to find and he will play an important role as the core of this team through his prime years. I think nothing different about this than when I see Cole Hamels or Scott Kazmir or Brandon Webb sign big deals. I would have no problem with the Yankees doing the same for Joba because he is likely worth at least that much on the market. I think it is good for baseball when homegrown players stay with their teams and don't leave for the post-arbitration $$ FA riches (Yankees) that await them. Yes, god forbid that the Rays make David Price a key part of their rotation or that Tim Lincecum make what he's worth with his home team. You like it better when they're all FAs and the Yankees can buy them in deals that "nobody coplains about". People complain, you just don't hear them.

What is risky is waiting another year and paying a lot more per year in his 3rd or 4th year. This is a bargain, and it isn't close. Just look at other players who resigned in their 3rd or 4th seasons... Lester had cancer and was one of the most highly touted minor league pitchers when healthy, pitching above his age level. The ONLY year that they are over paying is this year, and that is only under the assumption that he is considerably worse than Cole Hamels. Considering that I didn't hear any complaints from you or Gom about Hamels' deal, I assume you believe he (Hamels) is worth the price.

Well then you should have written "pitcher". Because you did not, the rest of your idiotic defense of your post is wrong. Face it, you were wrong. You put your giant, swollen foot in your mouth while you were trying to take people to task on this board for something that none of us were responsible for in the first place. You look like an ass, and now you're backpeddling like someone who knows he looks like an ass. So it isn't double the price of the highest paid player ever? I guess that means you are wrong again. Please excuse my liberty in telling you to go F yourself. Because... :lol: You clearly weren't even able to tell the difference between Chris Young--Pitcher for the Padres--and Chris Young, young phenom CF for the Diamondbacks. I TOOK THE LIST I PROVIDED FROM COT'S TOO DUMBASS!! If YOU had looked up the right Chris Young then you would see that the contract I quoted is what he got. If YOU had made it clear that you were talking about pitchers, then I wouldn't have included any of those fielders in the first place. Your fault, not mine. Go back to trying to sell your season tickets instead of insulting people who try to respond intelligently to your idiotic posts. No, they didn't. You just said he was the 2ND HIGHEST PAID 2nd YEAR PITCHER. So they didn't go above the previous high for 2nd year pitchers. Where were you when Cole Hamels got 6.833m with the same amount of experience? How about when Kazmir and Oswalt got about 9m with 3 years experience? Let me ask you Gom, will you still be talking about the Red Sox disservice to baseball next year, when Lester is making considerably less than the highest paid 3rd year signings? How about when he's still making 6m in his 4th year? How about those other 3rd, 4th and 5th year pitchers? You're a f***ing idiot: Pitchers with 2+: (in millions) Cole Hamels: 6.833 Jon Lester: 6.0 Brandon Webb: 4.875 Pitchers with 3+ Scot Kazmir: 9.5 Roy Oswalt: 8.45 Ervin Santana: 7.5 Mark Buehrle: 6.0 Jon Lester: 6.0 Pitchers with 4+ Dan Haren: 11.187 Johan Santana: 9.937 Dontrelle WIllis: 9.666 Zack Greinke: 9.5 Jeremy Bonderan: 9.5 Eric Gagne: 9.5 Aaron Harang: 9.125 Brett yers: 8.583 Ben Sheets: 7.7 Jon Lester: 6.0 Pitchers with 5+: Jake Peavy: 17.33 Brad Lidge: 12.5 Javier Vazquez: 11.25 Jon Lester: 6.0 So, while the Sox are paying him the SECOND most for a pitcher with his experience level (sooo, not breaking any mold there), and they are drastically UNDERPAYING him relative to other pitchers who were had big early paydays in their 3rd, 4th or 5th years. I'm so unimpressed with this line of argument that I don't even know what to say. Psychologically, I would say that you have been feeling guilty about something related to the Yankees. Clearly our arguments--and the general consensus in baseball that they have been trying to buy championships--have worked, as you now feel the need to leap on any $$ related move by the Red Sox as justification for your club's bloated spending habits. You don't have a single leg to stand on. You say we're "Hypocrites!" because we accuse the Yankees of using their financial might, but then you say "you can't bring up the Yankees" in our arguments. It's the argument of a 3rd grader and, frankly, I'm surprised that it's coming from you.

Service Class The most lucrative multi-year contracts in baseball, by service class, by AAV (excluding international free agents and drafted players signing ML contracts): Less than 1 year of Major League service: Ryan Braun, $5,625,000 (2008-15) Evan Longoria, $2,916,667 (2008-13) CC Sabathia, $2,375,000 (2002-05) Roy Halladay, $1,233,333 (2000-02) Brandon Webb, $1,100,000 (2004-06) 1 plus years of Major League service: Chris Young, $5,600,000 (2008-12) Troy Tulowitzki, $5,166,667 (2008-13) Nomar Garciaparra, $4,650,000 (1998-2002) Brian McCann, $4,466,667 (2007-12) Grady Sizemore, $3,908,333 (2006-11) Fausto Carmona, $3,750,000 (2008-11) 2 plus years of Major League service: Hanley Ramirez, $11,666,667 (2009-14) David Wright, $9,166,667 (2007-12) Pat Burrell, $8,333,333 (2003-08) Robinson Cano, $7,500,000 (2008-11) Cole Hamels, $6,833,333 (2009-11) Dustin Pedroia, $6,750,000 (2009-14) Vladimir Guerrero, $5,600,000 (1999-2003) Nick Swisher, $5,350,000 (2007-11) Brandon Webb, $4,875,000 (2006-09) Is this what you're talking about? Are you talking about overall value of the contract, or yearly value? Jon Lester has 2.072 years of service time and signed a 5 year, $30m deal. Chris Young (ARI) has 2.045 years of service time and signed a 5 year $28m deal. Is that double?

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AlE8PTyVCUCYAJ4d7x7D5GgRvLYF?slug=jp-lester1extension030809&prov=yhoo&type=lgns story is originally from yahoo!, which gives it more cred in my eyes...

Add another obvious juicer to the mix...

They did. The DR didn't look that bad, they just couldn't push runs across all day.

I don't quite get why people dislike the WBC so much, especially compared to watching Spring Training. These games are much better, and pitchers are still restricted considerably. I stayed up to watch the the Japan/Korea game last night (2 am Pacific). The enthusiasm in Tokyo was amazing and the Japanese team was really impressive. I think it is good baseball and is fun to watch stars playing in different environments.

Is that true? I know we didn't know, but did the trainers not know? I'm sure it's possible, but it also seems possible that if he was able to play through the pain they didn't mind--especially given that he was a league-minimum rookie who was filling in for an expensive everyday starter. You make some good points, but I find it interesting that the Yankee management isn't getting more s*** for how this was handled. Not the end of the world or anything, but their most expensive player--a guy who single handledly makes more than the entire Florida Marlins Team--had an injury that would have benefitted from surgery and they either didn't know about it or they didn't act on it. Sox management got taken to the mat for not being able to sign Teixeira when he wanted to play in NY. I would think people would be taking the Yankees management to task for not monitoring their most expensive player. f*** it, it's to our gain, right? :dunno:

Is it possible to have a torn labrum and not know about it? Is it possible for A-Rod to have played in pain--even small amounts of pain--and have the team not know about it? They pay him $166,667 per game. The Red Sox test the shoulder strength of every one of their pitchers before they pitch, don't they? For that amount of money, they can give an MRI every day if they need to. Aside from perhaps the President these should be the most medically supervised people on Earth. It just seems like pretty s*** management and a bad oversight that here we are, a few weeks before the season starts, after a few months off, and they're talking about how there's not time to do a 4 month surgery/recovery if it isn't going to mess with their whole season.

I'm confused about why the Yankees wouldn't have had A-Rod get the surgery back in September or October...? On another note, given that A-Rod (supposedly the best ever) was called out for juicing and probably using HGH, is there ANY reason to think that Albert Pujols has done what he has clean? I mean, honestly? Look at the guy. I really hope we're seeing a new generation of guys who aren't juicing.

I don't know about the theory that he's suspended, but I too think it is a bit suspicious that he went from hitting a HR last week and preparing to playing in the WBC, to suddenly needing surgery and having to be out for a long time. It just seems like the timing is awfully strange. That said, I think the LAST thing the Yankees would want would be for him to a) miss time, and be linked to a strange 'cyst'. I know he has other issues with his hip, but it reminds me of Giambi missing time with his strange intestinal problems a few years back. His recent admission and his s***** cover story are a huge embarassment for the Yankees. I personally think their team is good enough to ride out the storm, given that it's basically last year's team with Teixeira, Sabathia and Burnett. Even without A-Rod they're better than they were last year, and they were okay last year. I'm just curious about whether the Yankees would encourage him to take time off while opening the stadium and needing him to get out of the way so their team can come toegether with less distraction. Would the Yankees really want their marquee player being booed in their first game in the new stadium? Do Yankees fans see reason to boo A-Rod? I hope so. I'm sure I too will be accused of tinfoilhatness, but I don't care. I am one of the few who thought there was a good chance he was using before, I don't trust him (or the Yankees FO during such an important and stressful time) and I think they can weather this storm with or without A-Rod in the lineup.