ksushi

That league is full of untapped talent, thing is, the talent level there is for the most part marginal at best. I think its a move to create a comfortable atmosphere within the system for Japanese players making the leap to the Red Sox. He has a little upside and might be able to hone his skills and contribute as a reliever, but I don't think anyone out of that league is going to come over and blow people away.

Toss up between Corey and Aardsma.

Pitcher abuse? What is this, sir?

They will, because what other options do they have? Kevin Cash? I know he looks bad, but by some miracle of god, his BA will most likely be around .260 and his 15ish home runs will come, and he'll do a good job behind the plate. Thats fine and solid. They'll extend Tek.

Decent to good stuff. The cutter is decent, the fastball is solid, the curve is very very good. I don't think its a matter of harnessing the stuff so much as trusting it. Trusting your stuff is the key. Not neccesarily trusting your stuff to get you strike outs, but trusting that if you are hit, and you do knick a little too much of the plate, that the 7 guys behind you will be able to help you out and you won't get hit hard. Generally, Lester rarely gets hit hard. He does most of his damage to himself. Like this morning, walking kurt suzuki on four or five pitches with two outs and not giving him a chance to end the inning is what hurt him in the 2nd. The next batter loops one into right center and a run scores. Maybe if he sees some closer pitches, kurt suzuki pounds one into the ground and inning over.

I see where you're coming from, and thus far, what we've seen at the major leagues indicates just that. A borderline pitcher with decent to good stuff who is young and has room to improve into a more or less league average pitcher. The facet of his game most likely to be improved upon with time is his pitch count and WHIP, which will let him get deeper into games, logging more innings collecting more wins. He allows far too many baserunners because of his intense nibbling. From what we've seen with the big club thats more or less his story. I've been a big Lester fan since 2003 when he was with augusta. I saw him pitch in '05 in portland two times and again at pawtucket multiple times in 06. I've seen video of more than a few starts at portland when he was eastern league pitcher of the year. The quality of his stuff was not vastly different, but his approach has been. He's always had good stuff at the major league level, just bad results because of a tendency to try to pitch way around guys. At this stage in his career it looks to me like he has Billy Beane syndrome. Dominant in the minor leagues, taking a bulldog approach and attacking hitters from 0-0 and on down into every count. Throwing strikes, being aggressive. Since he has been under the lights in the majors, that hasn't been the story. He looks tentative. Trying to aim the ball to the black, or off of it, afraid of getting punished. When you do that, you run yourself into trouble, someone with lesters quality stuff needs to be putting the ball inside the black - toward the plate. He has the stuff to get away with getting a little too much of it. Location is partly repeating your delivery, and partly mentality and confidence. When you aim, do you aim to your spot and toward the plate, or off of your spot away to not get hit? When you have Jon Lester caliber stuff, you can afford to miss spots here and there, its just where you miss them. Missed spot for an obvious ball and an easy take, or missed spot for strike that makes the batter have to swing? Its like when a hitter struts out with a great BP swing, but can't take that stroke into the games and changes his approach at the plate. Lester changes his approach on the mound and he pays for it. He loads up the bases once every four innings, and when you put yourself in those situations, you're gonna pay for it no matter how good you are. He's been a wizard in escaping these jams though, because when the pressure is on to put the ball over the plate, he does and his stuff does the rest. When he masters that consistent bulldog approach up in the bigs, he will begin to come into his own. I think this will be the year he settles down long enough to do just that. After a shaky April and maybe may, I think we'll start to get some big performances out of him and people will start to see what he can do when hes attacking hitters. I think it will happen, it might not, time will tell.

I'm not going to bother predicting the whole team because there is no way I'll be right. Here are a few guys I think will have either an up or down year. Drew - If drew is on the field, I think he is going to have a big year with the bat. To the tune of: .285 25 115. With Pedroia, Youk, Ortiz and Manny in front of him I might even being willing to predict more RBI out of him. Lester - People forget, hes actually younger than Buchholz. With a good deal of ML experience under his belt, and a healthy offseason I expect his first full year to be pretty big. 17 - 9 3.77 180K in 190 IP. Dice-K - I think his control struggles last year were related in part to adjusting to throwing a bigger ball. I think if he made that adjustment, I wouldn't be surprised to see him struggle like he did today throwing the smaller ball. Just an observation. I still expect that Dice will be able to better maintain his stamina over the full 162. 19 - 10 3.45 212K in 200+ IP. Manny - I think more than anything that agitated him about last year and is motivating him this year, the fact that he did not get the 500 mark that everyone considered a lock last year, will drive him this year more than anything. .320 37 120

agreed. i knew we didn't stand a chance.

Ok, 180 sounds like our mark then. I think he will be above that mark.

I'll be willing to put money on lester being in the 185 - 200 range barring injury, unless of course its work related fatigue in which case I'd pay up. You have to eventually stop treating them with kid gloves, I'm for throwing young pitchers right in the mix. Didn't we go through this exact same thing with Buchholz? I figured he'd do 180, so does Theo, that whole thing? Lets make it simple this go-round. If Lester breaks camp in the rotation, lets make it interesting. Signatures on the line. I assume you're more honorable than Jacko, and would pay up if wrong.

Maybe finally he will shut up and pitch.

I don't think we neccessarily need Colon to be anything other than a mop up guy to have a successful season. Schillings injury, IMO, is going to turn out to be more of a blessing than a burden. Buchholz is ready. I love his stuff, and I think Lester is ready for 200. The only people who have spoken about a innings cap on Lester are people outside of the organization. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think Theo has commented on limited Lesters innings like he has with Buchholz, but still, I'm not concerned with Buchholz only being alotted 160-180. I expected as much. A midseason stop on the 15 day DL could probably take care of it. Schilling was going to do as much anyways. Maybe by then we can have a better read on Schill's progress and they can spell each other down the stretch.

Thanks dude. Noted.

Whenever he did talk last season, he hinted that it was pretty important that his number be retired here.

Lawl, ok.

I think you're over looking the fact Crisp has been pretty banged up. Go find his numbers from June on and take a picture of your face. He was very good from June-September. I hope Ellsbury wins the battle, but I think Crisp should net us a valuable bullpen piece.

New Babysitters cut edition! Commentary in bold. You sure type well with your fingers crossed. I'll read the rest of that post tomorrow when I get the stomach to actually start arguing with you again. It's that time of year.

Seattle doesn't have the supporting cast to win it, but they could make it fun for awhile. You have to take any statistical projection with a grain of salt. Buy into it or not, there is plenty of room for error. I don't see the point in these PECOTA team projections other than for MIT kids to show off how well they know math and how much time they have to kill. Jeez, watch a baseball game or something. That said, a lot of my friends seem to think we trump the yankees hands down and... well, I don't think its like that. I think if we played the Yankees in the ALCS 26-6 would be changing his username to 27-6 instead of 26-7.... erm, that was awkward but whatever. Joba to Mariano is scary. Pettitte in the post-season is scary. Their offense could have been the exception to the rule that pitching always beats good hitting, except for that whole pesky 5-game first round thing. There is no transitive property in baseball, math nerds, because we beat the Guardians and the Guardians beat the yankees does not mean we were better than the yankees. They had our number, and this season is going to be a dog fight. I like our rotation to hold up a little better over the long haul for now, and I like our ability to trade for missing pieces with our farm.

Jeter is a liability in the field and should have been moved to third instead of A-rod. Everyone has known that for awhile, this isn't news. That said, Jeter at the plate waaaayyy makes up for Jeter in the field and everyone knows it. He is captain clutch.

You can not be a fan of someone but acknowledge that at the moment there isn't anyone on the roster or in the system who could be playing his position. I'm not in favor of a long term deal for Youk for a few reasons, I also could see some scenarios where he does stay long term that I'd be happy about, like if we dealt Lars mid-season for a spark.

I don't think he is intentionally giving a discount. Its just cool to avoid arb.

Why do we need to go out and get a starter? I think signing Schilling for this year was quite a luxury and we only did it because of the discount in guarenteed dollars he was willing to take. Right now, our opening day rotation looks like: Beckett, DiceK, Wake, Lester and Buchholz. I'm not about to overspend in talent to bring in a league average starter like Blanton if I'm theo epstien.

In all likelihood he won't be with the sox by may. There is a good chance he doesn't even break camp with us.

Saw this a few minutes ago. Who would have pegged Bedard as likely to be dealt quicker than Johan?

I think that would be Ken Norton. Cowboys twice, then niners. No idea about his dad, i'd guess football but thats too easy.