Dojji

Well at least if Pedroia had to have health problems we have either Lowrie or Scutaro to sub for him. Both of them are more than suitable backups.

Believe me, if I thought we could get Napoli, defense and durability issues and all, I'd go for it. Not blind to the downside, but it's a risk worth taking anyway because the upside is a serious slugging catcher that can hit 20-25 HR's in 100 games played and provide platoon support for a couple other positions where we have LHH (while you aren't going to platoon Gonzalez, Ortiz is another question). Sometimes the reward is worth the risk. A Napoli-Salty platoon would have been fairly nice. Hard to blame the Angels for not being approachable on the guy though. Again, this guy could have provided a RHH platoon C/1B/DH bat with serious pop that would have come into a lineup starved for RHH. What exactly is the problem people have with this? It fills several of our major needs at once.

I've said this before, but I'm firmly convinced Lowrie's upside is in the John Valentin range if he puts everything together. That's danged good.

And you think Lowrie won't be given plenty of chances to take shortstop over? OK buddy, whatever you want to think. If Lowrie and Scutaro both hit up to their proven abilities, Lowrie should end the shortstop controversy in his favor by June. I see no particular reason to be bound by your refusal to believe that.

Those of us who watched the season know better. Pedroia won the job by May, but it was an open competition in April and Cora was hitting the cover off the ball. If Pedroia hadn't busted out like he did, Cora would have kept playing.

I think this might wind up like the Cora-Pedroia thing at second base in '07. Scutaro starts out with claim to the starter's role but Francona watches Lowrie closely and makes sure he gets time at SS, and if it's obvious Lowrie deserves to start at some point, he will.

I don't either, for the record. I just think that if someone does, based on the combination of his recent injury history (a torn tendon in his throwing hand no less) combined with the fact that he's never faced the rigors of starting fulltime at third, there's room for a little worry. At least during Hot Stove before we've really seen it play out.

I could see Coco Crisp as a heck of a slot reciever. Quite a few of our American prospects drafted out of HS chose pro baseball over college football. And of course there's Matt Stairs and hockey.

Danny Ainge made the majors, although he didn't hit. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/aingeda01.shtml

Beltre has been on enough teams with a terrible situation at shortstop that if this was a real possibility it would have been tried.

That would be an incredibly deadly speed attack if Crawford and Ellsbury are healthy. Righthanded pitchers beware.

Throw Papelbon into the mix here too, his shoulder's an ongoing concern.

It's not only that, it's the fact that he has never been the starting 3B. I don't think he'll suck, but you have to admit the chance is there. You can't pretend you're doing anything other than extrapolating part time stats to full time play defensively, which I'm... reliably informed.. is not a dependable way to do player analysis.

Yeah sorry, you can LOL all you want to. It's a legitimate concern. He's no stranger to injury, he's moving up the defensive spectrum on the far side of 30, and while he's athletic for a 1B, not so much for a 3B. I still think he's gonna be pretty good, but open your goddamned mind to a contrary opinion for once in your miserable little life.

I think what people are looking at worrying about Youk's D is not so much the fact that he's played first, because we know he's always kept current at third, but the fact that he has never actually played a full season as a third baseman. I'm just saying, there's legitimate room for a bit of skepticism, especially since Youkilis is on the far side of 30 and is no stranger to the DL. Just imagine if Jed Lowrie had played a season or two at 2B because something happened to Pedroia, and then Peddy was back or we had another 2B who would definitely be starting there full time over Lowrie, and the announcement came down that Lowrie would be the starting SS. Even if he'd backed up 20-30 games a year at SS for various reasons and hadn't looked bad there, there'd be plenty of room for skepticism right? Personally I think he's gonna be fine. But there's enough facts in the "cause for worry" column that I'm not going to stand in line to mock the guys that don't.

So calling someone "at least above average" is somehow an insult????? Logic fail on your part, Spud. An elite top 5 3B is "at least above average." All Exman was doing was hedging his bets in case Youk had trouble defensively.

I don't get what's funny about that. Depending on how Youks plays out defensively, if he's average or bad his bat makes up for it but we're still only about above average on the whole, but if he's solid, we're elite at third. Thus, "at least above average." Why I want to see them try Lowrie, is because I feel that Lowrie and only Lowrie among our current batch of shortstop options has a chance to make us better than NYY at short. We haven't had that in a long time and it would be nice to sieze it with both hands now that we might.

We're already going to have one position, catcher, that we know is going to be a source of trouble on both ends of the ball. We really could use to solidify the SS position and not have to settle for average there, so that we can absorb the damage our catchers might do to us.

Scutaro had exactly the year I expected him to have, but my expectations of Scutaro were so low that I'm not sure I'd call that a good thing. We need more than that from our SS going forward, especially since we have the chance to get it.

Precisely. WHen I say Jed Lowrie has the ability to be the best offensive SS in the AL, I'm not exactly saying a ton. All that would need to happen is for Jed to play 130 games, get a .750-.775 OPS and someone else not break out. That's really not that tall an order.

If he's got an .840 OPS, I'd like you to find a better offensive shortstop than that in the American League presently. They just aren't there. For some reason all the good offensive SS's are in the National League -- Hanley, Reyes, Rollins, Tulo, etc. I'm inclined to blame the lack of a DH requiring them to squeeze more offense into up the middle positions. What that means IMHO is that if you do go to Lowrie as your SS you can seize an advantage over most of the other contenders in the AL, especially now that Jeter looks to be in real decline. Most of them have gone to the defensive model or have young guys who aren't perfect for prime time yet. Getting 800+ OPS out of the SS position is disproportionately valuable offensively on that basis.

I'm actually swayed by a700's argument to a point. If the FO thinks Okajima would sign for Wakefield money to be our other lefty, I think they kinda have to go get him at Wakefield's expense. He's a better gamble from a quality perspective. I mean if they think Oki's toast that's one thing, but if he's got some bullets left, go get Oki.

Try him as a long man. I don't see the harm, it's not like long men exist to dominate the league with pitching quality.

I don't see what the big deal is about acquiring Reyes. He's explosive and exciting, gets on base fairly well on a career, and is a dominant player when he's on the field. He's had some health issues recently but when he's in there he's amazing, and he's still a decent bet to play 130 games a year, and the backup we have for when he isn't playing is at least worthy. Sure we could do fine without him, prolly. We could also do even better with him. His OPS numbers are already good even before you add in that he'd be yet another player with flat out ridiculous speed. Acquiring him would represent a determination to be the absolute best that you couldn't help but admire. As for known flaws like health and attitude, that'd be the only reason a guy like that would even be available at all, and we certainly have options if the gamble backfires, so the risk is not that high. When healthy the guy is a 5.5-6.0 WAR player, replacing a player who's about 0-2 WAR. The reward there should be obvious. I just think it's an idea worth pursuing.

Iglesias a Hispanic from the Carribean, Lowrie is an American college player. Consider the source.