Dojji

Why would I have to show you a single post when you've expressed this for the benefit of the entire forum over multiple posts? Do you seriously think you're winning anything here? I want to know.

There is no discussion. There's just you and a700 talking past each other. Let's recap shall we? Your point: That a shoulder injury early in Beckett's career puts him at greater risk for shoulder-related injury and resulting useless late in his career. A700's rebuttal: There's a number of examples of power righthanders with similar injuries early in their career who did not have significant shoulder troubles later in their career. Example, Roger Clemens, who had a shoulder injury in 1985 but didn't miss significant time because of his shoulder later in his career, and indeed went on to pitch well into his 40's. Your response: He missed a couple starts in 1993. You are therefore wrong. As this undeniably proves my complete intellectual superiority over you I will now act like a total douche and disrupt further debate with pointless snark. a700: How does a couple injuries in 1993 which didn't cost him any real time or imperil his future career have any bearing on my argument? Or on the discussion to this point at all? Your response: Nyah. Nyah I say. I have already demonstrated my intellectual superiority. You continue to attempt to make points. Thus you are clearly a sore loser, so again I say, Nyah. Dude, you really aren't covering yourself with glory here.

What's worse is that Imperial seems to be moving the windmill.

http://montaraventures.com/pix/no-tilting-at-windmills.jpg

I wish they'd let me buy my Gameday Audio package already. I'm half afraid they're holding it back until they add enough features to jack up the price on me.

Any lead on a stream for GER v. CAN? My usual source is betraying me.

Lack of opportunity. Grew up without cable TV, really had no ability to watch sports in earnest until college, and there are no Bruins radio broadcasts in my part of Maine (that I know of). Also, Mom and Dad met and married in San Diego, and Dad's still a San Diego Padres fan. Not exactly a great way to build a home hockey tradition. It took me "inheriting" my grandmother's old TV and setting up the cables in the college dorms to even get an idea what I was missing My first exposure to the Bruins was watching Hannu Toivonen disintegrate. My second was Tim Thomas' first start in the '06-'07 season. I think the third was that game against Tampa where he made that absolutely ridiculous "Are you kidding me?" save. That might help to explain why I'm such a passionate Thomas defender.

The other thing to bear in mind about Lee is actually has a pretty severe platoon split for a SP. Righthanders hit .283/.324/.414/.734 against him.

Different era, and Bill Lee was a freak in a lot of ways. One or two LHSP's actually succeeding over the entire history of the team does not mean LHSP's aren't at an extra disadvantage pitching in Fenway.

The fact is they're both nonproblems. You drag up your irrelevant bit of injury history, I drag out mine. Besides, as Chien-Ming wang proved, foot injuries can be a lot more serious than they first appear..

You're the one trying to have it both ways, dude. It's a known fact that Beckett still has room to improve and develop his stuff if he can just pitch a bit smarter. His raw stuff is way better than Lee's, that's a fact. And when we talk about room to improve, Lee peaked last year so it's not like your guy is any better a candidate to improve on past years than Beckett. So how's about you actually criticize those parts of Beckett that Lee might actually be an improvement over -- if this hasn't just become an excuse to bash Beckett in retribution because someone had the unmitigated gall to contradict you.

Sure, because you're exaggerating the problem. When a guy generally does the right thing, has great command and good strikeout rates, the odd brainfart of bull-headed moment doesn't make him a thrower rather than a pitcher, because 85% or more of the time the guy's doing exactly what you expect of him.

Then the compelling argument is probably "Better the devil you know." We know Beckett can be a productive pitcher here -- maybe not an ace at all times, but above average certainly. We can guess, but we actually don't really know that about Lee. So if there isn't that much to choose from, and no real compelling reason to take one for the other, why rock the boat?

The world didn't start in 2008 and it didn't end in 2009, you have to consider a pitcher's whole body of work. Why is that so easy to do with Beckett's injury history and not with Lee's performance history? He's still way too hittable for me to be particularly tempted to bring him to a park where off-handed hitters are augmented by park factors.

Because he still hasn't quite put it all together yet. That's the terrifying thing about Beckett. He's good now, but you have an idea how great he could be when it all clicks. Besides, his apparent "competition" also allows a home run every 9 innings over his career, besides being significantly more hittable than Beckett.

He throws his fastball 2/3 of the time because it's a damn good pitch and he should be using it as his bread and butter. If you think he's still going to do it when he only tops out at 93, I have two things to say to that. 1: He has enough movement on his heater that he probably SHOULD continue to use Old Number 1 as his primary offering at "only" faster than most big league pitchers can throw, especially if he keeps locating it. Heck, Schilling kept living on his fastball and split fastball when he was only throwing 89-90, and he did a dang good job with it. 2: He has no problem going to his secondary stuff in appropriate situations now, I have no reason to believe he'll suddenly DEVELOP a reluctance to do so as he gets older. Your concern isn't one. Next.

I'm absolutely loving my first exposure to Olympic hockey. I only "found" the sport late in '06 and I wasn't in a position to appreciate good hockey back then, so I'm really enjoying this.

That'll cause a lower body injury,

Yeah, the thing about Beckett is that he has a much larger margin for error because he combines velocity and command, and he's still going to have that combo as he ages -- he's just going to have to err more on the "command" side of the spectrum. Lee's velocity is solid, and his command is out of this world, but he's already resting mostly on his command to be as effective as he is. As his skills deteriorate, it's going to be much harder for Lee to reinvent himself and continually adjust to the league's adjustments to him than it will be for Beckett to do the same. Which is why he'll have to add to his arsenal as he ages. It's not exactly unheard of for a pitcher to add to his repertoire. Oh, and Beckett also throws a half decent two-seamer and I've occasionally seen him freeze people with what I'd best describe as a backdoor cutter.