Dojji

I disagree with you, Kilo, only in that I think that Minnesota is going to play a game of chicken with Mauer in an effort to bring his price tag down, and the V-Mart negotiations are going to hang on how that turns out. I'm still not convinced that a team like Minnesota, not known as a big spender, is really going to see past the bottom line and ink Mauer at the elite price he's going to want to be paid. if he becomes available, Victor Martinez will be a free agent. I'm not saying it'd be smart for Minnesota to do this mind, just that that's how I see it happening.

It's more that as Beckett's velocity declines, he has his command to fall back on -- and Beckett's command is probably underrated because we think of him as a power guy -- since 2007, Beckett's command has been pretty Schillinglike, never much over 2 bb/9. He's actually quite a decent command pitcher, just we forget that when we see him blowing smoke by people. Lee's already having to do the stuff Beckett has available to fall back on, just to get outs with the velocity he has now, so as his velocity declines his window is going to get a little narrower a little faster, whereas Beckett is more free to reinvent himself as exactly the kind of pitcher Lee is now.

Lee doesn't hold a ton over Beckett either though. In the end, they're both really different, really good pitchers -- one a prototypical power righty ace, the other a prototypical command/finesse lefty ace. BTW if you asked me who's likeliest to age well, my guess would probably be Beckett, if only because Lee's already living on his command, while Beckett can throw it by people and also has great command on top of that. Basically I feel Beckett's toolbox is slightly bigger and that'll hold him in good stead as he gets older. In all seriousness though, they're both really good and both should age well -- although I'd like to see Lee bring his h/9 down a little.

http://i45.tinypic.com/33ogp60.jpg

Kinda establishes my point there. You don't have the right to call anyone else "smug" when you pull tactics like this.

1.2 million for Chan Ho Park... OK...

you post something like that and dare to call ME smug. OK.

We hear a few of these every year. I'm glad it's Kelly who's being hyped, but it remains to be seen how that evolves in the field. Best case scenario IMHO is a couple more miles on an already good FB and no adjustment problems to his new size and strength. That's what we're all thinking when we hear of a pitcher gaining that much strength and size.

Lee and Hurst are pretty danged overrated themselves in retrospect. They were more "flashes of greatness" than really sustainable ace types. Hurst in particular never strung two good years together in Boston. I might not be behaving quite fairly to spaceman saying that, Lee was great until he got hurt, but he only really had the one true ace-type year in '73. Also, I know that different eras have different standards, but when I'm evaluating Lee as an ace I have a really hard time looking past that 3.3 career k/9. He's an ace if Mark Buehrle's an ace (which you could make a case for over the last 3 years, actually) There's whole decades of Red Sox eras I have no knowledge of, but I think Lefty Grove might have been our last pre-Lester true lefthanded ace. We certainly haven't ever had too many of them.

So what you're saying is that there's not really a ton to choose from between them. Innnnnn that case why not stay with the one who we know is effective pitching fulltime in the toughest division in baseball?

I don't think a prospect as widely regarded as Wieters CAN "break out." He's already out, continuing at his present level would be seen as a disappointment.

I still hold out some hope that Brett Gardner will wow people enough to..... yeah, even I couldn't finish that sentence.

Crawford's a tweener. Great speed, non-negligible power, but he has to put the power together a bit better and the speed's already there. I would squee if we got Crawford for left field next year. And I wouldn't care who heard me. The concept of Ellsbury and Crawford in the leadoff and #2 spots would be enough to elicit a decent squee from any true Sox fan. Epic offensive awesome would commence immediately.

OK, so let's go back and concede that park factor argument. The fact is that park factors makes Cliff Lee a poorer idea to bring in as a FA than an equivalent righthander -- this is indisputable, as righthanders, which get enough help as it is from the park itself, have advantages against LHP's. Combine that with the fact that Lee's a bit home run prone, and throw in the fact that Lee surrenders his fair share of hits, and what you have is a pretty decent regression candidate if Lee pitches in Fenway on a regular basis. Replacing Beckett, our best RHP, with even a very good LHP is a pretty fair bid for a step backwards.

For the record: We couldd do a heck of a lot worse than .350 OBP in the leadoff slot. That's actually well above the league average and better than we'd had there since Youks was our leadoff man. It's also Johnny Damon's career OBP,and we had some good years leading off behind Damon.

Dude, I know what your point is. If you want to point out that Lester's k/9 in 2008 wasn't exactly stellar, just say so. My point is a legitimate response to yours, so get off your high horse. Fenway is a terrible park to hit homers in. It is slightly less terrible for righties, but the part you're ignoring that I've pointed out repeatedly is that it's a bigger piece of a MUCH smaller pie. There just aren't a lot of long ones hit here compared to the league average, especially considering both the quality of our own lineup and the fact that we face the Yankees so often. On the other hand, once again, Fenway is quite a good ballpark for overall righthanded power and average -- because of the short, and also very high, wall. But not because of home runs. The fact is that the short wall in left is also a very high wall in left. There's plentty of righthanded power bonus, but no, it is not that easy for a righthander to homer in Fenway. Maybe easier than for a lefthander at the same park, but not easy compared to the rest of the league.

No, I see that, the thing is, Lester's h/9 is still substantially lower than Lee's even in 2008. Missing bats is about more than just avoiding contact. It's also about awkward contact -- popups, easy flyballs, soft grounders, etc. When they're catching up with Lee, they're catching him quite a bit harder than they do with Lester and more of it turns into baserunners. See the thing is, you're still tracking park factors based entirely on home runs. That is NOT all there is to park factors. And you know this. Fenway is in fact a terrible park to hit HR's in. Look at the park dimensions, this is not rocket science. Centerfield is hell too deep, straightaway right is very deep, and the one wall that isn't exceedingly deep is very high. The strength of Fenway as an offensive park is its propensity for doubles, not homers. This is the easiest park in all of baseball in which to double -- it's in the bottom half fairly consistently as a home run ballpark despite some excellent lineups. You ignore this because you're not looking at the information required to process it.

For the record: I think that if he gets a chance to play at all, Jed Lowrie will start to play up to his potential for the first time this season.

What's your working definition of "pitches like an ace," and why does Lackey and not Beckett quality?

Jon Lester misses bats. Fenway is not an easy place for a lefthander to pitch at the best of times. Lester's just that awesome. Citizen's Bank Park was a worse overall offensive ballpark than Fenway last year. It's an easier HR park than Fenway, but Fenway is the king of doubles.

Sure, but if you're allowing that many hits, it means you've got baserunners anyway -- they were just able to earn it on you. Tell me that's not a problem if Lee comes to Boston -- a lefthanded pitcher that hitters can hit in a park with a short left field wall.

I like Beckett's secondary numbers more. Lee wins on walks -- but not by that much. Beckett allows slightly fewer hits and significantly more strikeouts. Home runs are a wash. That's what I mean about regression potential. Lee misses fewer bats than Beckett does, it's just a fact. No matter how good his command is a h/9 of more than 9 is going to come back to hurt him at some point. Beckett had the lower WHIP between himself and Lee last year, just by the by.

I guess the reason it's so easy to underestimate Lee is that he isn't truly a big strikeout guy -- or wasn't until he spent half a year in the National League. He's got generational level command and he's made some kind of adjustment that makes it much harder to square him up so he just plain doesn't allow baserunners -- at all. That makes being a dominant pitcher a lot easier. Just ask Schilling in his later years. But 2007 wasn't that long ago either. And neither was 2005, the last time Lee broke out -- and then promptly got stuffed back in the bottle.The guy has had an up and down career, more so even than Josh Beckett, so if you're going to claim he's that much better than Beckett, you do have to deal with the worry that he might turn back into a pumpkin. As a big righthanded power arm with high strikeout numbers (and nearly Lee's level of command), that's a slightly smaller concern for Beckett. O and while we're at it, Lee's h/9 is nothing to write home about. The guy just does not miss bats, and it will come back to bite him if he can't adjust.