Dojji

sure. Let's bring him in in case Wake can't pitch next year. And baseball agent Casey Close? Am I the only one that finds that funny?

But the best place to do that isn't necessarily the corners, which is why I tried to be specific about that.

Lowell ain't here n'more. Find something else.

Yeah, OK, but I'd rather use numbers for something within the last 3 years, especially for a guy who's 30 or older. Anyway, Beltre scares the heck out of me for 3 reasons -- mileage, OBP, and last year's elbow surgery. I don't think those are unreasonable positions in opposing a signing.

That's pretty fair, but 60 HR's? I assume you mean something like over the last 3-4 years, right?

Now you really expect me to believe what you said back then about not trying to make this a Teixeira argument? You've been talking around Teixeira since your first post in this thread. In fact you're deliberately staging an inquest on my position on Teixeira in the guise of discussing Beltre, which suggests to me that the real reason you're in here has zero to do with Adrian Beltre, or the next 1B for the Sox whoever he might be. The fact is that we weren't getting Mark Teixeira. The Yankees had a gap at 1B and were prepared to not let us beat them to the guy. The Yankees were well primed to write him a blank check and we weren't going to be able to go as far as they were. It's just what it is. That's the other thing I was saying at the time. Half the reason I argued against Teixeira last year was because I saw the situation, with MY FORESIGHT, and made the obvious conclusion about which way the wind was blowing and did not let myself get caught up emotionally in the vain pursuit of a player was not ever, EVER coming to Boston except as a competitor.

Fair 'nuff. I was being fairly optimistic on the subject of Lowell, but in my defense the guy was one year removed from being a franchise hero. I didn't see any particular reason he couldn't at least have maintained his 2008 form, which in aggregate would have been good enough. Because things turned in your favor a little too perfectly to blame it all on foresight. Sure, Lowell had complications with his surgery that meant cortisone shots and reduced range at third, that was predictable, and in fact I predicted it too. But if Anderson had held to form and produced like he was supposed to, which is the other half of the equation I was drawing at the time, then Lowell's last couple years would be as an average kind of a placeholder while we waited for the heir apparent, with Youks going to third more and more as the aging stalwart continued to decline. In fart that part happened, it's just that the heir apparent had been tripped up in AA and we were left scrambling for a replacement -- enter LaRoche and Kotchman. We ate that money in order to pick up Max Ramirez, so as much as I'm not keen on Beltre, it wouldn't be fair to blame him for that. Not his fault.

As long as a guy isn't a disaster covering his position, there's only so much more you can gain out of good defense at the corners. I'm not saying it doesn't matter, but I'm saying that it's more important to have great offense and an adequate glove than the reverse. Because Beltre's defense is like everything else about him. Very talented, very athletic, very shiny -- but flawed. He's fairly error prone. Besides, HR count is nice, but OBP still matters, and we're coming back to the fact that Beltre's is substantially below average. And LaRoche actually has about the same offense as healthy Lowell, which represents a better upgrade of overall run production. Fair enough. I'm throwing them out there mostly for the sake of conversation, and not to make it too obvious I was shilling for LaRoche.

Nice one. Actually, he was a three-time all star when he came here. He also won a gold glove, a Silver Slugger, and a world Series ring. If he was really just a throw-in, Lowell was the bargain of the century. We got him partly because Florida wanted to shave salary, and partly because Miguel Cabrera was ready, which meant Florida was ready to turn him into prospects. He'd also had multiple excellent offensive and defensive years as a Marlin. Sure he was coming off a bad year, but no one was under any illusion that the guy wasn't a good rebound candidate. Now Beltre on the other hand... well do I honestly need to go there? The difference in track records is pretty stark. All Beltre really has going for him was one good season 5 years ago and a bit of pop during his hot streaks. The volatility is much greater than Lowell's was, the downside is quite a bit greater, and Beltre has a ton more miles on his body than Lowell did in 2005 at the same age. He's also coming off an elbow surgery, last year coinciding with a huge drop in power which should frankly scare the heck out of people. I think we'd be better, wiser, to go in a different direction. Either trade for Miggy or sign LaRoche. I think the regional sale of Rolaids around New England won't increase as much that way.

Bearing in mind that what happened this season was the result of complications after the surgery, and those complications were hardly guaranteed to happen. Lowell was gimping around on that hip half the season last year and still put up above average numbers on both sides of the ball, and he didn't exactly suck this year either if I recall correctly -- He managed .800 OPS and wasn't a train wreck defensively (below average? Sure. Disastrously so? Not really). Which is still at least somewhat above average, although not as much as when he was still a gold glover as late as midseason last year. THE Free Agent option? As in the one? Do I really need to repeat yet again the fairly salient and OBVIOUS point that THERE IS MORE THAN ONE ADEQUATE FREE AGENT OPTION OUT THERE? And all you have to do to find them is START LOOKING AT 1B AS WELL AS 3B??? Which is what this thread was created to point out? Also, there might not be great FA bats out there this season, but there are trade options, Miguel Cabrera being perhaps the most obvious match. Of course you do. And you and all your due respect can take a hike. You're overselling -- DRASTICALLY -- both the decline of Lowell and the usefulness of Beltre, and grossly mischaracterizing my position, and worse you're trying to bludgeon me into silence with hindsight. You can GFY. .... With all due respect of course.

Nice. Way to totally duck the argument rather than actually address the fact that people are badly overinflating what park factors will mean in the event of a Beltre acquisition. Of course, unless it's Miguel Cabrera and Matt Holliday, which is probably a superior solution. Heck, it's what you've said you want in a couple other places.

Juuuuuuuuust a little overstated there by Rhet, but an interesting balance to some of the overexuberance we're getting from a few quarters on the same subject. Beltre, for what it's worth, does have one of the lowest OBP's among active 3B's over the last 3-4 years. I think the only guys definitely worse are Pedro Feliz and the oft-injured Joe Crede. You don't need to be in a bandbox stadium to put up a good OBP.

There's no guarantee of that you know. If we got him I'd be hoping for it, but I think the whole park factor argument gets overblown sometimes. I mean, Manny Ramirez moved from Fenway to Beltre's original home turf and his numbers stayed pretty much the same, if it was that big a deal, wouldn't you have expected them to go down? Frankly I think people are putting way too much faith into the idea that a 31 year old player will improve his plate discipline. Why not just get a guy with good plate discipline instead?

No, because I didn't think that that was the time or place to spend a lot of money -- not when we already had a solid incumbent who was getting the job done (remember, this was BEFORE his huge defensive collapse, which is largely unique to this past year) and a couple good prospects for long-term replacement or trade purposes. Although I did say at the time that if we got Teixeira I wouldn't exactly weep bitter tears over it. Now my argument got blown out of the water by huge collapses by both Anderson and Lowell, but that doesn't mean it was automatically invalid when I made it. things could just have easily gone the other way. And IIRC, we actually did outbid the Yankees for Teixeira anyway, so it's not like there's anything we could have done.

How convenient for you. Because Beltre's OBP is neither higher than Lowell's, nor adequate. Actually, the one who brought up Lowell's OBP as a standard was.... not me. You were the one who was pointing out that Lowell's OBP is low. Fine, if that's a problem why go for, like, the one guy who actually has it worse? And if that's not a problem, why are your lips moving? Actually no I don't, so how's about you spell it out. Since Lowell isn't going to be our 3B no matter what, the only question that's even relevant is how much we can improve on his production, and that's not the right question if what you're looking for is the BEST option. You might as well compare prospective FA's to Youkilis or Ortiz. Lowell WAS adequate. but at this point we've officially moved on. Now we're officially out there spending money looking for a replacement, I'm not so willing to settle with "adequate!" When it's time to spend money on a guy, get the best guy you can. That isn't Beltre IMHO.

Which in its own way, was Dipre all over. He was passionate when he was right, and he was passionate when he was wrong, but he was always passionate.

Yeah, so you know he really values defense at the hot corner.

Miggy's got my vote. He only has to actually take the field for one year, and if he can't hack it, we move on from Big Papi and put Muggy in as full time DH. Then we bring in Adrian Gonzalez in the 2010 offseason, sign Halladay, and watch Dipre go absolutely berzerk.

Call me nuts but I think I'd rather play Hermida in left. Crisp has really gone downhill in the last couple seasons. He has more hardware in his shoulders than he used to wear around his neck too.

That's only because you're assuming Hermida is the starting LF. I'm convinced one of Bay and Holliday is coming to Boston, leaving our lefty count at 3 -- Drew, LaRoche, and Ellsbury. Even if Hermida is our LF, that's only 4, as I'm not counting switch-hitters like VMart in among the lefties, for the simple reason that the only time having lefties out there is likely to be a platoon problem, is when facing a LHP, and in those situations VMart's batting right. Besides, if you got Adrian Gonzalez, you'd be in the same pickle -- although perhaps for a better cause. Sure, that's the big hole in my argument, but frankly we'd still be stronger than we were last year, especially if Youks puts up a league average season defensively. Since Beltre's not the kind who tends to age well though, I'd still stay away from him.

He's got a lot of miles on him though. About as many as Lowell, really. Age matters, but this will be Beltre's 12th big league season. That's a lot of wear'n'tear. Besides, why are we comparing Beltre to Lowell? Lowell's gone. It's time to look for his replacement. We should be comparing Beltre to LaRoche or someone.

The guy we got rid of is one of the best "fielders" in history in third base. Beltre is an athletic, flashy, badly overrated fielder. He IS above average, but check that error count before you go as far as "tremendous." Sure, bla bla errors bla bla overall measure of defense blah, but when a guy's a TREMENDOUS fielder he should be doing everything well. Right? I'm not saying the guy sucks. He's a decent player. but he IS overrated.

The problem I have with Beltre can be summed up by 3 letters. OBP. Whatever else good he does, Adrian Beltre makes more outs than most of the other options we can add to our corner infield. I'm not convinced that the Fenway effert gets him all the way from .310-.320 to the .350 OBP he needs to have to be fully productive in this lineup. I'd call OBP at least a worthy tiebreaker between a couple fairly equivalent courses of action, wouldn't you?