Dojji

Agreed. Hudson would be a good call.

No. Please. No.

Lester was a longshot for the Cy Young at times this year, although the absurd performance of Greinke (and to a lesser extent Felix Hernandez) pretty much meant that wasn't actually going to happen. He's always been an "if he can put it all together" kind of guy, and it looks now like he's very, very close to having everything in place for a monster career.

Jon Lester followed up a pretty solid 2008 performance with much the same work in 2009. In both years he won 15+ games and pitched 200+ innings, but last year he increased his k/9 from mid-6 to 10+, silencing doubters and giving himself a reputation as possibly our best starting pitcher. In the process, his top fastball has improved from 93 to 97 miles an hour, and I've heard some people hint that he might even still have some projectability as he continues to put his stuff together. My question is basically, the guy's still going into his age 26 season next year. is there room for an encore or even an improvement should we just be grateful for what he's giving us? Does anyone see him winning 20 and cementing his reputation as a True Ace? Or, since I know Jacko's sniffing around here somewhere, is there the possibility of a regression to the mean?

Which by extension means he spun Bronson Arroyo into Wily Mo Pena into Carter into a first and a supplemental. I'd call that a happy ending. EDIT: Should have known EX1 would get there first lol.

You keep holding onto Safeco as your lifeline. You ahead and do that. Personally I think you're badly overstating the effects of park factors. Other than the really insane ones, like NYS on leftanded hitters, or pre-humdor Coors, the effects of stadium on offense tend to get lost in the noise. It's amazing that every player you want to bring to the Sox tends to play in outer space with walls 500 feet from home plate.

I noticed the point where that's dead wrong. Even dealing with a chronic hip injury, Lowell has been a better hitter for average and OBP than Beltre and their power has been roughly equal. Also this is the first year where Lowell's D has even been bad. Even gimping around 3B for half the year in 2008 he still put up decent season numbers defensively. He might not have good range but Lowell is smart, aggressive and handsy, and he positions well -- a lot like Alex Gonzalez at short, who also doesn't have the greatest range but makes up for it well. With a full offseason to work on rehabbing that hip, I don't think it's totally insane to expect Lowell to regain at least some of his defense next year.

Meh, I feel the difference is minor, but there's no way I can convey that to you in a way you'll actually agree with. personally, I think our next longerm 3B is Youks.

Of course it would, because you desperately want it to.

That's the reason I don't reject the idea out of hand. Add to that Beltre's demonstrated ability to have a monster year and it is appealing. But you can't pretend the guy has been anything resembling consistent. Lowell doesn't walk much, but he hits for high enough average to maintain a tolerable OBP. The last time Beltre had an OBP as good as Lowell's career average was his amazing, mostrous, no-way-in-hell-he-does-it-again breakout season in 2004. He did the same thing with the Dodgers, and Dodger Stadium is on the big side, but not exactly as big as Safeco National Park. http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?n1=beltrad01&year=2002&t=b http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?n1=beltrad01&year=2003&t=b http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?n1=beltrad01&year=2004&t=b As you can see, even in his breakout year, Beltre hit better on the road. I don't think you can blame all of that on playing 19 games at pre-humidor Coors Field either. So this is hardly a phenomenon reserved to his Mariners days. the guy is apparently just a road warrior. And before you try that hard to put your interpretation on the numbers, and especially before you mock people about the numbers, you might try looking at ALL of them. And take a look at his bb/k while you're at it. Rarely better than 1:3. The guy walks maybe 40 tiimes a season in a good year.

Actually he has -- before he got hurt back in '08, Lowrie was flirting with a .800 OPS. It was only a half season, and the injury fueled slump erased it by the end of the year, but when you back that up with his minor league numbers and his scouting pedigree as an offensive player, I think it'd be reasonable to see him as a possible .280/.350/.450 player. You don't give up on those at the first setback.

I still wouldn't mind trading for Jose Reyes if the option presents itself. That would be a major steal -- literally. And can you imagine Ellsbury and Reyes at the top of the lineup? Deadly!

I still think that unless they land Hanley, or something else breaks insanely well, that the Sox consider Jed Lowrie their guy and will want to give him and their other young SS prospects (Tejeda, Navarro, Iglesias) a chance to break through in the next few years. If I'm right, they'll make a series of short term moves until some younger player or another breaks through and can control the position for multiple cost-controlled seasons. As for Lowrie himself, I still think that while he's no Nomar Garciaparra, he might be a John Valentin. And that's worth a lot.

Beltre didn't play all his games at Safeco, he strikes out an obscene amount, and he doesn't walk that much. I, too, an wary of Beltre. He strikes me as exactly the kind of player who will win a contract based on a few hot streaks and then fail to live up to it for the rest of his time -- a sort of reverse JD Drew, if you will.

you make one hole to plug another, when the hole you plug is harder to fill than the one you make.

LOL man I liked W, and it might even raise the prestige of the game to put a former President in charge of the league, but it still won't happen.

Thought it was actually close to the wrist, but that the actual injury was on the forearm. Read that once when I was lurking at Soxprospects.

Eh, all his problems hail back to one injury. I'm not going to write the guy's whole career off because of one forearm fracture that didn't heal as fast as we wanted it to. We all know how tricky forearm fractures are. the appropriate respnse to injury issues is to stockpile depth (guys like Tug Hulett or Nick Green), not give up on the guy entirely.

whiiiiiich would be why he has trade value.

I think it's wiser with Oki just to go year by year. He's not young, he doesn't throw hard, and although all of his years with Boston are solid, they have gotten progressively less so. That's probably just ordinary reliever variability and I'll take the worst of those 3 seasons from Oki anyday, but I'd like to wait one more year to be sure of him. If he's solid again in 2010 then he probably has at least another couple decent years after that too.

I use stats primarily because I know I can't tell good baseball from bad by looking.

He played third in the WBC, which at least opens the conversation.