Imperial59

Beltre's shoulder wasn't just rehabbed. He had surgery on it last June. There goes that excuse. Guess you're either going to have to be fair about how you talk about his shoulder in comparison to Posada's from now on or be a complete homer.

Beltre from 2008 had a WAR 4 times Lowell from 2009. I think it's safe to say rather conclusively that he Beltre was much better. Even if you were JUST talking offense, Beltre had a higher OPS+ and hit .292/.349/.512 on the road compared to Lowell's .276/.331/.382. Any way you slice it, Beltre was the much better player in 2008 then Lowell was last year. So unless you're assuming Beltre will be hurt again next year, the Red Sox improved both their defense and offense at third base.

It certainly makes him look like a dumbass, but at the same time it makes me feel better about his health going forward that it probably wasn't his shoulder that caused him to suck so much last year.

The ONLY way Beltre is in any way a drop off is if he repeats his career worse year offensively. Do you expect Granderson to repeat his 100 OPS+ last year, or do you only assume career worse offensive performances from Red Sox players? One second you're claiming the Red Sox can't hit away from home, the next you're claiming the Sox are worse off because Lowell was a force at Fenway. Beltre had better numbers than Lowell on the road last year, even though it was the worse offensive year of his career. And he figures to get the same help from Fenway that Lowell did.

Defense wins games. It's not as sexy as home runs or strikeouts, but it's highly effective. "Seattle traded for outfielders Franklin Gutierrez and Endy Chavez and ended up improving their overall defense so much that they went from an American League-worst 61-101 record in 2008 to an 85-77 campaign last year, the biggest improvement in the Majors, despite scoring fewer runs than they did in '08." http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100110&content_id=7897834&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

I agree with you on this. Jacko is the only Yankees poster I have an issue with. I don't think he gets just how annoying it would be if we went on to a Yankees forum and all we ever did was criticize the team. We'd probably get banned. It's pretty cool of the moderators to still allow Jacko to post here even though he comes up with a new "biggest weakness of the Red Sox" every few days and then calls anyone who disagrees with him a homer.

I think he could improve a little over the long haul. The first three years of a player's major league career are extremely unpredictable though, let alone the first full season of a major league player's career. Even the best players struggle at first.

The Red Sox are always going to score more runs at Fenway than they do on the road. Fenway is a great hitting park. And a lack of offense on the road certainly was an issue last year, but it's something that the Red Sox addressed in a big way. They replaced Varitek (.182/.281/.358 hitter on the road last year) with V-Mart (.323/.403/.522 hitter on the road last year). They replaced Green (.206/.284/.290 on the road last year) with Scutaro (.322/.405/.429 hitter on the road last year) and they replaced Lowell (.276/.331/.382 hitter on the road last year) with Beltre (.292/.349/.512 and .288/.320/.538 hitter on the road the last two years he was healthy). Even if Beltre sucks next year, that's a .286 point difference in OPS at catcher and a .260 point difference in OPS at shortstop. If Beltre repeats his down season last year, his road OPS would still be a few points better than Lowell's last year. Statistically, Varitek and Green were by far the Red Sox worst hitters on the road last year. Lowell was the team's 4th worst hitter on the road, a small amount behind Ortiz in OPS. Sorry, Jacko but even with Bay gone... OMG, PANICKS ROFL! (stole that from your ever so elegant vocabulary)... the Red Sox will likely be a better hitting team on the road next year.

When Varitek's rested, he's a great hitting catcher. Last year he had an OPS of .881 in April and .824 in May before wearing down in the second half. The year before he had an OPS of .809 in April and .913 in March before wearing down in the second half.

There's an even more direct correlation between OPS and scoring runs.

Don't be a drama queen, Matsui played 140+ games last year. What are the chances his replacement at DH plays that many games? He's only done it once in 8 career years. If you're trying to make a case that the health of the Yankees DH is likely to improve next year, you'd probably be better off trying to make a case that Damaso Marte is a better reliever than Jonathan Papelbon.

Ballpark... independent... stats. They adjust for that.

This. The Sox clearly improved their rotation, and even though we lost Jason Bay, we significantly improved our position players. The one question mark of the team for me is the bullpen. But I don't think it's anything to worry about. They have one of the best closers in baseball. Okajima has been one of the most solid set up guys in baseball since he came to Boston. And a supporting cast of Bard, Ramirez and Delcarmen is better than most guys have in middle relief. If it's that much of a problem, we can always make a trade. The bullpen has the smallest win values of any aspect of a team and it's fairly easy to fix if a team already has a closer and a set up guy.