Type-B, so they get compensation, but not from us.

He should maintain his Type-B status next year if he leaves, at least. If not type-A. So we should get a draft pick next year.

I don’t see a spot for A-Gon or Miggy with this deal. Unless you are cutting into the DH realm….

Not ideal, but if Scutaro ever ends up on the DL we’ll just call up Lowrie, so it will be at most a very occasional game off.

Its about Beltre’s damn near perfect glove and his potential. Although his stats are depressed at Fenway, they may improve since he is moving from spaceous Safeco Field to tiny Fenway park.

of the last 20 years as well as a history of very good offensive numbers before a disappearing act in the caverns of safeco. In fact, there are only two players all decade to ever have a season WAR over 10, Beltre and Bonds. So the potential for greatness is there.

Wait till the Oriole and Blue Jay prospects crash the party in 2011 and 2012

This is a lot like the 2007 team. Better defense, maybe slightly worse offense, better starting, worse bullpen.

But really close in makeup.

saying he plays his ass off every game and wishing him well. Doesn’t sound like a bad clubhouse guy. He’s probably pretty vanilla like most Boras clients.

…..just a rumor of course……

Beltre is a perfectly good guy who doesn’t get along terribly well with Ichiro. But Ichiro doesn’t have the best reputation, so I’d venture a guess that he’s the instigator.

No idea where this rumor came from, but absolutely not. In Beltre’s time in Seattle there’s not a single club house issue that I can ever recall, and not only does he play the game harder and with more heart than almost any player I’ve ever had the privilege of watching, but from what I’ve heard he’s also served as somewhat of a mentor for the rest of the Latino players on the team.

2009 numbers? Or projections for 2010 ala Bill James & Fans?

If the previous, then I like our chances, given all those career years in NY.

I wish we hadn’t spent on a nobody like Bonser. Better to double the salary and get at least a reasonable arm.

If one of Beltre or Scutaro falters badly during their first few months in Boston, Lowrie could get another shot at being a starter. (The Sox have learned not to be too forgiving in their expectations.)

Personally, I wouldn’t mind seeing competition for the starting SS spot between Scutaro and Lowrie.

He’s also our backup, but likely playing AAA to stay ready.

When he made it to the MLB, though, he fielded his position very well and was a strong offensive player, too. The problems came when he fractured his wrist, which led to awful lefty righty splits. As a righty, he KILLED lefties. But since his left wrist was injured, he was all-but-helpless against the majority of pitchers. However, those splits didn’t appear until after the injury, and he never showed any sort of problem batting lefty in the minors, so there’s no reason to believe that he won’t be able to hit righties well when he’s fully healed.

The problem is that the Red Sox handled the situation poorly, by having him play through the injury due to their SS difficulties in ‘08, and then trying to bring him back too early in Spring. They’ve never let the injury completely heal. With all this rest time, though, and some rehab time in Pawtucket, he’s still got all the potential he ever had in the minors—except with the added bonus that we know he can play defense!

The Sox basically threw everything you could throw at a rookie at him all at once. I don’t think there are many rookies that have to play every day while injured, and then adjust to batting in five different spots in the order (2, 6, 7, 8, and 9), as well as playing at three different positions (2B, 3B, and SS)—and sometimes more than one position during the same game.

His glovework was excellent, he shows some power with the bat—plus he seems to be one of the few Sox in 2008 that understood the concept of the “sacrifice fly.” And given that he didn’t crack at all under the pressure, he’s pretty sharp mentally, too. So, injury aside, it’s hard not to root for a player with that kind of profile.

But the defensive improvements are going to outweigh those losses by quite a bit. We went from the bottom of the pile to the top these last few months.

I used to consider OTM my backup Red Sox conversation. Not anymore at all. Of course, not all of us agree with the new-fangled stats, but that’s not the problem at all. The problem is the misinformed stuff. The idea that Lowell is still a gold glove defender when even the most basic of eye tests say “not anymore”.

I think there’s too much bias elsewhere. Obviously here we’re almost all Sox fans. And that sort of dispels a need to tow the party line. We can be critical of the Sox without being accused of trolling, or the like. And just the same we can realistically evaluate, say, the Yankees without being accused of being Yankee fanboys.

Not that any of us would be confused for that given the copious usage of “MFY”, but still.

Beyond that, though, it’s just how the community develops. Most of our posts are from a sizable population of regulars, which will always tend to result in a higher level of discourse.

add Brownie Points to that list

Sure, not cheap, but that is the market for a good, veteran player. I’m not a huge Beltre fan, but this is a one year patch deal, not some big commitment. Rember, this is the Red Sox were talking about, they have money, they just don’t want to make bad deals, especially long-term bad deals, see Lugo. Smoltz, Penny, Gage, etc. were all largely thought to be good deals at the time. None of them worked out, but at least they could just cut and run without having to eat some huge contract (Renteria, Lugo, Lowell coming), they could just move on.

A player does not take on the bad contract of the player they replace. Mike Lowell is a sunken cost who would take 12 million out of payroll regardless of whether or not we signed Beltre. It’s actually a lot more accurate to say that Beltre makes them more able to shift Mike Lowell and hopefully recover some of his salary. You could take a few million OFF of Beltre’s salary by that logic.

You COULD say that the improvement from Lowell to Beltre isn’t worth Beltre’s contract, but I’d say that’s not the case given that this was money to be spent this year which we managed to dump into a 1-year deal.

The Sox did not want to play Lowell at 3B at all this year. They knew they needed someone else, so his contract (as Ben says) became a sunk cost. It means the Sox made a mistake in extending Lowell, but it says nothing about the Beltre signing.

I know I’ve pulled out the econ terms before, but again, economic decisions are based on marginal costs, not total costs.

I think some of that bears repeating:

"[Beltre is] clearly the best [third baseman] I’ve ever seen in person," said Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon. "I think [Evan Longoria] is good, I used to think Scott Brosius was really good. … [Eric] Chavez was good, but Beltre was stupid good. I think Beltre is the best who I’ve ever seen with my two eyes – defender, not just third baseman, but defense."

and [from the Dave Allen article]:

You can see Beltre’s power is to left, typical pull power for a RHB, and that he gets more power in away parks through much of left and left-center field. The differences look slight, but many flies and lines to left over the course of a season makes up for the big difference. Interestingly, he also gets more power in away parks to extreme right field, where I had thought Safeco was a little more generous.

Sounds good to me…

I like that Joe Maddon calls his D “stupid good.”