Lester Settles Down as Red Sox Pound Royals Bullpen

MILB doesn’t have that much

The other four are all interesting:

……wOBA……, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010…. Salary 2010
Lowell……….., .377_ .344_ .346_ .307………..$12 mil
LaRoche……., .346_ .357_ .357_ .375………..$4.5 mil +($1.5 buyout 2011)
Konerko…….., .357_ .343_ .362_ .391…………$12 mil
Berkman……., .383_ .419_ .386_ .392……….$14.5 mil +($2.0 buyout 2011)

Which team would give up there 1st baseman today for a single prospect?

Berkman is a switch hitter and hands down the cream of the crop but the Astros will want more quality prospects and may not be willing to eat a lot of salary too.

Are Chicago and Arizona ready to sell today?
Boston should be past ready.

BABIP is your batting average on balls in play. Basically, how many of your flyballs and liners fall in and groundballs get through. It doesn’t include homers (since those aren’t as effected by luck…If it’s gone, it’s generally gone) or strikeouts (ditto) as they are not “in play”.

For hitters, these numbers are a lot to do with how you hit the ball (put it on a line, in the air, or on the ground) and tend to regress to a personal average. For a pitcher, there is VERY little ability to control this—though some does exist, likely giving control pitchers an edge, it is very small—so it can be expected to return to an average with a caveat that defense is a big contributer.

Link to Saber Library/ BABIP:

http://saberlibrary.com/offense/babip/

Keep asking questions and the game of baseball will evolve right in front of your very own eyes. Have fun.
And you can still love Bard.

The problem is .600 might not be enough in this division, and to expect that more than the Rays or especially Yankees expect that just doesn’t make sense.

the fact is, the Sox have a good chance if they can play at a high level the rest of the way, it’s just there are other very good teams in the division who also have a very good chance. It’ll be a battle all the way through the year. I don’t think many people are saying the year is hopeless for the Sox, just taking exception to saying that the division is theirs to lose.

The vast majority would still go to a team that offers 25% more. We are absolutely constrained by a budget, otherwise we’d be spending more than any team constrained by a budget. We’d be spending until we couldn’t spend anymore.

……REALLY support that “occasional” comment. lol

it’s a long-term extension and they were thinking in the long term. A back strain is probably not a long-term issue. The options were pretty much extend him then or let him go to FA, where he’ll almost certainly get longer term offers, Beckett had been pretty clear that he did not want to negotiate over the course of the season. If they hadn’t resigned him, I bet he’d be pitching on Wednesday because he thinks he feels good enough to pitch and they wouldn’t be as concerned about his long-term health.

I agree with this. The Beckett contract sucks

However, I have no idea what is really going on with him

And yet your post attacks the Sox as if it was clearly a pre-existing condition.