Hot Stove Part IV / Josh Beckett Report

UPDATE: Mike Lowell and Josh Beckett are indeed moving to Boston in exchange for two minor league prospects, RHP Anibal Sanchez and infielder Hanley Ramirez.

For the Red Sox, this trade is a no-brainer. Sure, they added $18M to bring in Mike Lowell for 2006 and 2007 but they got a 25 year old flamethrowing righthander. With Papelbon and Lester, the organization's top two pitching prospects, the Red Sox will have a young trio for the next several years. The cost to them, besides carrying Lowell, was the minor leaguers whose reputations are sterling but whose statistics might be leaden.

Case in point, Gammons had been raving about Hanley Ramirez as a future star but how good can Ramirez be if he had a .335 OBP in AA ball. AA is not a place that future star hitters should have a hard time with. With 34 extra-base hits (21 doubles, 7 triples and 6 homers) in 465 at-bats, I'd say Ramirez projects out to a low-contact, medium pop hitter. Basically a little better than your average middle infielder. Sanchez might be a little better although he's still at least a year away from the big leagues, having only spent a few months in AAA in 2005.

For the Marlins, this trade is all about reducing the $65M payroll and dumping Lowell. What I can't understand is how they can justify this trade. Without the benefit of seeing their balance sheets and cashflow projections, I can only assume that they would rather be profitable and bad than operating at a loss and competitive. How that makes sense, I don't know, when you factor in revenue sharing welfare checks from New York City. Then again, no one ever accused the Marlins franchise of making any sense. None of us should forget that the ownership in Miami is the same group that ran the Montreal Expos into the ground.

Final analysis - the Red Sox improve, the Marlins get much worse and the United States of America will once again be convinced that Boston is winning the World Series. To that I say not so fast. Not only do we not know how the rest of Boston's issues will end up (Damon to stay? Manny to be traded? New closer? Schilling's health?) but Josh Beckett, good as he can be, is oft-injured and not as statistically dominant as people would have you believe. His K/9 has declined in each of the last three seasons, his VORP was only 40th among all National League pitchers and the fact remains that he is untested as an American League pitcher in a hitter-friendly park. Before we start fitting the Red Sox for the 2006 crown, let's see if this former NL pitcher can handle the AL. He might. He might not.

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The latest rumor floating on the internet is that the Marlins are interested in packaging Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell out of town. Interested parties include the Texas Rangers, Anaheim Angels and Boston Red Sox with the Yankees only partially interested for defensive purposes (blocking the Red Sox). Apparently the Marlins are willing to part with Beckett as long as Lowell and his $18M contract comes along for the ride. What I don't understand is what the Marlins expect to do for a starting rotation in 2006. With AJ Burnett and perhaps Beckett out of the picture, who else is there besides Dontrelle Willis?

For the record, Beckett's overrated. As a Yankee fan, I wouldn't mind seeing Beckett in Boston. Lowell is welcome to chew up $18M of the Red Sox payroll and Beckett's career 41-34 record doesn't scare me one bit. Outside of the 2003 playoffs, the guy hasn't done much in the game. He's never started more than 29 games in a season or logged more than 179 innings. He's not what you'd call dependable.