Monday, November 19, 2007

Lowell and Behold

Oh thank you merciful baseball Gods, thank you front office planers, schemers and geniuses, and most of all… thank you Mike Lowell you magnificent WS MVP bastard. Your George Clooney looks and Puerto Rican/Cuban heritage is back where it belongs… third base in the City of Champions.

I have to admit, I’ve been in a baseball bunker ever since the season ended (notice the lack of posts) and the Lowell situation had a lot to do with it. I was so freaking worried this guy would end up on the Yankees and I just couldn’t come to terms with it. Losing so many key members after the 2004 victory (speaking of Orlando Cabrera) was a hard pill to swallow… I knew I didn’t want to go through it again.

But Lowell made it all easy. He took a potential pay cut (Sox gave him 3 years $37.5 mil while the Phillies reportedly offered 4 years $50 mil) to stay with the team he’s grown to love… and that loves him right back. I know he will probably decline with the years (who doesn’t?) but anything close to this season’s numbers will be amazing. Remember when this was the THROW IN with the Josh Beckett deal? This just makes me giddy.

Even when you discount the fanboy aspect of this contract, it still looks like a good deal. There was NOTHING in the way of corner infielders on the market and when you look at the other veteran contracts (Posada??) it’s a freaking bargain.

So we have the WS MVP at third, a gold glover at first (congrats Youk), the ROY at second (Pedroia), and a silver slugger at DH (props to Papi). That is an exciting collection of hardware.

My prayers have been answered. All is right with the world and the Sox look primed to repeat. Now all we need is to round out the bullpen and things could be pretty rough for the rest of the league…

Wait a minute… Kerry Wood???

Ummm… time to go back to the bunker.