Let Lester Leave?

Lester wants to stay, but does Boston want to pay him? (MSN FoxSports)

With the All-Star Game behind us and the July 31st trade deadline rapidly approaching, the last-place Boston Red Sox are one of the few major league teams in position to sell. They have two weeks to determine who's going to be a part of their club moving forward and who isn't. If a player falls into the latter category then Ben Cherington must explore trading him for prospects, and with most teams still in the playoff hunt there should be plenty of suitors with offers on the table (unless it's Stephen Drew you're trying to shop, in which case no thanks).

With that in mind, the Sox need to figure out what they're going to do about free agent-to-be Jon Lester. Because if the Red Sox aren't going to reach deep into their pockets to pony up what it will take to re-sign Lester, they need to deal him so they aren't left empty-handed when he signs somewhere else next winter.

Lester has repeatedly stated that he wants to stay in Boston with the team that drafted him in 2002 and won a pair of World Series with him in 2007 and 2013. He doesn't like change, doesn't want to leave, and would be willing to take a small discount to keep his socks red.

But Jon Lester's not an idiot. He knows what he's worth, and it's considerably more than Boston's initial $70 million offer. The three-time All-Star could probably get twice that on the open market given his age, durability, and lengthy track record of consistent success. The Red Sox don't have to (and shouldn't) blow him away with Felix Hernandez/Justin Verlander money, but they need to up the ante closer to Matt Cain territory.

Lester's made his intentions known, leaving the ball's in Boston's court. If Cherington doesn't feel his ace is worth a lengthy nine-figure investment, that's well within his right. Lester's going to be 31 next year, his velocity's down and his strikeout rate had declined in the four seasons prior to this one. While still a good pitcher, he's not irreplaceable, especially given the abundance of young pitching talent coming up through the Red Sox pipeline. Letting Lester go would open up an opportunity for a Henry Owings or Anthony Ranaudo. And if the Sox truly are a few years away from contending, then it doesn't make much sense to sign Lester so they can be an 80-win team rather than a 75-win team.

Like with any decision, there are pros and cons and risk that come with signing, or not signing, Jon Lester to a fat contract. The Red Sox have a little more time to weigh their options, but they must make up their minds soon. Because if they don't trade Lester and he leaves in a few months, they're going to be very, very sorry.

My 2014 NL All-Star Starting Lineup

Why is Gomez batting ninth when he's a superb leadoff hitter? (NYPost)

With the All-Star Game kicking off soon, I just wanted to give my two cents on the National League lineup after taking a look at the AL's last night. Mike Matheny has a great team here, one that's better than the American League squad on paper (both have eight righthanded hitters, one notices, but I have to admit I'm very puzzled by the bottom half of his order:

1. CF Andrew McCutchen--Cutch's combination of elite on-base skills (he leads the league in walks and ranks second in OB) and speed (15 steals without being caught yet) makes him the ideal leadoff hitter for this event. Terrific power too.

2. RF Yasiel Puig--Offensively he's just a lighter version of McCutchen. Blessed with great power, speed, and on-base ability, Puig's a pretty good table-setter.

3. SS Troy Tulowitzki--Tradition says the best hitter bats third, and there's no arguing that Tulowitzki hasn't been the best hitter in baseball this year. Tulo leads the majors in batting, OBP, and OPS in addition to having the NL's highest slugging percentage and most home runs.

4. 1B Paul Goldschmidt--Good spot for last year's National League home run and RBI leader.

5. DH Giancarlo Stanton--Can't wait to see what he has in store after the bombs he hit last night.

6. 3B Aramis Ramirez--A real headscratcher seeing as how he's clearly having a worse season than the guys filling the bottom two spots in the order.

7. 2B Chase Utley--See Ramirez, Aramis.

8. C Jonathan Lucroy--You're in good shape when you've got Lucroy, a .315/.385/.494 hitter this year, batting eighth.

9. LF Carlos Gomez--Typically bats leadoff, so hitting ninth has gotta be a real curveball for him. He's way too good to hit ninth though, a spot that should be reserved for Utley or Ramirez.

SP Adam Wainwright--Would have rather seen Clayton Kershaw, but Wainwright's not a bad consolation prize.

Here's how I would have assembled my lineup:

1. Gomez
2. McCutchen
3. Tulowitzki
4. Goldschmidt
5. Stanton
6. Puig
7. Lucroy
8. Utley
9. Ramirez

Stack the speed at the top with power and OBP throughout. Let Gomez, a natural leadoff hitter, bat first. Thought about Stanton at cleanup. Gotta stick the older, weaker hitters at the bottom.

My Prediction: National League wins 4-2.

2014 AL All-Star Starting Lineup

Jeter will hit leadoff in his final All-Star Game (WallBeta)

The All-Star starting lineups were announced today. John Farrell's lineup skews righthanded with eight of the nine batting from the right side. But seeing as how Target Field favors righty power hitters more than it does southpaws, that could be a good thing for the American League if someone can get a hold of one of Adam Wainwright's pitches.

1. SS Derek Jeter--The future Hall of Famer's hitting leadoff so as to maximize his plate appearances and standing ovation from the crowd. Still, I feel like it'd be more fitting for Jeets to bat second (where he's always hit) and let Trout lead off. If the game truly mattered he'd bat ninth no question.

2. LF Mike Trout--Like I said, Trout should be leading off because of his amazing speed and on-base skills, but he'll be fine hitting second where he's spent more time than at any other place in the order during his career.

3. 2B Robinson Cano--Not sure how I feel about batting somebody on pace for 13 homers third in an All-Star Game, but he is hitting .334 so I guess I can't complain too much.

4. 1B Miguel Cabrera--Can't do much better than batting the two-time defending league MVP and baseball's top RBI man cleanup.

5. RF Jose Bautista--Joey Bats should be batting third in front of Cabrera because of his awesome on-base ability.

6. DH Nelson Cruz--Following one great slugger with another.

7. CF Adam Jones--An intriguing option at seventh, Jones can hit for average (.301 this year) and power (16 homers) but doesn't excel at getting on base (.324 OBP)

8. 3B Josh Donaldson--Lots of power at eighth with Donaldson, whose 20 home runs and 65 RBI are tops among major league third basemen.

9. C Salvador Perez--Kansas City's catcher is the worst hitter in the starting nine not named Jeter, but you can't bat Jeter ninth so it has to be Perez. You could do a lot worse for a number nine hitter though, as Perez possesses power (11 dingers), hits for a solid average (.283) and gets on base nearly one-third of the time.

SP Felix Hernandez--The King is having a season worthy of his second Cy Young award. Part of me would rather see Yu Darvish or Masahiro Tanaka, but I'll gladly "settle" for Hernandez anyday.

Here's how I would have set my lineup if I were Farrell:

1. Trout
2. Jeter
3. Bautista
4. Cabrera
5. Cruz
6. Cano
7. Jones
8. Donaldson
9. Perez

Red Sox (Lack of) Offense First Half Review

I'm paraphrasing here, but Occam's razor says the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. Well, Occam's razor says the Boston Red Sox are nine games under .500 at the All-Star break, tied with the Tampa Bay Rays for last place in the AL East, because they haven't hit for beans all year.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner.

After leading baseball in runs scored last year, the defending champions rank dead-last in the American League in runs, slugging percentage, and total bases. They rank second-to-last in steals and are third from the bottom in homers, batting average, and OPS.

That's crazy. It's the worst case scenario of a veteran team getting old all at once and the young kids not being ready or able to pick up the slack. What's crazier is that most of the same guys from a year ago for back, with the key exceptions of catcher and center field. Boston basically has the same freaking team, and somehow the best offense in baseball became one of the worst almost overnight.

This is the part where I mention that injuries have played a part, because injuries always play a part on teams that fail to meet expectations. The 2012 Red Sox were crippled by them, last year's team avoided them for the most part, and this year's edition falls somewhere in between. Shane Victorino and Will Middlebrooks have barely played. Mike Napoli did a quick stint on the DL, but Mike Carp missed more than five weeks. The Red Sox have rarely been at full strength this year.

But even if they had been at full strength all along, I still think they'd only be a .500 team at best. Two-thirds of the outfield still can't hit and neither can the catcher. The left side of the infield has been a mess all season; when Bogaerts was at short he was hitting but playing poor defense, and now that he's at third he can't hit his way out of a paper bag and Drew's even worse. Both halves of the Daniel Nava/Jonny Gomes platoon have fallen off a cliff, Jackie Bradley, Jr. and Grady Sizemore can't hold Jacoby Ellsbury's jockstrap, and Boston's big bats--Ortiz, Napoli, and Pedroia--haven't been what they were last year.

All I can say is that the Red Sox better thank their lucky stars for Brock Holt. Because if he doesn't play like an All-Star for 61 games, this team's at least 12 games out and probably has the worst record in the American League as I'm writing this (sorry Rangers fans).

Here's a position by position breakdown of Boston's so-called hitters, none of whom are All-Stars and only one of whom (Ortiz) deserved even a passing glance. Next to each name I'll give a letter grade.

C A.J. Pierzynski (F)
So it turns out signing 37 year-old free agent catchers with a ton of miles on them isn't the best idea after all. DFA'ed by Boston last Wednesday, Pierzynski was a far cry from what he and Jarrod Saltalamacchia were last year, hitting a career low .254/.286/.348 at the time. He'd been durable but replacement level at best, and nobody liked him, so he had to go. 23 year-old Christian Vazquez has replaced him behind the plate and played wonderfully in his first taste of the Show. Whereas Pierzynski was an established veteran on the way down, Vazquez Boston's backstop of the future, a rising star on the way up. Can't wait to see how he does in the second half.

Pierzynski's backup, David Ross, is still one of the better defensive catchers out there but his bat (.600 OPS) has become horrendous. He's a black hole whenever John Farrell inserts him into the lineup despite his ability to still pop the occasional homer.

1B Mike Napoli (B)
Napoli's the only member of the starting nine who's hitting as well as he did last year. His adjusted OPS, wRC+ and wOBA are within one point of what they were last year, even if his offensive profile has changed somewhat. His power's down--hardly surprising for a 32 year-old slugger--but he's made up for that by cutting down on his strikeouts and posting the best walk rate of his career. He's also the only Red Sox besides Ortiz capable of clearing the fences with any regularity, as his 10 home runs are 67 percent more than anyone else on the team not named Papi. He hasn't homered since his game-winning slam off Masahiro Tanaka on June 28th, so look for him to go on a power binge early in the second half.

2B Dustin Pedroia (C+)
Pedroia's power has declined for the fourth straight season, with his slugging percentage falling below .400 and another year of single digit home runs all but certain. What's even more puzzling is his struggles on the bases, where he's been thrown out in six of his eight steal attempts after swiping 119 bases at a 79.33 percent success rate prior to this year. But while Pedroia's regressed in those two key areas, he's still been worth roughly three wins for the Red Sox due to his outstanding defense at second base and solid offensive production: .280/.348/.381 (103 OPS+) with a team-high 26 doubles. Pedrioa's bat his picked up over the last few weeks, which could be a sign of a second half breakout.

SS/3B Xander Bogaerts (C-)
Like most rookies, Bogaerts has experienced his share of ups and downs in his first full season. The 21 year-old was on fire in late May and early June, only to go off the rails shortly after Drew's arrival bumped him over to third base. These last five weeks have been hell for Bogaerts, who endured an 0-for-27 skid at one point and has 11 hits (10 singles) and 32 strikeouts in his last 107 at-bats. His OPS has nosedived almost 200 points and his confidence appears rattled. Farrell wisely moved the kid down in the lineup to help take some of the pressure off him, and now that he's committed to playing the kids Bogaerts should get every opportunity to work his way out of this funk. Hopefully he's able to clear his head over the Break and put the slump behind him in the second half.

SS Stephen Drew (F---)
What a waste of $10 million dollars. Signed by the Sox on May 21st, J.D. Drew's kid brother has been a total bust in his second season in Boston. He's done nothing in his 101 plate appearances this year, batting .151//218/.269 with six extra base hits, five RBI and 30 strikeouts. The two month layoff appears to have affected his timing, as he looks awfully rusty and just can't seem to get into a groove in the batter's box. His poor performance and not-inexpensive price tag make him practically untradeable, so unfortunately it looks like Boston's stuck with him.

Everywhere: Brock Holt (A+)
Can't say enough about Brock Star. Not only has he played every non-pitching position except catcher (which he would definitely play if Farrell asked him to), but he's been on fire at the dish since Boston called him up. Fresh off yesterday's five-hit performance, he's now hitting a ridiculous .327/.371/.463. There's no way he can keep this up of course--his .395 BABiP has to come down eventually--but it's going to be fun watching him try. He's one of the few guys capable of lighting a spark under this veteran-laden, complacent team.

LF Jonny Gomes (D+)
Roughly 10 percent above average with the stick last year, Gomes has been 10 percent below average this year. Not only has his power evaporated but all three rate stats are down considerably, leading to an OPS that's plunged from .771 last year to .680 this year. Throw in his zero baserunning and shoddy defense and Gomes has been replacement level at best. He'll be lucky to reach 10 home runs this year after exceeding that number in eight of his last nine seasons.

CF Jackie Bradley, Jr. (D)
Bradley's defense has been tremendous, but his bat's been a massive disappointment. His glovework is good enough to keep him comfortably above replacement level, but he gives back a lot of that value at the plate and really needs to start hitting better in order to become an everyday center fielder. Bradley's been better lately, batting .371/.436/.429 over his most recent 10 games spanning the past two weeks, but where's the power? The 24 year-old strikes out way too much--in over one fourth of his plate appearances--for a guy with only one home run and an .084 Iso. His walk rate's solid at just under nine percent, helping him sustain a not-unplayable .305 OBP, but if he's not going to hit for power or run much (six steal attempts thus far) than he needs to compensate by reaching base more often. I don't care if he plays better defense than Willie Mays; he can't be a regular with the worst OPS of AL outfielders

RF Daniel Nava (C-)
Everyone knew Nava wouldn't be able to duplicate last year's stellar and completely unexpected .303/.385/.445 performance, but few could have seen him hitting regressing so much that he's having the worst season of his career. His .330 OBP is actually quite good, but his .310 slugging percentage is unacceptable for an outfielder who can't run and plays average defense at best. Nava's never going to be a big power hitter, but he needs to slug closer to his .397 career mark than .300. To be fair, he's more like the 2013 version of Nava lately with a .330/.419/.374 batting line since the calendar flipped to June. He seems to have turned things around at the plate, but he's always been prone to streaks so who knows how long that will last?

Can't say much about the Flyin' Hawaiian other than that he's battled injuries and the Sox desperately need him to return. But when he has played, he's played more like the mediocre Victorino of 2012 than the All-Star caliber one from a year ago.

DH David Ortiz (B+)
As expected, Ortiz has remained Boston's best hitter, leading the club in home runs and RBI  by wide margins as well as walks, total bases, slugging percentage, OPS, and OPS+. At 38 he's continued to hit, albeit not quite at the otherworldly level hes been at the last three years. A near-70 point freefall in BABiP has caused his average to tumble more than 50 points to .255, which would be the lowest of his Boston career outside of his abysmal .238 showing in 2009. Such a drastic drop off seems best explained by his batted ball data, which reveals a steep decline in line drive rate and a significant uptick in fly ball rate. That, combined with a lack of protection behind him (he leads the major leagues in intentional walks with 16, more than the rest of the Red Sox put together) and the presence of defensive shifts, explains why his BABiP and batting average are in the toilet.

That said, Ortiz continues to age gracefully and has showed no other signs of significant decline. His walk and strikeout rates have held steady and while his power has waned a bit, it remains elite as seen by his .231 Iso. Papi's on pace for his eighth season with at least 30 home runs and 100 RBI, benchmarks ZiPS and Steamer say he'll reach (but not by much). He's already cleared 20 homers for the 13th straight season, the longest active streak in baseball, and has twice as many big flies as anybody else on the Red Sox roster. Assuming Cooperstown doesn't fall off a cliff or suffer a serious injury in the second half, he appears poised to deliver on the contract extension he signed for next year over the winter.

Parting shot: Jonathan Herrera was a disaster and Grady Sizemore just couldn't hack it. I'm glad Cherington came around and started promoting his minor league talent like Vazquez and Mookie Betts, if only because the youngsters can't possibly be any worse than Boston's established major league players.

Poor Peavy

Poor Jake Peavy. He's made 19 starts for the Boston Red Sox this year, 12 of them quality, and has one win to show for it. One stinking win. That right there should tell you everything you need to know about why wins and losses are not a good way to measure pitching performance.

Take his most recent start, for example. On Saturday, July 12rh Peavy goes into the eighth inning against the Houston Astros, a horrendous team that should be mince meat for the defending World Series champions. Peavy has one of his best starts of the season, surrendering three earned runs on six hits and a walk while striking out nine. Peavy pitches well enough to win, except that he doesn't. He doesn't even get away with a no-decision because the Red Sox only manage to scrape together two runs against a pitching staff with the league's second-worst ERA. They fall 3-2, sticking Peavy with the hard-luck loss.

That game was Peavy's first half in a nutshell. He's pitched well enough to be a .500 pitcher at least, and if this were last year he'd have a winning record. That says more about how inept the Red Sox offense has been this year than it does how well the three-time All-Star has pitched. Peavy's been far from good in his second season with the Sox, but he hasn't been nearly as bad as his 1-8 record would suggest. Both Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs have him at above replacement level, even if they agree that his 4.59 ERA, when adjusted for league and park, is 12 or 13 percent worse than average. With an average GameScore of 50, a number he's reached or exceeded 13 times this season, Peavy's been the very definition of average.

His record doesn't reflect that, however. Since earning his first win of the season in Toronto on April 25th, he's suffered eight straight losses despite making eight quality starts.  The victim of bad luck and poor run support, he takes an ugly 1-8 record into the All-Star Break. For that he can blame Boston's batsmen, who haven't mustered much offense this year but have been lifeless when he's taken the mound. They've scored four runs or less in 15 of his 19 starts, averaging 2.83 runs per start and making Peavy the least-supported qualified starting pitcher in the American League.

When your lineup goes dormant like that it doesn't make an ounce of difference who's pitching. You have to be near-perfect. Nobody could win regularly with such a slim margin of error (well, except maybe Clayton Kershaw). No wonder the Sox have dropped Peavy's eight most recent starts and 11 of his last 12.

Peavy deserves much better. He's allowed three earned runs or fewer in 12 of his 19 starts. Last year, backed by a potent Boston offense averaging 5.27 runs per game, he would have won the majority of those starts. But this year's outfit, trotting out a lineup with more holes than Swiss cheese, has come away with victories in just four of them and none since May 29th.

Plain bad luck has to account for Peavy's pitiful record as well. It seems like ages ago, but the former Cy Young got off to a great start with a 3.09 ERA through Mother's Day. Boston won four of those first seven starts, six of them quality, but he was rewarded with one win, one loss and five no-decisions. In June alone, when Peavy was tagged with five losses in his six starts, Boston plated a grand total of nine runs, as in one fewer than ten. They were shutout twice, scored twice three times, and totaled three on June 3rd in Cleveland.

Peavy also has to be peeved that lesser starters have fared better. Rotation-mates Clay Buchholz and Felix Doubront, both with ERAs over five, have seven wins between them in six more starts. The Rangers' Colby Lewis has six wins in spite of his 6.37 ERA. Minnesota's Ricky Nolasco has a 5.90 ERA, but is 5-7. Colorado's Juan Nicasio's even worse at 5.92, but somehow he's 5-5. The list goes on. Peavy's pitched much, much better than all of them, but you wouldn't know it by looking at their records.

Peavy's hasn't always pitched well, but more often than not he's pitched well enough to win. Unfortunately Boston's lineup has let him down. The Red Sox have talked about trading Peavy before the July 31st deadlline, and for his sake I hope they do. In the meantime, his pursuit of that elusive second win of the year continues.