The Boston Globe’s Jackie MacMullan spoke to a Red Sox source who said the team would "balk at offering Mike Lowell anything more than a two-year deal." Lowell is expected to get $10-12MM annually.
Since Lowell might be able to get four years guaranteed on the open market, it would be a large sacrifice to accept just two. For what it’s worth, Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA system expects Lowell to be worth $28.4MM over the next four years, $23MM over the next three, and $17.3MM over the 2008-09 period. However PECOTA did project Lowell to hit .273/.333/.441 this year while he actually hit .324/.378/.501.
Lowell’s awful 2005 looks like an aberration, but it still seems to scare the Red Sox. I imagine they’d guarantee three years if Lowell had been decent in ’05.
