Mark Teixeira

With all of these recent accomplishments, why should the Red Sox move on? The answer is Mark Teixeira and Kevin Youkilis. With Teixeira available on the free agent market, the Red Sox need to look at their corner infielders and decide if it is worth signing Teixeira. If you compare Youkilis and Lowell, Youkilis wins because of his versatility and youth. Their offensive numbers over the past three seasons are extremely close. Lowell hit .297 with 58 HRs and 273 RBI while Youkilis hit .293 with 58 HRs and 270 RBI. With the offense being a toss up with Lowell receiving a slight edge, we must look at the defensive side of the game. I believe the edge goes to Youkilis here. They have both played tremendous defense, but Youkilis has been better. Over the past three seasons, Youkilis has committed 18 errors at first base and third base combined and he won a gold glove in 2007 while Lowell has committed 31 errors at third base. 2007 and 2008 were the worst defensive seasons of Lowell’s career with 15 errors and 10 errors respectively. Lowell’s numbers at third base are better than Youkilis’ numbers at the hot corner, but the difference is not great enough to overcome the age difference (Lowell is 34, Youkilis is 29) or the versatility difference (Lowell can only play third at this point of his career while Youkilis can play first, third, left field, and right field if necessary). Taking all of this into consideration, if you have to move on from one of these guys, it seems quite obvious that you keep Youkilis and move Lowell. What about Teixeira? Is he really going to be an upgrade over Lowell? The short answer is yes.

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