[Paluka]

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later in his career beckett will earn much more than he is earning now, that number is misleading since a lot of becketts value comes from the fact that he very likely will turn out to be a very strong pitcher for 7-8+ years. arroyo... won't.

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I'd rather have Arroyo at his salary than Beckett at a Clement type salary.

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I don't really understand this, the red sox can afford to pay beckett that much money and he could turn out to be worth every penny and more of it. Arroyo is an slightly above average pitcher who really isnt that special, beckett is a much better player to have right now. even if beckett earned clement type money now (which he will eventually) that cash value consideration doesnt affect the decision for the red sox, they have enough money to easily make it worth it.

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Basically, I think Arroyo is underrated and that NL pitchers in general are overrated compared to their AL counterparts. Compare how Javier Vazquez and Randy Johnson did in the AL compared to how Roger Clemens and Andy Pettite did in the NL. And those aren't the only examples. Clement was much worse in the AL as well. And look how good Pedro was last year (although much of that was going from Fenway to Shea I'm sure).
Also, don't act like money doesn't matter to the Red Sox. If money didn't matter, we'd have Johnny Damon in CF.