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MVP, originally uploaded by BostonTx.

I love Mikey Lowell. You love Mikey Lowell. Even Yankee fans love Mikey Lowell, down deep, because he came out of their system. Probably the only people on Earth that don’t love Lowel are Rockies fans, for whom Lowell is nothing more than bad memories of what could have been.

But if he’s gone – and from what I’m reading, it’s still an if – it’s for a very simple reason: defense. And you know what? I can’t really argue with that.

When the only team in the league worse than you in defensive efficiency is the Royals, as it was for the Red Sox in 2009, you need to make a change. As Gammons said,

We learned a lot watching the Rays go from a bad to an extraordinary defensive team from 2007 to 2008, which took them into the World Series.

Or did we all learn it in 2008? Seems to me that our front office was way ahead of us on that score, as evidenced by the 2004 acquisitions of Cabrera and Mink-alphabet.

Simply put, when the object of the game is to score more runs than the other guys, you need to try and do two basic things: score more runs, and give up fewer. If this was 2010 and Mauer and company were on the market, I think the front office would be trying to do both.

But this is still 2009, and the best hitters on the market are one of our own and a guy who – for his career – has a .250 point home/away OPS split. Which might be less of a concern if he hadn’t called Coors Field home for five of his first six seasons.

So giving up fewer runs it is, by default, because the prospect of paying Holliday Teixeira money makes me physically ill. But while I’m sure they’ll kick the tires on Halladay and Lackey, the cost/benefit on those potential improvements to our pitching staff are likely to be less than attractive, for now and for later.

Which means that the most efficient way for us to get better is to play better defense. Much better defense. Scutaro will help there, but Lowell – as much as any fan hates to admit it – was part of the problem last year.

His UZR/150 went from an excellent 15.6 in 2008 to a -14.4 in 2009. Every range related metric Baseball Reference has dropped off the table last season. Much like we couldn’t wait to find out if Lowrie’s healed enough to hit, we probably can’t wait to find out if Lowell’s able enough to play third. Not as a 36 year old, anyway.

As for the players not liking it? Why would they? Hell, I don’t like it. But Theo’s not supposed to do what we like, and what makes us feel good: he’s supposed to do what’s best for the Boston Red Sox.

And unfortunately, if we want to get better defensively, and we need to, that probably means moving Lowell.

Who’s going to play if he is moved? We’ll tackle that question later. For now, let me just echo Red and say, Thank You Mike Lowell.