Here's another weekly installment of thoughts from Peter Gammons during his segment on the Mike Felger Show on 890 ESPN. Some pretty interesting stuff here: Jason Varitek said that Jon Lester has the highest ceiling among the Sox starters and there's also some pretty good nuggets on some of the promising young players drafted by the Sox this month. Gammo also interestingly applauds Coco's passion during the dust-up with the Rays earlier this month.

Also, in case you missed it, Hacks with Haggs comrade "Downtown" Ian Browne has been doing an excellent job of breaking down the NBA Finals over at his MLB.com blog. Do yourself a favor and check out the hoops thoughts from an MLB guy who patterned his pick-up basketball game after the three-point stylings of Danny Ainge.



Enjoy:

I can’t imagine there are many teams around baseball that have greater pitching depth than the Red Sox, and if they do then that list is pretty miniscule.
PG: It is. You look and you still have Buchholz back at Triple-A Pawtucket, and he has great stuff. He can go back and learn at Pawtucket rather than go through what guys like Phil Hughes, Ian Kennedy and Joba Chamberlain have had to do in New York. There are those who think that Michael Bowden, who is at Double-A right now, is the best of that whole group.

The depth they have is really important. I had an interesting conversation with Jason Varitek the other day. He was talking about all this and all of the fun that he is having with [the pitching depth]. He was saying that he thinks Josh Beckett is going to have a dominant second half. He said one thing that really stunned me. He said that Jon Lester had the highest ceiling of anyone on the staff.

He said that [Lester] is at about 60 percent of where he is going to be next year and he said that he’s going to be the best left-hander in the American league. He didn’t make it a maybe or an if, it was his belief. That kind of enthusiasm keeps everyone energized and the pitchers are feeding off one another. The depth has been the story. The Sox haven’t had a great year. They don’t have people having monster seasons, but their pitching depth is so good.

It’s still so projectible when you see the potential of what Hansen can be and I’m still a big believer in Delcarmen. They could have one of the best pitching staffs they’ve ever had, and I think from a fan’s standpoint that it’s fun to watch them develop. It’s more fun than bringing Ramon Martinez and Bret Saberhagen in every other season.

The other thing that absolutely amazes me watching Ellsbury is that the Red Sox consciously knew that the game was going to change in 2004-2005 and they zeroed in on Ellsbury at Oregon State. Now that I watch him run at will, you know he’s not Rickey Henderson but – you know what – people stopped running in baseball for so long that when you start running again…that it’s hard for catchers and they aren’t used to it.

You know pitchers hold the ball for a long time, but catchers aren’t used to being pressured and that’s really given the Red Sox a tremendous advantage early on. They’re one of the only teams and I think it’s one of the reasons for the success of the Angels. For a long time the Angels were the only team putting pressure on other teams, and now that the Red Sox are doing it and teams are almost defenseless against really aggressive baserunning.

Did the Red Sox go after a lot of toolsy players in this year’s draft?
PG: I think they do it in a couple of ways. They do it with some of the tools, and I think they did it with [first round pick] Casey Kelly. They really believe he’s the most projectible pitcher in the entire draft. They drafted him as a shortstop, but they believe he’s a pitcher. When he signs I’m sure he’ll play a half a season at shortstop, but they thought he was the best pitcher in the draft.

Also the kid from Rhode Island [Ryan Westmoreland] they felt was a number one pick and a very high tools guy, but was a tough sign because he was going to Vanderbilt. But the Red Sox can sign those guys: they not only have the money but they also have the appeal. Most of the college pitchers were big power guys that they hope they can develop.

I know a friend of mine that scouts for the Dodgers loves the kid from the University of Utah [Stephen Fife] that they took, but they usually draft a combination. They drafted about 5 or 6 very difficult to sign high school players with huge upsides, and they hope to sign 3 or 4 of them. We’ve seen them do this in the past. I think Lars Anderson has had like 17 consecutive multi-hit games in the California League and Ryan Kalish is as good as any prospect they have.

They can do that. One of the most interesting guys they took in the second round is a great athlete out of Seaford, Delaware named Derrick Gibson. Just looking at the video of him, he is unbelievably quick. He’s got a weird throwing delivery as a shortstop/second baseman, but that can be changed. He’s going to North Carolina and they were absolutely stunned by the Red Sox because that was the one team they didn’t want to see pick him because they figure [the Sox] will sign him. They think he would have been – if he had gone to school – a top 10 pick in his junior year if he’d gone to college.

One of the interesting things to happen in the brawl with the Rays was the dust up between Youkilis and Manny. What happened there?
PG: It was one of those things were Youk gets upset and bangs bats around and yells and screams, and occasionally people will say to him ‘awww…C’mon.’ I’m told Manny said something like ‘C’mon, please give it up’ and Youk said something back.

I’m trying to think who it was I heard talking about, I think it was Sean [McAdam] and these things do happen a lot. It wasn’t quite like Reggie Smith knocking Bill Lee out cold after a shutout in 1973 while shaking hands in the receiving line. I think these things go on a lot. I think with Youkilis, one of the reasons he’s such a good player is because he’s so driven. I think him getting so upset about making outs aggravates people. I don’t think it was a bad thing.

I think it was good that it was Manny that took it upon himself to say something and it just cleared some air. I just gathered that they felt they got a lot of things out of the way with this. They just have to make sure they don’t lose Coco for too long.

I can understand why this was a boiling point after a brawl had taking place, but is there a concern that Youkilis can’t be the same kind of player if he tones things down?
PG: I think he can tone it down and you don’t have to fire helmets and so forth. I don’t think he’ll change. In Youkilis’ defense, he plays first, he plays third, he’d play short if he had to, he’ll play right field and left field; he is a very good team guy, but he’s just a very emotional guy and at times that grates on people in the middle of the season.

I don’t think it’s fair for people to say it’s all Kevin Youkilis’ fault. I was talking to Lou Piniella about it, and he was saying that I’d sure rather have a guy like Youkilis or Carlos Zambrano who gets mad and really cares than have a guy who puts his glove down and say ‘well it must have been God’s will that I didn’t get a hit.’

Lou knows what it’s like to get really mad, but we actually had an incident where Zambrano had a terrible inning with errors, brutal calls at first base and then he gave up a couple of home runs. He destroyed a couple of Gatorade things. As long as he doesn’t get hurt, they don’t mind because Carlos cares so much.

He’s so competitive, and I agree that you don’t want Youkilis to stop being Kevin Youkilis. I remember watching him with Bourne in the Cape League and to think that he could become what he’s become is beyond me. He looked like Steve Balboni and now he’s one of the best conditioned athletes on the team. He’s a fanatic about his conditioning and how he eats and how he works.

 To see how far he’s come, you don’t want to tone him down. You just don't want him firing equipment and affecting other people. I remember back when Rick Burleson first came up how annoyed other teammates used to get when he fired bats and helmets and everything. I remember one time he fired a helmet and hit Don Zimmer right in the face, and that can cause some problems. But Burleson never toned down and he was a tremendous player, and I don’t think Youkilis will either.

The one thing I really took out of that game is that I was taken back by the fire in Coco. I thought it was a good thing. The argument I always get from people is to slide in feet first, but a lot of guys don’t. It’s the old Gene Mauch play that Tim Foli and Bobby Grich used to do. You make the guy believe he’s diving [headfirst] into the bag and you drop the knee down and he hurts his hand. That’s an old play and Tim Foli used to get in fights all the time with that play. But I liked the fact that Coco got so mad. I loved it.

You’ve got more people that say slide feet first, but he knew that Coco was coming in headfirst. But I also thought that Coco’s slide into Iwamura wasn’t right. There’s no question he was being thrown at and – in Tampa’s defense -- I thought James Shields was doing it right and threw it at his hip. He didn’t throw at his head, and Coco said ‘you have a point but I just snapped.’ It doesn’t really bother me because I like to see that passion in guys. I was a little surprised because Coco didn’t strike me as a guy that was really emotional.

Maybe it’s a good thing. A little fire in a team, and I think that whole process will help Tampa Bay. As much as Joe Maddon is a great friend of mine, I didn’t think he needed to be yelling at Coco in the dugout. But at the same time I think it will galvanize Tampa Bay and it will galvanize the Red Sox a little bit, and it will make for some interesting situations later on. One other thing too was everyone came out talking about Tampa Bay’s young pitchers and then Jon Lester and Justin Masterson went out there and dominated. I think that was a huge thing for the Red Sox to have their young pitchers go out there and put them back in first place.”