Rob Bradford said on his blog today that the Red Sox are planning to meet with Josh Beckett and his agent to start talks about a contract extension. His contract included an option for 2010 at $12 million dollars that vested when he totaled 28 GS in 2009. Let's take a quick look at how much the Red Sox have gotten from Beckett and what we can expect going forward.

Before coming to Boston Beckett had never topped 180 IP in any season. His injuries usually were blisters on his fingers, which were stressed in his first season in Boston, but have not really been an issue since. This innings limitation limited him to 4 WAR as his best season in 2005 with the Marlins.

Once he joined the Red Sox he was able to top 200 IP three out of four seasons and became the ace the Red Sox had hoped he would. His first season was a struggle though as his K/9 plummeted to 6.95 for a pitcher who was used to a 9.00 strikeout rate. It had to worry the front office as he was switching to the AL and could be less effective.

Since then he has totaled 16.8 WAR in only three seasons and was second in the Cy Young voting in 2007. In Boston he has totaled $80.9 million according to free agent dollars from Fangraphs estimates. At the same time he has only been paid $30.325 million. The Red Sox have gained over $50 million in value from what they have paid Beckett since 2006.

We shouldn't let this clog our judgment though since we shouldn't pay for past performance. Beckett is still at his prime and just turning 30 in May. He has started to have some back troubles lately, but his skills are still evident. He had a K/BB of 3.62 and with a 47% groundball rate his xFIP stood at 3.53.

If we look at Baseball Prospectus projections from before 2009 we can see Beckett is expected to be above average if not elite for 4 more years. 2013 is the year that gives me pause about a 4 year deal, but Baseball Prospectus projections are based on weighted mean. Let's assume he follows a similar path using WAR and his next 4 years look like this.

      WAR   Value
2010  4.6   $20.24
2011  4.0   $17.6
2012  3.2   $14.08
2013  2.6   $11.44

This is assuming Beckett follows a natural decline upon entering his 30's. This is also based on 2009 free agent dollars which might change in the next few years. Let's assume this is the case so how much should the Red Sox offer for 4 more years of Beckett?

He is projected to total $63 million in the next four years so the question is would Beckett be willing to go 4 years at 60 million dollars? I think we can look at Carlos Zambrano as a comparison in this case. Beckett is much better, but Zambrano took a 5 year deal for $91 million at 27 years old that he is now 2 years in to.

So you have to take some away from that for being before the economy swung and also the few extra years in age. Then you have to assume the Sox know how much better Beckett is than Zambrano.

I'd be willing to give him $17 million for 2 of the three years as well making it more like a 4/64 contract. I don't have any clues to what Beckett is looking for, but I'm pretty sure the Sox would like to keep this deal under 5 years.

If they can't get something done does this add to the need to add another pitcher like Felix Hernandez in a trade?

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