Red Sox Close To One-Year Deal With Penny

The problem is peole are not claiming he is not great. They are claiming he is obviously terrible and could not possibly be anything else. That is a laughable opinion.

This is a smart idea in terms of depth building. Go in with an opening day rotation of Beckett-Lester-Dice-K-Wakefield-Penny. If Penny gets hurt, you have Buchholz and Bowden banging at the door being let in. Smart idea all around. The Sox aren't relying on Penny for a single thing, but if he provides, the upside is tremendous.

78, so nobody comes on red sox posts and pointlessly bashes every move just because they do not like the team?

Posted by: walkoffblast | December 28, 2008 at 07:16 PM
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Dag walkoff: If you would read my post carefully, my comment was directed towards both Yanks and Boston fans. Chilax and read dude.

Buchholz and Hughes BOTH have lot's of talent but BOTH are prospects aka suspects until they prove otherwise. That being said, Texas has every right to ask for Buchholz since they're selling in a week market, regardless of how much depth they have. If Boston want Salty bad enough, well then that's the cost. I'm sure there will be other teams making offers to Texas, especially since the FA market for C is very week, and next year (Molina) isn't very strong either. As for Penny you don't look at a #5 starter or a utility player you acquire and nit pick about their stats w/o considering what you gave up to get them. If a mil or two get's you Penny, then so what? Let him compete for the #5 spot. If he wins then Theo's a genius, if not then you have 2or 3 rookies that can do the same as well. You can make a cse that maybe he feel's they need more time. It's better than paying a guy like Byrd 8 mil to come back next year.

an ERA of over 4 in a weaker NL does not translate well to baseballs toughest division any way you wanna cut it. ERA's go up from NL to AL, the guy is going to get waxed but as far as experience and depth, yeah, it adds both of those. The laundry list of players merely shows that if Boston is 7 deep on SP's, NY is 10 deep.

Walkoffblast; neither of our salaries has any implications on Sawx payroll. You can do what the whole media has done and take the 12 mil figue out of context if you wish as they have with the 420 mil figure, but 12 mil over 8 years is negligable to the redsox whether you admit it or not

Great move for the Boston Red Sox.

Brad Penny was an All-Star and 3rd in Cy Young voting just two seasons ago. In fact, from 2004-2007, he was one of the better and more dependable pitchers in baseball. For a one year contract, this makes sense for both sides and there is considerable upside here.

I wonder if the sophisticated system for dealing with shoulder pain is the program they put Schilling on.

Ha yea just ignore ERA and hits per inning (with 3 gold glove infielders) and all the bad and focus on teh good. he just had an unlucky 9 games right?
Texas is not giving up Teag or Salty for just Buchholz. And if he defense is so poor why would you want salty over teag? isnt that going to effect your staff since Tek was praised so much for their success?

walkoffblast- over paying players??? JD Drew at what $15m? Lugo $8m?? Penny $5m??

The rangers would give up Salty in a second for buchholz. Sox do not want any part of that. 5 million is overpaying give me a break, have you seen the cost of pitching lately. Two players in 5 plus years yeah they are reckless. Drew is the highest paid on the team right now. No examples of overpaying provided for the last two years at all. Nice try cherry picker.

Salty for Buchholz in a second? Says who? YOU cause you're a Boston fan. If you were Texas you'd give up Salty for a guy who bombed in his first full season?

Do you even know anything about teams that are not the yankees zack. The rangers are desperate for young pitching and have a ton of catchers. Salty has an upside but its pretty clear he is going to fall short of it. Pitching prospects rarely lose much value after some bad initial outings at the major league level. You refute the two year argument by talking saying I am right minus a matter of days. Give it a rest. How many overpaid contracts could you name for the yankees after drew signed. How many for the yankees over the course of this red sox management compared to the two you named totalling a whopping 22 mil a year total between the two players. Maybe overpaid 4 million combined. Not bad overpaid 4 million for 4 years out of more than 4 years of ownership.

78, you clearly have no idea what I am talking about do not worry about it.

"um how did that work out for matt clement? hasnt pitched since june 2006"

Matt Clement's problems had very little do with his physical health. He made the All Star team in his first season with Boston and started out incredibly well. He then got hit in the face with a ball with a liner and turned into a complete nervous wreck on the mound. His problems were clearly terrible nerves and I can't say I honestly blame him. If I caught a liner in the face at the MLB level, I'd never even want to look at a mound again.

"I wonder if the sophisticated system for dealing with shoulder pain is the program they put Schilling on."

Curt Schilling is 42, Brad Penny 30. The fact that you would seriously try to consider a comparison between the two as legitimate is laughable. Schilling's first year with the Sox was phenomenal: 3.26 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, 5.8 K/BB ratio, World Series win with three quality playoff starts, two of which were on a hobbled ankle. His 2005 was understandably terrible as he was clearly aging and his injuries from the prior season carried over badly. The Sox did a great job for rehabbing him and his 2006 was actually pretty damn good. He actually posted a better K/BB rate than 2004 and had an overall better season than Mike Mussina did this year, more innings, better WHIP, better K/BB, less walks overall. Even his 2004 really was pretty good by league standards.

Historically, Penny has the stuff and the makeup to be an adequate third starter on most teams, and he'll be the fourth or fifth starter for the Red Sox. He's younger, cheaper, signed to a shorter commitment and is at least 3/4 the quality pitcher Burnett is for a third of the money. How anyone can question the intelligence of this move is beyond me. Let's note that Burnett spent most of his career in the NL East before coming to Toronto and honestly never really excelled there (Only really posting two quality years in seven seasons with the team).

Also, just because the Sox made this move doesn't preclude them from interest in Sheets. Sheets has all the markings of a guy Epstein would covet and he's expressed interest in him before. They Sox, with Penny and Bard added, have a payroll in the neighborhood of around $105MM right now and have made it noted they're willing to get as high as $140-160MM. If the Sox could get him for two years at about $15MM per (Which seems likely, considering the low level of interest he's generated), don't be surprised if they bite.