A Penny for my thoughts ...

While Red Sox Nation today basks in the warm fuzzy feeling of Daivid Ortiz's return to the land of walk offs and Tim Wakefield's impressive outing, one should not be completely blind to the fact that today the Red Sox admit to yet another mistake.

The release of Brad Penny is another kink in the armour of management. Let me say this, I respect Theo Epstein and am a charter member of the In Theo We Trust Society. That being said, what does Penny, Eric Gagne, Julio Lugo, Edgar Renteria, and John Smoltz all have in common? Theo signed or traded for these high profile guys and they have turned out to be total disasters. Total disasters that have cost the team millions of dollars. We will not argue JD Drew, Coco Crisp, and Matt Clement because each has had their moments and in my estimation were not total disasters.

John Henry has handed Theo the checkbook and the money has at times been invested intelligently. The Red Sox have consistently been able to draft and sign players whose price tags seem too risky for other teams. The long term signings of young stars like Dustin Pedroia, John Lester and Kevin Youkilis before they reached free agency has proven to be both beneficial to the club and the players. Not many teams have the financial resources to do this. But for every good move there seems to be one that does not work out.

During this past winter, the Red Sox lost out on Mark Teixeiria. Instead of adding a twenty-seven year old, middle of the line up, switching hitting, gold glove caliber first baseman, the Sox took a chance on bringing in four veteran players recovering from injuries. Smoltz never got it going. Takashi Saito has been okay in the pen. Penny struggled and it in his own words "did not work out". The often injured outfielder Rocco Baldelli has been well, often injured. Going into the season which one was your choice as the one with the most upside? The two players no longer with the team would have garnered the most attention.

Management has taken many chances of late on players (most recently Billy Wagner, Alex Gonzalez) to fill specific needs. These risks have not cost the team highly touted prospects but have cost ownership money. Smoltz and Penny have left without the Red Sox getting anything in return while ownership is still on the hook for the majority of their salaries. I'm not sure Theo would be spending so freely if it was his money that was going out the window.

We should not expect the general manager to get it right every time but his success rate should certainly be above fifty percent.

By the way, I did not mention Dice-K at all in this post because I cannot for the life of me come to a conclusion if his acquisition was good, bad, okay or terrible.