The talks are up all over the place. The Boston Red Sox may very well be shopping Brad Penny and a few teams are already interested. The Atlanta Braves who recently waived Tom Glavine have shown interest in Penny as the Sox would pursue Jeff Francoeur. The Philadelphia Phillies have also reportedly shown interest in Penny, but I don't see the Red Sox making a better move with the Phillies than they could with the Braves.
Brad Penny started the season poorly but has come on as of late with a 5-2 record and a 5.85 era which has progressively lowered since his first start, leaving with an era of 11.00. Although Penny has begun to pitch much better and record outs, he still allows enough runs per game that we can't win when the bats aren't hot. Friday night's game against Texas is a perfect example. Penny pitched well against the Rangers amidst allowing a three run homer to Ian Kinsler (due to Julio Lugo's errors), but the Sox couldn't produce offensively. With John Smoltz and Clay Buccholz waiting in the wings, we could send Penny to Atlanta for Jeff Francoeur and his .248, 4, 25 to help a struggling JD Drew get some off time to stay hot. We could also filter in Jeff at DH until Big Papi figures things out, maybe checking on his wrist rather than his eyes.
On and Over the Hill
My suggestion would absolutely be to trade Brad Penny for Jeff Francoeur. As previously stated, we could replace Brad with Smoltz or Buccholz on the mound or even sign Tom Glavine from free agency and give him a shot at closing out his hall of fame career the way he wants to do it. Imagine unloading Penny for a great bat and outfielder to help the offense while already having a pitching arsenal saved up and then adding Glavine to boot. If the Sox were to sign Glavine, he would probably be better used in the bullpen if Clay or John showed enough promise to consistently go 7 or 8 innings a game and pull in some wins.
The Sox went 6-4 on their 10 game road trip and lost their first return to Fenway last night against Texas with Penny on the hill. Keeping my ears and eyes open, let's see if this buzz actually leads to some new faces in Boston. Let us know what you think about trading Penny or signing Glavine in the comments section below.
I’m all for bringing Glavine on board. Haven’t seen Penny pitch enough to really say one way or the other there. But I’m all for Glavine coming here, he can’t really hurt. More pitchers the better.
As am I Adam, but I’d also like to see Francoeur in a Sox uniform is he can bring his average up like he did last season.
Great pitchers are groomed in ATL. Smoltz and Glavine are top pitchers, but have been in the NL for too long. The older you get the hard the DH hits you.
But Francour is great fast too. Got me a lot of points in his rookie year! Would be worth it to get him. And of course those guy are still good to mid-relieve the weak spot in the lineup.
I don’t think the DH thing would hurt them too much. If you consider a change from NL to AL, even with the institution of interleague play a few years back, how many of the AL DH’s have actually faced Glavine or Smoltz at the major league level.
The fact that the AL hitters have never faced these pitchers helps the cause that much more. Take Wakefield for instance with the knuckleball when he first came to Boston from Pittsburgh, he was amazing in his first season because the batters had no prior experience facing him or the knuckleball for that matter.
Wakefield just has a crazy knuckleball that he could throw for a week straight.. I never thought of it from your point of view, but I still that the fact that they don’t face a pitcher each 9 and instead face a batter will hurt their numbers.
After some research on the ‘net though http://bit.ly/5IB9M
It seems the numbers (ERA anyway, which for me is the most important) are in your favor.
I guess then it would depend on the pitcher and the pitches. Fast ball pitchers can get hammered in the AL, just let it raise up a little..
Sorry the bit.ly shortered URl, not sure if I can use A tags in here…
Great find on that article Jim, thanks for the input, I liked it. and we support the bit.ly links also.
I see the point of facing a pitcher rather than a DH, but my point is that switching leagues gets the hitters off balance because they’ve never faced you and don’t know what to expect from you. Someone like Glavine who prides himself on location, hitting his spots, working the count and keeping hitters off balance, would flourish from switching leagues. Especially coming to Boston where the fan-base loves seeing guys near the end of the road coming in with one objective, winning.
Quick note, you can use a tags here Jim. We should probably put up a note of what html works in the comments…
Agreed, because Glavine is exactly that, a position pitcher. We will see where he plays in the rotation and what his stamina is (it’s tougher pitching to 9 batters IMO )
Nice post Josh.. I’m all for trading Penny but not really excited that it could be for Franceour. I’m not a big fan of his… He’s ok but if he’s who we’re gonna get for Penny, I’d just assume ride it out with Papi DH’ing and see what happens. As far as Glavine, they have no need at all for him at this point. Would be a nice story since he’s a Billerica boy but they don’t need him.
I agree with you about not needing Glavine, but if we were to trade Penny for any bat, even if it weren’t Francoeur, it would be nice to replace the pitcher either at the big league level or calling up smoltz or buccholz and replacing either of them at the minor league level.
Plus we keep mentioning the shopping of MDC and we would have a nice replacement in the pen with Glavine if that did happen.