This could conceivably make Red Sox games a 7 inning affair. Six strong from one of the best rotations in baseball, Gagne, Okajima, Papelbon. They really have NO excuse not to win the World Series now.
Papelbon is still the better closer at this point in their careers. Those are the kinds of problems I wish we had.
No way they don't at least give Gagne the setup job. I doubt he would have ever oked the trade without at least that.
Gagne waived his no-trade clause to join the American League East leaders and agreed to be Boston's set-up man after the Red Sox restructured the reliever's contract. Boston will pick up $2.1 million in Gagne's performance bonuses, while the Rangers will pay $400,000. ..pffft
Cashman did the right thing but it will still be another nail in his coffin if NY doesn't make the playoffs this year.
Yankee fans don't worry, if Steve Phillips said you should have done it but didn't then that means you did the right thing
Seriously, after this, it doesn't matter. You can all but guarantee the scenario devil pointed out will come to fruition. In March, Papelbon will rejoin the rotation, and Gagne will take over the closer role. So Okajima will be setting up for Gagne. The East now belongs to the Sox.
Teixeira turned down a 8-year, $140,000,000 extension from the Rangers two weeks ago, leading to them actually trying to trade him.
I'm sure that's what they'll do. I'm not sure Gagne is an improvement or even close to Papelbon as the closer. Now that he's in the east we'll see. I'm also not sure who will be in our bp next year..we can bet it won't be those that are there now with the exception of Rivera. The only way to beat Boston for the rest of this year will be to jump their starters and make the bp irrelevent. Not easy but I see no other way.
The way I look at it from the Yankees standpoint is that they will be adding Phil Hughes and Joba Chamberlain to their team, which is better than any trade they could've made. Once they get into the playoffs (4 games in the WC is hardly anything they can't make up), they will have the best rotation in all of the majors with Wang, Pettitte, Clemens, and Hughes. And the bullpen situation isn't nearly as bad as many make it out to be. I for one think Ramirez got a raw deal in his first stint, and as someone who followed him the whole year, I think he can make some noise in the final two months. And Joba is going to be this year's version of Zumaya, you can take that to the bank. The kid went out in his first relief appearance in AAA and struck out the side, hitting 100 twice and 99 a few other times. Plus there's still Viz and Mo, and don't sleep on maybe Ross Ohlendorf getting a call up. Reports were that he was hitting 97 out of the pen the other day in Scranton. Don't get me wrong, the Red Sox will win the division this year. Probably by around the same margin they are at right now. I'm just saying don't hand the World Series over to them yet
I totally agree about Chamberlain. It's that middle relief I'm not sure about. We lost Proctor and got nobody in return. Our starters have struggled to pitch 6 innings all year. We are still 1 or 2 "good" arms short there.
Ah, more reason this trade was made. Donnelly needs Tommy John surgery. Epstien also mentioned potential draft pick compensation if they don't resign Gagne, which I hadn't considered. This is a great day for baseball!
I'm sure you can resign him. He's now getting almost 12 million this year. With Boras as his agent you can probably get him for around 15-17 on a six year deal.
