Brad Penny Investment Didn't Pay Off for Boston, Florida May Re-Invest Though

Can you believe that Brad Penny was 6-2 at one point during the season? After watching Penny pitch for the last couple of months, it’s almost impossible to believe.

Penny has been terrible in the month of August going 0-3 with a stellar 8.31 ERA and combined with the fact that the Boston Red Sox needed a roster spot for the newly acquired Billy Wagner, the Red Sox and Penny have agreed to part ways.

After missing some of the 2008 season with the Los Angeles Dodgers because he was battling a shoulder injury, the Red Sox took $5 million flier miles on Penny in the offseason.

It was a classic high-risk, high-reward signing.

At the end of June, the Penny signing was looking like it was paying off. He was 6-3 with a 4.79 ERA. It’s not the greatest ERA in the world, but he was winning games and this is what was expected out of Penny.

Penny was signed to give the starting rotation depth, not to be a No. 1 or No. 2 starter.

Once the All-Star break hit however, Penny went down hill. He was 1-5 in the second-half with a 7.82 ERA. His last two starts versus the Texas Rangers and New York Yankees were unwatchable.

In 9.2 innings pitched, he gave up 12 earned runs in those two big starts and let the Rangers run around the bases like a Little League team running on a poor kid who has never caught before. This eventually spelled doom for Penny.

Despite having a fastball that could still reach the mid-90s, I saw three major pitching flaws in Penny:

1. Despite still having the ability to reach back for that 95 mph fastball, that fastball was as straight as an arrow. As Billy Koch taught us, any major league hitter can hit a straight 95-plus mph fastball.
2. Penny had no secondary pitches. He had a flat curveball and an even more flat slider. Penny couldn’t throw his offspeed stuff for strikes and when he got behind in the count (which was quite often), hitters were just sitting on his straight fastball.
3. Penny had zero ability to hold runners on. Teams ran all over Penny, especially the Rangers. Penny has no pickoff move and never adjusted his delivery to home plate. Back in the day when he had overpowering stuff, he could get away with that. Not so much anymore.

I think if Theo Epstein was playing GM in a perfect world, he would have loved to trade Penny right after he beat the Yankees on June 11. He pitched six shutout innings and his value was at its peak. Unfortunately because of the John Smoltz disaster and the Daisuke Matsuzaka injury, Epstein had to hold on to Penny

Now that he is free to sign with any team, my guess is Penny will end up where all failed American League pitchers end up—the National League. A return to the Florida Marlins does make sense.

The side story of this move is that it puts the final nail in the coffin in Theo Epstein’s disastrous offseason. John Smoltz was released, while Rocco Baldelli has been injury prone, but he has hit lefties well to his credit (.303 avg), and now Penny has been let go.

You might want to take a different approach next season, Theo.