Sox Drawer: Trades and deals abound in Beantown

As the MLB trade deadline comes and goes, the Celtics trump the Sox by bringing Kevin Garnett to Beantown; oh yeah, the Sox made some deals, too.

Sox Trade Deadline Tote Board:
Acquired: Eric Gagne
Lost: Kason Gabbard; Joel Pineiro
Failed to acquire: Dye; Teixeira;
Failed to deal: Wily Mo Pena

Sorry I haven't posted in a while but as you can see I have been busy trying to upgrade my site. Also, as you can see, I've still got a few kinks to work out, but I needed to post on the big Boston news, so bugs be damned.

While I was busy trying to improve the look of my blog, the Boston brass was busy upgrading the look of the bullpen as the team heads into the dog days of August with a comfortable yet not insurmountable division lead.

In a flurry of deadline activity the Sox sent starting pitcher Kason Gabbard along with Pawtucket outfield prospects David Murphy and Engel Beltre for Texas fomrer Cy Young winner Eric Gagne, and in a separate deal Boston shipped ineffective and recently demoted reliever Joel Pineiro to the Cardinals for cash and a future minor league prospect.

And just before those baseball deals went down, former Celtics teammates Danny Ainge and Kevin McHale brokered a blockbuster trade that will put 2004 NBA MVP and top 10 talent Kevin Garnett in Celtic green next season in what was the biggest deal for one player in league history.

Wow.

Shit, there's more wheeling & dealing going on in the Hub than at the friggin World Series of Poker.

Being a baseball blog I will just focus on the Sox, although the long-dormant Cs fan in me is ecstatic over the thought of the Big Ticket teaming with PP and Ray Ray next season at the New Garden.

Anyway, the biggest deal of the trade season after the Mark Teixeira to Atlanta deal was made just minutes before the 4PM deadline when the Sox sent promising young starter Gabbard to Texas for Gagne, the 2003 Cy Young winner who has undergone numerous operations since his sensation Cy campaign but has bounced back to become an effective reliever again.

Following his record-setting 84 consecutive save streak spanning 2002-04 Gagne underwent two elbow surgeries including Tommy John surgery plus a back operation in 2005 and 2006.

However when teams saw that the 31-year-old righty was probably healthy again this spring he began drawing interest from a few clubs, one of those being Boston, who courted him for a while when it was unclear who would close with Papelbon headed to the rotation.

But then Paps came to his senses and Gagne inked a 1-year pact worth $6 mil with the perennially pitching-starved Rangers, and now six months later after posting solid numbers this season (2-0, 2.16 ERA, 16 saves in 34 games), he has come full circle and made it to the club in the midst of a potential playoff season.

Funny how things work like that some time.

The price Boston had to pay to bring a veteran setup man to town was high but not astronomical. As I predicted in my post a couple of days ago, Gabbard was a near-lock to leave town with Schill coming back soon and Lester looking totally healed from his chemo treatments, and Murphy and Beltre were also expendable thanks to more coveted prospects like Jacoby Ellsbury and Brandon Moss waiting in the wings.

In smaller deal the Sox rid themselves of onetime potential closer turned horrific bullpen contributor Joel Pineiro for the proverbial bucket of balls.

After bringing him to Boston from Seattle in the offseason, the former starter was thought of as a possible replacement for Papelbon before his change of heart, but Pineiro never adapted to his new role and seemed to allow a run every time he came into a game.

His most memorable meltdown came when he went back to Seattle and allowed the game-losing hit in the 9th against his old mates.

So the Sox bullpen has a whole new look, and while the team didn't pick up the bat it wanted when Tex went to the Braves and the White Sox elected to hold on to Jermaine Dye, it still has a great offensive nucleus and now a bullpen that has been upgraded to the point that it looks like a case of the rich getting richer.

And with Garnett headed to Boston and Patriots training camp underway, the Hub is once again the center of the spoirts universe.