Red Sox Acquire Melancon For Lowrie, Weiland

[Jimbo81]

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2011/12/astros-acquire-kyle-weiland.html

Can't wait for Dino to crush this guy too!

[sakata_catching]

Good to see we're not the only ones in the division who grossly overpay for bullpen arms.

[Sports Guy]

Nice deal for Houston.

[jtschrei]

Nice deal for Houston.

Yup. This tells me that the RedSox have no faith in Lowrie to stay healthy and that they project Weiland to be a back-end guy. I guess they have also given up on Andrew Bailey (Oakland), right?

[The Maestro]

Just curious how this return compares to what we got back for Koji. Which deal would folks have preferred?

[GoldGlove21]

Just curious how this return compares to what we got back for Koji. Which deal would folks have preferred?

The guy that the Red Sox got is better, cheaper and younger. Koji got by, but we got to see that he just wasn't that good as a closer. Good trade by Houston, but it might be a good trade by the Red Sox too as a closer is not going to cost them upwards of $9M per year.

[Capn Vivi]

The Sox also just signed Nick Punto to a TWO year deal to replace Lowrie.

It's only $1.5m/year, but seems unusual when they have Iglesias.

Here is the only relevant information in the link I posted:

Among active players with at least 2,500 plate appearances, only Cesar Izturis (.322) has a lower career slugging percentage than Punto (.327).

Hopefully they also pick up Saunders and we can collectively criticize their offseason.

[GoldGlove21]

The Sox also just signed Nick Punto to a TWO year deal to replace Lowrie.

It's only $1.5m/year, but seems unusual when they have Iglesias.

Here is the only relevant information in the link I posted:

Hopefully they also pick up Saunders and we can collectively criticize their offseason.

He could easily be the utility guy if one of their guys comes on strong or if they find an upgrade before the season starts. $1.5M is not too much of a hit for a decent defensive replacement IMO.

[Capn Vivi]

He could easily be the utility guy if one of their guys comes on strong or if they find an upgrade before the season starts. $1.5M is not too much of a hit for a decent defensive replacement IMO.

He's certainly a valuable player, I didn't mean to diminish that, only that this is gearing up to be a pretty unimpressive offseason for the Red Sox. All this signing does, to me, is make this Melancon deal seem a little bit more reasonable.