Adieu Carrasco, See you later Tony Pena

It can’t be based on number. From the White Sox website, we gather that the Sox won’t offer D.J. Carrasco a renewed contract, but they probably will offer one to Tony Pena. “The remaining four arbitration-eligible players in Bobby Jenks, John Danks, Tony Pena and Carlos Quentin were fully expected to be tendered a contract.”

Now, it shouldn’t be a secret that I think Tony Pena is awful. To quote myself, “If I had one word to describe you, it would be ‘bad.’ If I had two words, they would be, ‘incredibly bad.’”

In all honestly, overall, he improved. By the end of the season, his ERA with the Sox decreased to a modest 3.75. Not to mention a career-best 3.22 SO/BB. Also a career best 7.3 SO/9. Nevertheless, this guy is not the asset you want in your bullpen. If you’re looking for a guy to eat up innings, bring Lance Broadway back. At least he was good-looking.

As for D.J. Carrasco, I sort of understand the decision. Now we have Putz, Carrasco would have demanded (and deserved) a lot of money, blah blah blah. But still. You can’t help but regret losing a guy like that. With the Sox, Carrasco had a career-best 3.76 ERA, 2.8BB/9, 62K, etc. And the Sox were willing to offer him a whopping $600,000 salary. “In this economy? How can I offer half a penny when they don’t even make pennies anymore? We can’t afford any more than that.” I’ll believe it when I see the financial statements.

What gets to me (and apparently Jim Margalus of SoxMachine who posted a similar article yesterday) more than anything is something Carrasco said about the Sox not needing a long reliever. I nearly did a spit take. Let me tell you something: the Sox have a TON of talented pitchers, but let me remind you of the Sox record this year: 79-83. And that is WITH a long reliever in tow. So let’s do some math estimates. Buehrle, Danks, and Floyd would have won at least half of their share of games, combined. So, out of the 3/5 games that they started, only 3/10 would be a guaranteed win. What about the other 1/5 of games that you need to win in order to be at the .500 mark? Even with Jake Peavy, you can only assume a 40% winning rate. That’s 65 games won. By that theory, we might as well not even have the Sox come up to bat. Why bother hiring a third outfielder? Just send Strubin out there. Long relief is necessary for the Sox because pitchers won’t have a good day every day. Long relief is necessary for the Sox because there is always one bum wheel on the wagon. Long relief is necessary for the Sox because bad things happen to good people. That’s the end of that.