The Slanch Report

So long to Julio Lugo, your tenure as a Red Sox ended with 42 errors in 2+ seasons and he was miserably inefficient. Not quite as miserably inefficient as Theo has been at finding a shortstop, but Theo is big enough to admit and rectify a mistake and that’s what I like to see in a general manager. Here’s some of what he had to say regarding the decision to designate Lugo for assignment.

I think ownership has been consistent that we’ll do what we need to do to put the best possible team on the field and the sunk cost is the sunk cost,” said Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein. “We’re sorry it didn’t work out better with Julio, obviously, but keeping him on the team wasn’t going to change that. Sometimes the best organizations admit their mistakes and move on, and that’s what we’re doing here.

This was one of the free-agent signings that didn’t work out and we ended up paying for past performance, not current performance. That’s the definition of a mistake, and as the decision maker, that’s on me. We’ll just move on and try to make better decisions going forward.

I think it’s just a matter of putting our best team on the field. That’s really the motivation behind it, and Jed Lowrie ready to be recalled [Saturday], Nick Green playing well and out of options, it felt like those two would be our best combination for the shortstop position at this point.

It started out poorly from before Day One. He called us over the winter after we signed him and he said he had a sickness or a stomach issue, a pretty bad issue, where he lost like 15 pounds. When he showed up, he lacked a lot of strength and some quickness, but particularly the strength, it was gone. [That] got him off on the wrong foot and was never with us the player that he was in Tampa Bay.

We tried a lot of things to get the best out of him. We did win a World Series with him as our everyday shortstop and he did make a lot of contributions to that world championship. That’s not to be lost in the mix, but, obviously, we’d be fudging the truth to say it worked out the way we envisioned it. [He] just never got on track here. [He] never really got locked in and comfortable and never played even close to the way we expected.

When you dabble in free agency, sometimes these things happen. That’s kind of the nature of the beast. We’re trying to grow the organization to the point where we don’t have to ever get a free agent. We’re probably closer to that point now then we were two or three offseasons ago. It’s a lesson learned for sure.

So, do the Mets sign him now or wait until he hits waivers? I mean, he’s Latino, overpriced and inept, sounds like a CLASSIC Omar Minaya signing.

[MLB]