So there is a baseball god!

And I thought Lugo was completely worthless. Hope he does good in St. Louis.

finnally lugo is gone but i still think that they shud have used him alittle more this year. chris duncan!! not bad.
hope pujols is the player to be named later!!! LOL

Good move. I wish Julio well as he was a great person, but just an aweful player in his time here.

Too bad Theo couldn't throw Dr. Gates in with Lugo. That would make two useless people leaving Boston.

A rain filled summer- suffering galore
losing job- major headache-

Losing Julio Lugo who always pointed his bat at opposing pitchers like he was someone to be feared.........PRICELESS!

Thank God!!!! Cyaaaaaaa Lugoo

Well at least we got something for Lugo.

AWESOME.

Wait, when was Lugo promising?

Hooray!!

I wonder if SL is picking up any of Lugo's salary? Looks like Theo is improving the team with role players. He's hitting bunts and singles rather than going for that home-run trade. ... ... so far anyway. He's picked up a couple of good bench guys (Bill James type players) without giving up any blue-chip prospects.

Chris Duncan is terrible. Stiff in the outfield. Strikes out more than anybody should. The upshot is the Red Sox now have the inside track on his dad Dave Duncan as pitching coach. Duncan is easily the best pitching coach in the game, because he sold his soul to the devil. So I guess this makes it a good deal for the Sox.

Duncan is a HORRIBLE fielder!

PTL!!

I would have taken a bag of balls for Lugo.

Um - Lugo promising?

From a Sox expatriate in Cardinal Nation: Don't be too happy about this. Lugo can at least hit some; Duncan, not so much. In the field he makes Manny look like Yaz.

amazed that the sox got much more than a bucket of balls for lugo. well done. whats more, from the looks of it the sox didn't have to eat any of lugo's remaining salary. while the lugo signing was a total flop, this take some of the sting away

duncan twice topped 20 homers and adds another lefty bat with some pop.

So Lugo isn't worth a bag of balls....

Thought 73 RBI in 2007 must be a mistake. Looked it up and it's true.

I can't see them holding onto Duncan. I imagine they release him? Unless he has options and gets sent to Pawtucket.

Now trade Duncan and LaRoche for Hazel Mae and Tina C.

Perhaps the Cards will convert Lugo to an outfielder which is a far better position for him. However, it would be fun to watch Ozzie's reaction to Lugo fielding a grounder.

"whats more, from the looks of it the sox didn't have to eat any of lugo's remaining salary. "

wrong

Gary, since when was Lugo "promising"? He was a mediocre journeyman at best.

Theo, what "past performance"? Lugo was a stiff with Houston, Tampa and LA. If his "past performance" was so good, why did those teams let him go?

The only good to come from this is that Theo admitted publicly he made a mistake and learned from it.

Man, Theo and his boys work hard every day, and it shows. LaRoche and Duncan are nice backups and would be coveted by any playoff team, we unload Lugo, perfect, not even a bad deal for him going to another winning team... the pitching situation is unreal, even if Smoltz isn't the same guy.

This is a stacked Red Sox team, even wiothout Manny maybe one of the most ever in terms of pure star status. These are the good old days. Sick.

"Duncan, 28, batted .227... [Lugo] batted .268"

Well, they DID use the phrase 'desperate to get rid of him'. Wonder what they'll do with Duncan. Bet the front office is wondering the same thing.

Funny how Theo's comment late this afternoon looks
remarkably similar to the one he made last week.
Sloppy journalism, is this writer getting paid for
regurgitating last week's quotes?

So much for working out for the Mets in anticipation of Omar signing him later in the week!

So we got Duncan for basically 13 million because no way is STL paying for him. OK. Who knows, maybe he'll turn into Papi Jr. Doubt it seriously but at least it's something.

As a diehard Sox fan living in Cardinal (also a non-fan) territory, Duncan MUST NOT BE ALLOWED to play left field. I have not seen a worse fielder since the right fielders that played when my son was a pre-teen!

more importantly how much of his salary did we eat?

Epstein should be packaged into a deal with somebody for a bat in the order. What has Theo done? Duquette built the teams that one the championships. All Epstein has done is built the farm system, and made this team a very boring vanilla team to watch. I looks like Jeremy Jacobs is running this team. Lets make it good enough to compete, and fill the stadium, but no chance in the playoffs. (If they make the playoffs this year)

Please don't let Theo select the next Shortstop, his track record is horrible. In fact his free agent signings haven't been stellar either, he lucked out on Ortiz. The Sox need a wake up call!

Shows you that the hosts and ditto-head fools on Sport Radio have no idea of player value and their speculation on Lugo as well as cost for LaRoche is nothing but smoke. Best wishes to Lugo who never mouthed-off even though it must have been hard and to NOT_Einstein who made several bad FA signing mistakes but actually admitted that he was at fault. Interesting. Trade Dew for a catcher and pay Bay.

Lugo is one of the worst SS in the game so Duncan's bad fielding is to be expected and he makes much less. Just be glad a turd was flushed.

It's about time.

I think when all is said and done, the J.D. Drew signing will be viewed as a worse signing than Lugo. $70 million for a stiff. What was Theo thinking ?

Lugo batted .285 this year - who needs that with such powerhouses as Tek, Drew, Green, Papi etc.

Dont trust any Red Sox over 30 ....

Thank you Boston for taking Duncan off our hands.

Who's spot on the active roster does Duncan take ????????, or LaRoche. ?

C'mon a stiff for a stiff. Theo needs to get busy and get to the real problems facing the Sox. First Tito needs to make moves quicker with the pitching staff. Was at both games against Texas and Smoltz should not have come out for the 6th. Last night Beckett pitched a whale of a game but Tito should have brought in Oki to pitch to Hamilton. Then JD's struggling and Tito sends him to bat against CJ Wilson not the best but a tough lefthander with Rocco on the bench c'mon. Ortiz is struggling bad. The shift eats him up. Has lost that power to left center and is pulling everything to the second baseman playing in short right. Theo do the right think and pull the trigger on a big deal. Kozminoff from the Padres or Zimmerman from the Nationals. Package Bay and some young pitching and get the bats of the future. LaRouche, Duncan they aren't the answer. We need an impact player. Manny carried the Dodgers last season after the trade we need that type of player. Nobody thought Theo would launch Nomar so who's next. Do it Theo if not then get into the Pujols bidding in 2011.

From St. Louis newspaper:
"Bernie Miklasz confirmed that the Red Sox will still be responsible for the remaining $13.5 million on Lugo’s contract. It’s expected that Duncan, 27, will be assigned to Pawtucket."
Looks like we are eating Lugo's contract

How much salary do the Sox have to eat with Lugo?

I eccho no. 6. THANK GOD!
I love Tito Franconnia. He warrants our respect and thank God he's the Redsocks manager instead of the ones they had in the past! Lugo would still be here if they were here!! JR

Julio...uh BUH-BYE. You're terrible.

No need to dance on his grave. He was a good soldier. And he was a valuable contributor in '07.

You got to be kidding me?? Adam LaRoche and some guy called Duncan. OH YEA, were rolling now. What's wrong two guys named Joe were not avalible?? How is this helping the offense one guy hitting .227 and the other around .245. Don't we have enough of those guys now? Look JH and company, you sold around 2.5mil. ducats before spring training even began. We bought into you so don't sell us out now. Yea I know there are about 70 games left but has anybody seen any Yankee or Rays games lately? Scary!!

from the st louis cardinals homepage:
Duncan, 28, underwent a rare surgical procedure over the winter, having a titanium disk inserted in his neck. He started the season well, hitting .304 and slugging .522 in April. Since then, though, he has steadily trended downward. In May, Duncan hit .227 and slugged .386, and in June his slugging percentage fell all the way to .289. Duncan is 1-for-31 since June 29.

When does Drew join him?

Stick a mirror under Duncan's nose. If it fogs, he's better than Lugo.

He couldn't hit or field, His ONLY plus was that he could run (when walked) and now he can't even do that very well.

It is really funny hearing the people who don't like this trade. What in Gods name did you think we would get for Lugo? I wonder how much we will still have to pay Lugo. Either way, see ya Lugo!

Truly one of Theo's "most overpaids"; and we still wonder a bit about the Drew signing of that winter, too. Actually Julio was a nice guy, who was given a lot of money for some decent offensive years in Tampa Bay; anyone would take it.
Hmm, $9M per and $12M per. For all the problems Duquette showed , he often was a good value investor. These 2 deals NEVER made sense.

Gary -- Are the Red Sox paying any or all of Lugo's remaining salary?

The Red Sox are paying ALL of Lugo's remaining salary. What a horrible deal. If they are eating his salary, they could've done better than Duncan. For those of you stuck on East Coast baseball who don't look outside of your own little world (i.e., 90% of you), you don't possibly understand how bad Duncan is. He'll be lucky to hit .250 in Pawtucket. His defense is worse that Lugo's (I know, I know, you East Coasties think that's not possible) and his bat is MUCH worse that Lugo's. This is actually a very good deal for St. Louis.

what re they gonna do with Ryan? hes having a great year!

"paying for past performance"---he was awful in LA...don't expect those types of comments from a high quality GM...Theo could have saved himself about 50 million if he just kept Cabrera....This team has bigger porblems than Lugo and Duncan..How about zero power--and a team that looks very old...LaRoche sounds like Drew w/a bit more power...I wonder how many more games they can afford to lose by having Smoltz pitch?It's going to be a tough race in the AL East, we will find out in early August if the Sox have what it takes as they play the Yankees and Rays...

Mike

Theo: "we were paying for past performance". What!? Look up his numbers. He actually had a higher batting average and OPS with the Sox than he previous career numbers. What past performance? That's why no one could ever understand why the deal was done in the first place. Theo saw something that no one else saw, but it sure wasn't his past performance...unless it was only past performance in Theo's mind.

Simpleton, you're living up to your name. The Sox had to pay all of his salary whether or not another team picked him up. At least they got a player, any player, for him. All Lugo was worth was a bad minor league player. Quite a statement on Lugo.

ryan u'll play second base or third base and that will allow skip shumaker to play outfield.

haha, good luck with druken dunken... if u thought lugo was bad.. hahaha

ryan u'll play second base or third base and that will allow skip shumaker to play outfield.

haha, good luck with druken dunken... if u thought lugo was bad.. hahaha

Either way, the Sox were going to have to pay the remainder of Lugo's contract after they assigned him. That was sunk money. At least they got something in return for the $13.5M. My guess is there's more value in the "Player to be named later." If Lugo doesn't stink up StL for the remainder of the summer, I'll guess the Sox get a decent 2+-tool player from AA. Definitely not a top prospect though. It' d be interesting to see what the terms are on that piece. In reality a lot of teams will take a no-cost 0.284 pinch-hitter. I bet it's a better alternative to what they've been playing with all season. They could probably put him in at 1st Base in mop up duty to protect Pujols for ugly losses. (It's a joke!)

And quite a statement for the negotiating abilities of Theo. The Sox didn't have to pick up the remaining portion of Lugo's deal -- that's called "cash considerations" that STL would/could include and it's fairly common in MLB. In fact, that was a key piece to the Beckett/Lowell deal a few years ago. The Marlins didn't pay the remainder of this contract. But what do I know, I'm stoopid.

The Red Sox will "eat" a huge part of Lugo's salary as they did with Manny last year (all remaining), Renteria, Wily Mo Pena, J. C. Romero, Joel Piniero, Brendan Donnelly, Craig Hansen and B H Kim. When it comes to eating money and paying guys to play for other teams, John Henry and company have no peer.

Lugo is gone and people are still pounding on him. Give it a rest.........

Surprised they didn't have to throw in Bucholdz to get Lugo off the roster

Wow!............I never thought the Sox would ever get anyone for Lugo....Now the Sox will get hot, as the Julio curse is officially over..LOL...

So basically a "yankee swap": not much for not much.

I hope the Sox let someone other than Theo bring in the next shortstop.
He seems to have trouble filling in the 6 hole.

One down only 3 more to go...next on the trade block has to be Dice K, and then JD DREW! Maybe Theo can get us a real shortstop!

This isn't about Lugo or Duncan, it's about how much this team is falling into the abyss. They can't stop anyone from stealing, they can't score any runs, they can't get a clutch hit, they can't pitch anymore. Ortiz still looks like a bust, Varitek has no arm, Lowell is a shell of himself, Drew has fallen asleep, Bay is looking like the player he was in Pittsburg, Penny is looking more like David Wells every start. They can't win on the road again, the Yankees look like supermen by comparison. I'm scared for them. Woe is us.

O. K. I was wrong, They did get more than a box of rocks for him.

Duncan is only like 28 or something. Pawtucket will test him a bit and if he gets a shot he can work with Magadan to get a little better and whatnot. Age is on Duncan's side, especially for someone who can DH later in the career.

Thank you, Boston!!
From
St.Louis