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Goodbye, Lenny

By Evan Brunell | February 14th, 2007

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Lenny DiNardo has been claimed off waivers from the Red Sox by the Oakland Athletics. DiNardo, who was in camp, had been plucked from the New York Mets in the 2003 Rule 5 Draft, and made his debut for the Red Sox in 2004. in 27.2 innings, he posted a 4.23 ERA. The Red Sox converted him back to a starter in 2005 and he spent the majority of the year in Triple-A, posting a 3.15 ERA in 108.2 IP. He saw 14.2 IP worth of time in the majors, logging a 1.84 ERA. For 2006, he tossed 39.0 IP of an ugly 7.85 ERA in six starts and 13 total games before getting hurt. He also spent a little time in the minors.

Count me unhappy with the move. Nick DeBarr, our Rule 5 Draft pick this year, will definitely not make the team. In my opinion, DiNardo is better than Javier Lopez, and we also just signed J.C. Romero and have one of my favorites, Craig Breslow, on the roster. I was a fan of DiNardo, as he was a good guy and I thought could eventually have a nice run of being a solid middle reliever. He still has a great chance at having that run, but he’ll have to do it donning green and gold now.

DiNardo had been waived to get J.D. Drew onto the 40-man roster. I have to wonder if the Red Sox thought he would slip through waivers. Otherwise this makes no sense to me. He has proven he can get batters out in the majors in a relief role. Isn’t that what we need?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 14th, 2007 at 7:11 pm and is filed under Waivers, Oakland Athletics, Rule 5 Draft, Lenny DiNardo, Evan Brunell. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Goodbye, Lenny”

mouse says:

February 14th, 2007 at 7:48 pm

I have to think they thought Lenny would slip through waivers. And he got all the way down the list to the AL West champs, so the Sox brass was almost right, perhaps.

We may or may not wind up regretting this move–it’s tough to say. Lenny had a good minor league track record but has yet to show anything in the majors. And he’s already 27, a bit old to still be unestablished. But he is a lefty with good groundball tendencies, so you just never know.

I wish him the best. Oakland’s a good organization…this may be the best thing for him.
RH says:

February 15th, 2007 at 1:08 am

DiNardo has potential, but he didn’t really have any chance of making the team out of Spring Training. And his chances of getting called-up midseason also weren’t good. With plenty of other relievers coming up through the minors in the near future, I think the Sox just didn’t believe he would ever have a measurable impact for them, and thus took the risk of him being claimed off waivers.

Question is: can DiNardo make the A’s out of Spring Training or is he starting 2007 with AAA-Sacramento?
dave says:

February 15th, 2007 at 3:40 am

as saliva once sung:
click click pwned
Evan Brunell says:

February 15th, 2007 at 9:10 am

I think DiNardo would have very much been in the mix for making the bullpen for us, and I don’t see why we had to lose a cheap arm who has pitched well for us.