Oh my God. It’s Friday! Finally! To give you a sense of where things stand at UmpBump HQ, en route to the office this morning I took a sharp left turn with my cup o’ Joe not properly secured in the cup holder (evidently). Now I have no coffee to drink, and altogether too much coffee soaked into my pants. Never have I needed some TGIF action so badly, and I trust you, loyal readers, feel the same. And here at UmpBump, “action” = “links.”

Rumors and Rants presents the ten worst contracts in baseball today. Guess who Number 1 is?

We didn’t talk about the John Bale story (pitcher on DL frustrated with how rehab is going, punches door with pitching hand, breaks hand) here on UmpBump because we were satisfied with the level of snark at Can’t Stop the Bleeding. Obviously, he didn’t have the Crash Davis tutorial on not hitting doors with your pitching hand. (I can’t keep giving you these free lessons!)

Rob Parker of the Detroit News says “like him or not, the Tigers need Bonds.” I disagree, given that the Tigers are actually third in the AL in runs scored and in the top five in every important offensive category. The problem for Detroit is that they’ve allowed the most runs of any AL Team—yes, even more than the Rangers. I fail to see how signing Barry Bonds is going to change that. But I guess we have to have thirty different versions of the article, “Team X needs to sign Barry Bonds,” no matter how silly some of those are.

Speaking of Bonds, he helped start this recent trend of using maple bats, which can be dangerous when they shatter (see photo). I’m an ash bat purist, so I was glad to see Jeff Passan’s article calling for the end of maple bats at Yahoo! Sports. (Hat tip to ShysterBall.)

Brawl! Since bench-clearing brawls are officially one of the reasons baseball is awesome, Babes Love Baseball has the video (in slo mo!) of Richie Sexson going after Kason Gabbard for throwing a high pitch. When I saw Sexson fling the helmet at Gabbard, and Gabbard promptly curl up in the fetal position on the pitcher’s mound, I knew I was watching an instant classic. The rest of the brawl is just gravy.

Ladies… has the goods on Carlos Gomez in the wake of his hitting-for-the-cycle performance. How you doin’?

Bill Plaschke tries to clarify whether Vin Scully is retiring or not. I came away with a new determination to watch all the Dodgers games this year on MLB.TV, just in case.

And Pinstripe Alley and River Ave Blues would both like to know why all the fuss about Joba’s fist pump. Seriously, a fist-pump controversy? That seems a bit much, even to this Boston fan. Try getting yourselves a shortstop on pace for 45 errors on the season, then tell me about controversy. I would love to hear the ululating in New York if Julio Lugo played for the Yankees. (Mostly because that would mean Julio Lugo was playing for the Yankees.)

And to wrap it up, Soxaholix presents: Youkalicious!

Know something I should be reading? Let me know!

Yes, oooof. As in, a solid punch to the gut. Which is how Theo Epstein, Terry Francona, and all the Sox fans and media prognosticators who lauded the Eric Gagne trade are feeling, or ought to be feeling, right now.

After last night’s game, Eric Gagne’s ERA with the Boston Red Sox now stands at 9.00.

And that’s not the kind of 9.00 ERA you get when you first join a team and give up 1 run in your first inning of work or something. Nay, it’s the kind of 9.00 ERA you get when you give up 14 runs in 14 innings of work.

When the trade first when down, I wrote a post in this space wherein I denegrated the deal, arguing that at most, the Sox could expect to get about 20 innings out of Gagne the rest of the season. Well, a month and a half down the road, Gagne is right on pace for 20 IP, but even I didn’t imagine he would be right on pace for 20 runs allowed.

My argument at the time was that I thought Kason Gabbard had too much upside to give up for only 20 innings of relief work plus a few innings in the playoffs, but lets face it: in hindsight even trading a bucket of used baseballs for Gagne would have been too high a price, given Gagne’s performance, let alone a major-league-ready starting pitcher and two other prospects.

I mean seriously, how high does a pitcher’s ERA have to go before a manager says “This man is no longer my set-up man. At best, he is my mop-up man/long reliever”? Apparently, that point is somewhere beyond one earned run per inning pitched for Terry Francona.

Oddly, the AP article on last nights game began with the sentence “Once the best closer in baseball, Red Sox reliever Eric Gange as suddenly become shaky.” As if this shakiness were some crazy new development. But Gagne has been either shaky or injured for going on 3 years now, so apparently the AP and I have different definitions of the word “suddenly.”

Although I do feel compelled to make one tiny point in defense of Gagne’s otherwise atrocious performance thus far with the Sox. To wit: the route J.D. Drew took to Russ Adams’ back breaking double which wound up just clearing his glove was one of the worst I’ve seen in a while. It was like he’d never played right field before. These ex-Dodgers are really killing the Red Sox, at least insofar as a team with the best record in baseball can be said to be getting “killed.”

This week’s Metro column, in which I parse the Gagne-to-Boston deal for hidden significance. Did Boston or Texas come out on top? I report. You decide.

For what it’s worth, the more I think about it, the more I’m impressed with the Rangers’ handling of this trade deadline. Some of the pieces they had acquired earlier just made no sense for them to have—and they had the stones to admit it (unlike certain other GMs, who insist on retaining the services of, say, Julio Lugo). They tried their best to move Sammy Sosa, and when they couldn’t find any takers they had the hard conversation with the former superstar and told him he’d have to sit out more games to give the younguns a chance to play. They dumped Kenny “He’s Still Around?” Lofton for decent minor league catcher Max Ramirez. And they moved two of their biggest stars–Gagne and Mark Teixeira–before they walked, leaving the Rangers with nothing. What exactly Texas got for Gagne is the subject of my column, so I won’t go into it again here. But I’m still marveling at what they got for Teixeira–though the Braves seem very happy with the deal, as their new first baseman has already has three homers and eight RBI in his first six games with Atlanta.

Nonetheless, the Rangers did a great job of getting value out of Teixeira after he turned down their contract offer. For him (and Ron Mahay, don’t forget), they got: Jarrod Saltalamacchia, a six-foot-four switch hitting catcher/first baseman; Elvis Andrus, a shortstop who, at just 18, is rumored to have more tools than Home Depot and has already been compared to Derek Jeter; Matt Harrison, a lefty starting pitcher who likes to throw hard and—even better—throw strikes; 19-year old Neftali Feliz, who admittedly has yet to make it to the minors, but still struck out 70 batters in 51 and a third innings of work. and another left-handed pitcher, Beau Jones, who hasn’t quite lived up to the lofty expectations the Braves threw at him, but has managed to keep his ERA under 3 in 48 and 2/3 innings of relief work in Single A while notching a strikeout about once per inning.

Not too shabby. And if Engel Beltre is all he’s cracked up to be, they really cleaned up on prospects…but now I’m giving away the column.

I will analyze trades and rumored trades going down today, updating as news breaks. Latest news will be on top.

Red Sox acquire Eric Gagne from the Rangers for Kason Gabbard and minor leaguers David Murphy and Engel Beltre

I’m a big Kason Gabbard fan, so I think that the Rangers come out the winners in this one, especially given their desperate need for major-league-ready starting pitching. The Sox did avoid giving up any of their A-list prospects and moving Gabbard is helpful in the short term to clear room in the rotation for Schilling’s impending return, but they had to renegotiate Gagne’s contract to get him to waive his no trade clause, bumping up the price tag by several million, and they have consistently under-estimated Gabbard’s potential. If Gabbard ends up being a decent major league starter, the Sox may well regret giving him up for just two months and ~20 innings of Gagne.

Astros dump Morgan Ensberg on the Padres for a player to be named

The Padres continue their endless quest for a third baseman, which has been going on for more than two years now. No word yet on which minor leaguer the Astros are getting but it was probably nobody special since the Astros had designated Ensberg for assignment and had to trade him.

Padres get Rob Mackowiak from the White Sox for a player to be named

The Padres continue their search for answers in the outfield. Mackowiak is an even better option that yesterday’s acquisition, Scott Hairston, for the 4th outfielder role, so Hairston is probably headed to the minors. The White Sox are clearly sellers this year, so anything they can get for their impending free agents is a plus.

Braves get Octavio Dotel from the Royals Kyle Davies

This deal has been agreed to by both sides, but the Braves have to wait until the Teixera deal is finalized because Davies could potentially become the alternate player if the Rangers reject Matt Harrison for health reasons. This deal makes sense for both teams – the Braves have soured on Davies but the Royals would get a live arm to upgrade their ever-beleaguered rotation. There is speculation that Moore could have gotten a bit more for Dotel than Davies, but that his familiarity with Davies from his days in the Braves organization and his gut-feeling that Davies can be a star swung things in favor of the Braves.

Dodgers deal Wilson Betemit to the Yankees for Scott Proctor

At first glance this seems like a good deal for the Dodgers. Betemit had lost his starting job and had nowhere to play, and the Dodgers bullpen has been devastated by injuries and having to move Chad Billingsley, Mark Hendrickson, and Brett Tomko into the rotation to replace injured starters. However, Betemit’s low batting average of .231 conceals the fact that he has an extremely respectable OPS of .834, and by all rights should be starting at 3B over Nomar Garciaparra, who has a pathetic OPS of .690. Betemit’s OBP is .359; Nomar’s is .330. Betemit’s SLG is .474; Nomar’s is .360. Betemit has 10 home runs in 156 at-bats; Nomar has 4 home runs in 358 at bats. Meanwhile Scott Proctor has been one of the most abused pitchers in baseball since the beginning of 2006, and his peripherals are way down across the board since last year. So basically, this is a great deal for the Yankees. Betemit is a huge upgrade over Miguel Cairo as a utility infielder, and offers insurance at 3B should A-Rod opt out of his contract. Given a full year as a starter, Betemit should be able to hit 30 homers with a decent OBP.

Red Sox ship Joel Piniero to the Cardinals for a player to be named

This deal makes sense for both teams. The let’s-convert-piniero-to-a-bullpen-ace plan had been a complete bust for the Red Sox this season, so much so that they had busted Piniero down to the minors July 25. But for the Cardinals, Piniero immediately becomes something like their third best starting pitcher, so giving up a player-to-be-named seems like a pretty cheap price for a team with no starting pitching to speak of to gamble on Dave Duncan’s ability to help a player that is only 28 years old and has already started 148 big league games.