Dumb and Dumber: With Gagne Wounds Still Fresh, Sox Acquire Billy Wagner

“What has he done? Has he pitched this year? Is he ready to pitch or is he not?...I think our bullpen is good where we're at right now…It's kind of like the Gagne thing, I guess.”Jonathan Papelbon has since retracted this statement, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.In 2007 the Red Sox had the best bullpen in baseball by a country mile. Then they decided to snag Eric Gagne off waivers. It made sense in a rich get richer sort of way. A bullpen, no matter how effective, can always stand to get deeper. Then the Gagne investment folded faster than pets.com, and Theo Epstein and the rest of the Red Sox front office didn’t look so smart anymore.“Good enough never is” was replaced with “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” The fan base might have played Monday Morning Quarterback, but Epstein’s reputation was robustly rejuvenated by a World Championship in the same year. The disastrous addition of Eric Gagne ...