The deadline approaches

With the trade deadline looming, it is critical to accurately assess both at what level a team will need to perform to succeed and also what pieces can be added to reach that level.

Let's assume a team can succeed with a batting average around .290, OBP at about .367, slugging near .450, and score about 5.25 runs a game. We also need a pitching staff that can maintain an ERA around 3.5, strike out about 7 batters per every 9 innings, and hold opposing batters to approximately a .240 average. Does this sound like a winner to you?

Because some would refer to such a club as a "monstrosity," a "mess," a "quagmire," and a "disaster" of which the designer "will have to live and die with."

I think he'll be alright. His club has put up those numbers so far in July alone.

We all know the baseball season is a marathon, not a sprint. A team is going to drop a series to a lousy Kansas City team every now and again, but they are just as likely to turn around and take 3 of 4 from a red-hot Cleveland club. This team is not perfect, but they are the holders of the best record in baseball right now and have been assembled to succeed in the postseason. Sure, we're not setting the world on fire and blowing teams away like the Bronx Bombers love to do, but I'm pretty sure a one-run victory counts as much in the end as a 22-3 blowout. I seem to recall the Patriots doing fairly well in adhering to this philosophy.

Now, just because the team is good doesn't mean it can't get better. What it does mean is that we don't need to blow anything up right now. As far as "quagmires...that can not easily be cleaned up" go, I think this one is looking pretty good.

The most glaring deficiency in the 25-man roster isn't so much a hole as it is Wily Mo Pena. He is simply the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is obvious Dr. Wily needs playing time to succeed - but we're ignoring the fact that this guy will never turn into a Moneyball-era Sox player. I think Wily Mo could get 900 plate appearances next season and still be incapable of putting together the long, grinding, pitch-consuming at-bats that come so naturally to Kevin Youkilis and Dustin Pedroia.

Pena is the kind of guy that would have been a folk hero in 1952, when everybody hit home runs and walking was for little girls. He could have even had a charming off-season job, like digging holes or mining cole, that would have added to his larger-than-life mystique and perhaps given him a clever nickname.

In 2007, however, he sucks and everyone knows it. This is why it will be impossible for Theo to move him. The guy has a ton of upside and I really don't think you can even now complain about the trade that brought him here (even Tom liked it at the time), but he simply hasn't worked out and now we're stuck with him. He'd be a great fit in the National League, where the pitchers have apparently not yet been told that a thrown baseball can be made to curve if you throw it in a certain way. If Theo can get anything useful for Pena, you kind of have to take it just to free up the roster spot and bring up one of our AAA guys who can run, play defense, and at least look good while missing curveballs. Pena can do none of these things.

So what type of realistic return can we expect to get from Pena? We probably aren't going to be able to aquire a right-handed outfielder/pinch hitter for him, because that's what he is currently unable to do so why would anyone want to swap someone who can do these things for someone who can't? Perhaps we could grab a reliever, but at this point the best we could probably get is someone like Solomon Torres from the Pirates, who is 150 years old and would sit just below Mike "12 more appearances to 1,000" Timlin on the bullpen totem pole.

Pena's value, despite his great night tonight, could not be lower. Not only does everyone else not want him, they know we don't want him. At this point, we'll probably only be able to move him as a throw-in to a larger deal. If Theo can get anything for this hulking mass of raw potential, he deserves a ticker-tape parade.

That is, if he's not "dead" from the 62-40 "disaster" he has created.