This off-season, a combination of trades completely changed the Red Sox, for better or for worse. The first trade took place in November, sending four prospects to Florida for hard throwing Josh Beckett and extra-salary Mike Lowell and Guillermo Mota. As part of the deal, they were forced to give up a future starting shortstop in Hanley Ramirez, someone the Marlins wanted for his great talent and cheap price. Needing a center fielder, Boston later sent Edgar Renteria to Atlanta, along with $11 million, nabbing top prospect Any Marte. This got rid of Renteria, a player who seems better suited to the National League and who committed a career high 30 errors for Boston. It also netted Andy Marte, enabling them to then turn and flip the hot prospect to the Indians for Coco Crisp. While I think that Renteria would have improved in his second year, Coco Crisp is talented and young; predictions on him vary, while some predict him to really grow into his position, others refer to him as Johnny Damon Lite. These two trades have debatable value; while Josh Beckett started the season throwing hard and controlling opposing batters, he has since lost his last three starts and given up a combined 17 runs over 15 innings. While Coco Crisp might have a lot of talent, he has been on the DL and hasn't been able to play since April 9th. Both of these players have the ability and might make Boston look brilliant for trading for them, but lets take a look at what could have been. Hanley Ramirez is a starter for the Marlins, batting .307 with 8 doubles, 3 triples, 2 home runs and 7 stolen bases. Edgar Renteria is batting .363 with 6 doubles and 12 RBI, while Alex Gonzalez, the shortstop replacing both of them in Boston, is hitting .207 with 5 doubles and 8 RBI, no home runs or stolen bases. Defensively, Gonzalez has made only 1 error, as opposed to Renteria's 4 and Hanley's 6, so taken as a whole, Gonzalez is not a mediocre player; he just isn't getting it done offensively. Mike Lowell, on the other hand, is getting it done; while he hasn't put up power numbers, he has a .343 batting average and 16 doubles and 16 RBI's. Of all of the trades, the trade that may end up being the worst was the Bronson Arroyo trade. They traded Bronson Arroyo for Wily Mo Pena, giving up a starting pitcher for a backup outfielder. They felt that they had enough depth in the rotation, that they needed a good outfielder to help out, but I think might have made a mistake. Going by last years numbers, they did fine; Arroyo went 14-10 with a 4.51 ERA last season, whereas Pena has a considerable amount of upside. At the time of the trade, Boston's rotation included Curt Schilling, Tim Wakefield, Josh Beckett, Matt Clement, David Wells and Jonathan Papelbon. Since then, Papelbon has become the full time closer and David Wells has spent a month on the DL-not a huge loss to the rotation, considering in his 4 innings of pitching this season, he gave up 7 runs. But it does leave a gap in the rotation, and unless Papelbon becomes a starter at some point, which I think would be a bad decision, it won't be adequately filled until Wells returns. Arroyo, on the other hand, could have adequately filled it. He is 5-1 with an ERA of 2.36, one of the major reasons the Reds are surprisingly competitive. The trade isn't all that bad, as Wily Mo Pena is no slouch either; he has done well this year, hitting .328 while filling in for Coco Crisp in Center. It will be interesting to see what happens when Crisp is healthy; Pena has proven that he deserves to play with the numbers that he is putting up. If he doesn't, however, I don't like this trade at all; I would rather have Arroyo in the rotation then Pena on the bench.