As the Boston Red Sox fight to keep their season on life support, and arguably chief baseball officer Craig Breslow's job as well, trades have begun to dominate the rumor mill.
Though the official trade deadline isn't until Aug. 3, there's a feeling that this year, the Red Sox are desperate to make some sort of early move. After ESPN's Buster Olney reported on Wednesday that the Red Sox were looking for a right-handed bat and willing to take on bad contracts, Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic dropped a piece on Saturday that included several new bits of reported information.
The primary takeaways from McCaffrey's reporting were twofold. One, the Red Sox opened up business on their catchers, especially Connor Wong, which is unsurprising. Two, the best pitchers in the Boston bullpen were not yet available to teams that had already been inquiring.
"The Red Sox are shopping Wong in particular, according to a league source, and have also fielded calls on relievers Aroldis Chapman, Justin Slaten and Garrett Whitlock," wrote McCaffrey. "The Red Sox have said — for now — they have no interest in dealing anyone from that bullpen trio."
Breslow also had a new quote in the McCaffrey article about where the Red Sox stood in their pursuits of trades, either on the buy or sell side (a little Wall Street lingo that might play for some of you).
"(We're) having a lot of conversations, a lot of discussions, and I think it’s been kind of true industry-wide," Breslow told McCaffrey. "But there are a lot of teams that probably feel pretty similar to us, which is to say that they have confidence in their rosters, they know they’re not playing as well as they’re capable of, and really, nobody is kind of putting the postseason out of reach."
As the month progresses, the 26-34 Red Sox can largely determine their trade deadline fate. Play more games like their solid 5-3 win against the New York Yankees on Friday, and the playoffs are still a possibility. Play like they did during the series finale with the Baltimore Orioles on Thursday, and there should be a fire sale.
And Breslow is the X-factor in all of this. Firing manager Alex Cora on April 25 was a desperate move from an executive trying to make sure his job was safe. The success of rest of this season probably determines that question.