The trade market is moving fast, and with six hours to go before front offices have to put their proverbial pencils down, the Red Sox have made just one move, shipping prospect Blaze Jordan to St. Louis for veteran lefty Steven Matz. There are expected to be more to come.
Here’s what we’re hearing with six hours to go before the 6 p.m. ET trade deadline:
1) At this hour, most of the players who have been linked to the Red Sox are still on the board. Shane Bieber, Jhoan Duran and, surprisingly, Eugenio Suarez are the exceptions. But many big names, especially on the starting pitching market, have yet to move.
The wild card on the market remains Minnesota’s Joe Ryan. People around the Twins didn’t anticipate them moving Duran, who is under team control through 2027. If the Twins are in for a dime, are they in for a dollar? Does the Duran move make it more likely that they’ll deal Ryan? Folks in the game are wondering.
2) It’s assumed by many to be a lock that the Diamondbacks deal starters Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly, who represent two of the top rental pitchers on the market. But there is a bar to clear. Both right-handers are candidates to receive a qualifying offer so the Diamondbacks are going to want more than a potential compensation pick would be worth. There’s a world in which they deem the offers they’re getting to not clear that bar.
Both Gallen and Kelly would be very good fits for Boston.
3) The pursuit of Eugenio Suarez as a potential first base option, as first reported by The Athletic, shows that Craig Breslow is not ruling out offensive upgrades, even with pitching remaining the priority. It still feels like Tampa Bay’s Yandy Díaz represents a North Star of sorts for the Red Sox when it comes to first base upgrades but the Rays operate creatively and the trades of Danny Jansen and Zack Littell don’t signal that they’re going to sell off more key pieces. Baltimore’s Ryan O’Hearn is out there, too.
4) The Matz-for-Jordan deal is very, very similar to the trades Breslow made in his first deadline running the Red Sox last year. Think: spare part for rental that represents a small upgrade. The key is getting better results than a year ago, when every deal flopped. And shopping for bigger fish.
5) Alex Cora remains close with Christian Vázquez and with the Twins in sell mode, one baseball source said “all (the Red Sox) have to do is call” if they wanted to land their former catcher. It might come down to whether the Sox view Vázquez, who has a .519 OPS and is making $10 million this year, as a true upgrade over Connor Wong, who has shown a little bit more with the bat in recent days. Availability isn’t the issue with Vázquez.
6) It feels like the crazy bullpen market has ruled the day so far. Every team could benefit from someone like new Padre Mason Miller, who is under team control through 2029. So guys like that are going to come at a super high price (with Leo De Vries headlining the package). But there have been affordable prices paid, too. Ryan Helsley would have represented more of a late-inning upgrade than Matz for the Red Sox, though Matz was a priority for Boston. One evaluator familiar with Boston’s system said a package headlined by toolsy outfield prospect Miguel Bleis would have been comparable to what the Mets gave up for Helsley.
7) The Marcelo Mayer injury forced the Red Sox to shift Ceddanne Rafaela to second base way more than they’d prefer, but it did clear the outfield logjam in a way that allows everyone to play basically every day. For that reason, the urgency to trade someone like Jarren Duran has lessened. But here’s a factor that could come into play this afternoon: The Red Sox know better than anyone that Duran’s performance can be volatile, with high peaks and low valleys. One thing working against them a month ago was his poor/mediocre start to the season. His value has risen with a fantastic July that should put him in the AL Player of the Month conversation. That might excite some teams who were wary four weeks ago.
8) As part of their check-ins on veteran starters around baseball in recent weeks, the Red Sox seemed more interested in White Sox righty Aaron Civale than his teammate Adrian Houser. Civale is a Connecticut native and Northeastern alum who has not been shy about wanting to play in Boston. Of course, he has no control over where he goes in this case. It would be a low-cost fall-back.
9) The Red Sox took on the rest of Matz’s money before he hits free agency this fall, which equals about $4 million in CBT calculations. They’re more than $10 million over the first threshold as is.
Boston has $9-10 million to go before crunching up against the next CBT threshold of $261 million. That would seem to be hard to get to. But one executive who has had talks with the Red Sox has said money is a factor in their negotiations. There’s always the possibility of a John Henry-imposed budget, which in this case would be higher than the ones he has installed in previous seasons.
10) It’s a small thing, but a 40-man crunch isn’t going to play a big role this afternoon. The Red Sox effectively had two free spaces on their roster with Hunter Dobbins and Tanner Houck being 60-day injured list candidates.
