Only move: Acquiring Urías from Brewers
As Major League Baseball’s 6 p.m. trade deadline passed on Tuesday, the Red Sox made a minor move to add infielder Luis Urías from the Brewers, but otherwise stood pat.
The Sox neither subtracted from a group fighting to contend nor added a prominent upgrade. Instead, their hopes of a playoff spot — characterized as those of an “underdog” by chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom — will fall chiefly on the continued growth of a young core and players returning from injuries.
“We really liked what we’re building,” said Bloom. “You’re seeing it more and more each night on the field — the core we’re building and what we’re building toward. Understanding that we’re underdogs this year right now, where we are in the playoff odds, we just tried to stay true to that.
“That could have meant going out and adding. It could have meant, if we’re able to go get a core player, guys leaving our club. But ultimately, at the end of the day, we didn’t match up on any of those things. We’re ready to roll with this group and we like where the arrow is pointing. Hopefully we can do some special things the rest of the way and certainly feel very confident that we’ll be able to continue building on this next year and beyond.”
The Sox’ ideal deadline would have landed a young starter with years of team control to join the growing core of Rafael Devers, Brayan Bello, Triston Casas, Masataka Yoshida, and Jarren Duran with a chance to be fixtures for years to come.
But only one player was traded who fit that description. Tampa Bay acquired righthander Aaron Civale — who won’t be a free agent until after the 2025 season — in exchange for first base prospect Kyle Manzardo, a nearly big league-ready player ranked No. 69 in Baseball America’s mid-year top 100.
The Sox aren’t seen as having a similar Triple A prospect with as high an offensive floor as Manzardo. In all likelihood, Cleveland would have needed a player such as Casas or Duran back in a deal for Civale — a nonstarter for the Sox.
“To go out and get some of those players under long-term control . . . we would have had to give up players who were so integral to what we’re doing that it really would have just been robbing Peter to pay Paul,” said Bloom. “It wouldn’t have made sense for us.”
The Sox were open to dealing “rental” players on expiring contracts such as James Paxton and Adam Duvall in order to add players with a chance to become part of the core for years to come.
With five outfielders (Duvall, Duran, Yoshida, Rob Refsnyder, and Alex Verdugo), the Sox were positioned to entertain trading Duvall, but elected to keep the righthanded power hitter.
While the Sox likewise gauged Paxton’s market, a deal involving the lefthander was complicated by the fact that he’s not only an important contributor to the 2023 hopes but can be offered a one-year qualifying offer by the Sox — but not by a team that might acquire him.
If extended, the qualifying offer could keep Paxton in the rotation in 2024 if he accepted or result in receiving a compensatory pick between the second and third rounds of next year’s draft if the lefthander declined and left as a free agent.
Given that possibility, and his importance to the aspirations to contend, the Sox set a high bar for dealing Paxton. No team came close to clearing it. (The Dodgers, according to sources, checked in with the Sox about Paxton shortly before the deadline but found the price exorbitant.)
And so, the Sox will proceed largely with the team they have. They entered Tuesday night’s game in Seattle 2½ games behind the Blue Jays for the third wild-card spot and just ahead of the Angels, Yankees, and Mariners. According to Fangraphs, the Sox entered Tuesday with a 25 percent chance of reaching the playoffs.
“There’s a dial that you turn up if you’re in a position where it makes sense to be more shortterm oriented,” said Bloom. “In our position, that would have been a shortcut. I don’t think history is that kind to those clubs that sit where we sit and just go selling out for rentals.”
The addition of Urías for 22year-old righthander Bradley Blalock (6-1, 2.19 ERA, 28 percent strikeout rate between Single A Salem and High-A Greenville in his return from Tommy John surgery) represented a buy-low play by the Sox.
Urías, 26, struggled to a .146/ .299/.236 line in 20 big league games with the Brewers this year, resulting in his demotion to Triple A, where he was hitting .233/.345/.379. The Sox hope he can bounce back to the solid form he showed in the big leagues in 2021-22 (.244/.340/ .426).
The Sox made a move one week before the deadline, trading Kiké Hernández to the Dodgers for righthanded relievers Nick Robertson and Justin Hagenman, both now with Triple A Worcester. While the Sox worked at their roster margins, the divisional competitors and wild-card teams in front of them upgraded more decisively.
The Astros landed the biggest prize on the market, reacquiring Justin Verlander from the Mets. The Orioles added starter Jack Flaherty from the Cardinals and reliever Shintaro Fujinami from the A’s. The Rays traded for Civale. And the Blue Jays added closer Jordan Hicks and shortstop Paul DeJong from the Cardinals.
The Sox have several players nearing returns from the injured list, starting with Trevor Story by next week and Chris Sale as soon as the end of next week. Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock are progressing toward rehab assignments.
With 56 games to go, the Sox hope those reinforcements can help them run down at least one of the teams in front of them.
“We’ve come pretty far from where we were early in the season, but there’s more work to do,” said Bloom. “We can’t sit here and feel like just because we believe we can be a playoff team that it’s going to happen. We need to continue to put in the work. We need to continue to get better.”