With the MLB trade deadline quickly approaching, the Boston Red Sox should play a part in being active during that time as they look to have an exciting second half of the season. Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow spoke to MassLive about what the plans are for the team including what is an “area of opportunity” for them, especially when it comes to pitching.
“I think there are certain kinds of profiles that teams tend to look for at the deadline and I don’t imagine we’ll be a whole lot different,” Breslow said. “You can never have too much pitching. You’re always an injury away or, a handful of unfortunate outings away from being in a hole and, at times when you don’t have starting pitching depth to get through the second half of the season, that places a pretty significant burden on a bullpen. I think we’re always exploring pitching, especially when you look at the imbalance of our system, right? Quite a bit of strength on the position player side, not quite as much on the pitching side. So that would certainly be an area of opportunity for us.”
“We’re also pretty left-handed heavy (from an offensive standpoint),” Breslow continued. “The chance to maybe look to add some righthanded offense could make sense. But then, you go around position-by-position and you look at where we haven’t gotten the production that, that we would need. And obviously Tristan (Casas) is a huge loss that we need to overcome, but it seems like his rehab is going and we would expect him back.”
Red Sox's Breslow ponders on wanting a rental or “control”
Even with stating the dire needs of Boston, Breslow would hesitate on saying if the Red Sox would truly be buyers at the deadline three weeks away. Still, there has been a ton of deals at the deadline that have been rentals, but the chief executive would say that while he does not want to “rule anything out,” he does say it “makes more sense to add players with control.”
“I don’t think it makes sense to rule anything out, or as long as we’re still exploring multiple paths, and a number of directions are in play,” Breslow said to MassLive. “That said, of course, it makes more sense to add players with control. But I think 29 other teams would be looking to do the same thing and would probably take the same position. Which means that there’s usually a significant cost associated with that. And if we are going to give up something of significance, we want to make sure that the impact here is equally significant and potentially for for a number of years, as, like I said, we believe that you can.”
“You can see the emergence of this core, right?” Breslow asked. “I think there’s reason to be really excited about what’s happening in the big leagues on the field and also what’s happening behind those guys. (We) would not want to make any definitive claims in either direction. But in a perfect world, of course you add years of control. But I don’t think that means we should necessarily tune out ways to improve the team if that’s the direction we need to go.”
Whatever the case may be for Boston heading into the trade deadline, there is no doubt they want to improve any chance they can get to further contend for a playoff spot. Currently, they are 49-40 which puts them third in the AL East behind the Baltimore Orioles and the New York Yankees as they start a series Tuesday night against the Oakland Athletics.
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