After weeks of speculation as to whether they’d buy or sell, Major League Baseball’s annual midsummer trade deadline almost passed the Red Sox by entirely.
Never truly linked to any trade targets, the club was radio silent right up to Tuesday’s 6 p.m. cutoff. Only minutes after did the news break that they’d acquired infielder Luis Urias from the Milwaukee Brewers in exchange for 22-year-old minor league right-hander Bradley Blalock.
The trade is far from a deadline splash; like most moves of the Chaim Bloom era, the key qualities of this buzzer beater transaction are depth and club control. In his arbitration eligibility years, Urias is an affordable infield option now and down the road; his total salary for the season is $4.7 million, and he won’t reach free agency until 2026.
Urias debuted with the San Diego Padres in 2018, and they traded him to the Brewers in November 2019. Defensively, he’s played between 130-183 regular-season games each at second, third, and shortstop. He’s worth minus-13 career Outs Above Average, and hasn’t put together a plus season defensively by the metric since 2020. Statcast measures his Arm Strength as decidedly below average each season.
Between 2020-22, Urias hit .244 with a .749 OPS over 310 regular-season games. He offers some power, with 46 doubles, three triples, and 39 home runs in that span; 23 of said home runs came in a breakout 2021 campaign, but injuries put a damper on the following season.
At this juncture, he’s a fixer-upper. Due to a left hamstring strain on Opening Day, the 26-year-old only appeared in 20 major league games this year, and put together a career-worst .145 average and .535 OPS. He’s spent more time in Triple-A, where he’s hit .233 with a .725 OPS and nine extra-base hits.
In other words, Boston’s lone addition on deadline day is another one of Bloom’s “upside” guys: a player with potential for the Red Sox to attempt to unlock. Within the hour following the deadline, the chief baseball officer used that exact word to describe Urias, whom he called a “really intriguing talent. “(He’s) getting back to who he is at the plate,” Bloom said.
“Fenway should be a good fit,” he added.
All in all, the club made three trades over the last week. They sent Kiké Hernández back to the Los Angeles Dodgers in exchange for a pair of pitching prospects, and acquired reliever Mauricio Llovera from the San Francisco Giants.
Why not add more pitching to an injury-ravaged roster that’s been forced to deploy bullpen games multiple nights each week? Bloom reiterated several times that the organization decided to “prioritize the right things” this year, and wouldn’t “make moves just to make moves,” emphasizing that “selling out for rentals” wasn’t prudent.
“We were engaged on a lot of different players,” he said. “Obviously, it takes two to tango.”
It became clear over the last several weeks that the Red Sox were in a gray area where the trade deadline was concerned. Entering the day with a 56-50 record and fourth-place standing, they’re not going to win their hotly-contested division. But only 2.5 games back from one of the three Wild Card spots, they are still a team with a chance to sneak into the playoffs. And as the baseball world (and Boston, in particular) has seen countless times, anything can happen in October.
Unfortunately for the Red Sox, every other team in the division made at least one trade in the 24 hours leading up to the 6 p.m. deadline. Several teams in the American League bulked up significantly, including the powerhouse Texas Rangers, who added Max Scherzer, and the Houston Astros, who brought back Justin Verlander.
The AL Wild Card race was no picnic before, but as of 6 p.m. Tuesday, the climb only looks steeper.