Should the Red Sox buy or sell at next week’s trade deadline? For chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom it’s not quite that simple.
After three years spent building up the club’s organizational depth, the present and future are finally beginning to converge. Despite several key injuries, the Red Sox are an MLB-best 15-5 in their last 20 games, and the club’s recent fortunes have largely been fueled by an emerging core of young standouts who could serve as the foundation of a contending club for the rest of the decade.
That being said, the Red Sox are still below the playoff cutline, fourth in their division and 1.5 games back of the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Wild Card race. Even at full strength it’s not certain this year’s group is ready for primetime, at least not yet.
That leaves Bloom in a tricky place. Can he reinforce his club, which has sent a clear message it deserves a chance to compete for a World Series title, without mortgaging the future and risking the progress the organization has worked so hard to make? Or would he be better off going the other way?
Speaking to The Herald on Wednesday, Bloom said no matter what happens in the coming days, the Red Sox will stay true to the guiding principles that have gotten them this far.
“Big picture, a lot of this has happened because we’ve been doing the right things to try and build a core back up the right way, you’re now starting to see it more and more on the field every night,” Bloom said. “Staying true to that has helped us experience some of the short-term success we’ve experienced, and that’s going to keep being our North Star, to make sure we’re doing the right things to win while we build this and we’re going to be looking for moves that fit that.”
How that looks in practice remains to be seen, but the Red Sox do have a lot of factors to consider.
The biggest is the imminent return of shortstop Trevor Story, who should provide an immediate boost in the heart of the Red Sox order. Boston is also likely to get back starting pitcher Chris Sale by mid-August, and Bloom said they hope to get Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock back on the big league mound as soon as possible, though when and in what role remains undetermined.
Even if the Red Sox don’t make any major moves, the club’s roster could look a lot different in two weeks.
Another factor is the state of the American League playoff race, which is as crowded as any in recent memory. For all their recent success, the Red Sox still haven’t gained much ground on their top Wild Card competitors — the Blue Jays and Houston Astros — and the competition should only intensify once the playoff hopefuls start loading up at the deadline.
“Where we are in the standings matters, you have to factor that in,” Bloom said. “We’re very much in the hunt, we’re also not in a playoff spot if the season were to end today, we’ve got to be mindful of that, too.”
Bloom said earlier this week that while they wouldn’t be opposed to adding rentals, his preference would be to acquire players with years of team control who could both fortify the present roster and serve as building blocks going forward.
He also indicated they could trade away players from the current big league club, though not every move would necessarily fall into the “buy or sell” dynamic.
For example, Bloom characterized the club’s recent trade of Kiké Hernández to the Los Angeles Dodgers as a baseball trade intended to clear up the club’s logjam in the middle infield. The Red Sox could potentially make a similar move with Adam Duvall to clear up the outfield, but other possibilities, like trading pending free agent starting pitcher James Paxton, would leave the current roster diminished if they aren’t adequately replaced by other additions.
At the end of the day, Bloom hopes when the dust settles the Red Sox will be better positioned to compete in the short and long-term.
“We’re going to try and take that mindset into the deadline and keep trying to make the right moves to build this up,” Bloom said. “We’re going to think about it more in those terms rather than try to characterize ourselves as buyers or sellers. We like our team, we think we have a good team, we just want to keep the upwards trajectory.”
Triston Casas’ rookie year got off to a rough start, but in recent months he’s looked a lot more like the impact player the Red Sox always believed he could become.
Since his batting average fell to .128 on May 1, Casas has batted .301 with a .943 OPS, 12 home runs and 30 RBI over his last 63 games. He’s been even better recently, batting .365 with a 1.284 OPS and six home runs in July, and on Wednesday he reached base safely all four times he came to the plate, going 2 for 2 with a home run and two walks to help the Red Sox complete the two-game sweep over the Atlanta Braves.
Red Sox manager Alex Cora offered high praise for the rookie following the game.
“You look at the numbers, he’s up to .250 or whatever, you see the homers, you see the RBIs, the OBP, the OPS, he’s becoming one of the best offensive first basemen in the big leagues,” Cora said.
Casas is batting .253 with 15 home runs and an .836 OPS on the season, and even factoring in his slow start, his overall production does indeed stack up well with some of the league’s best.
Notably, he currently has an identical OPS+ as Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and New York Mets slugger Pete Alonso. All three have a mark of 122, which means they’ve been 22% better than league average by that particular advanced metric.
He’s also been more productive across the board than New York Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo and far better than Houston’s Jose Abreu, one of the Astros’ big offseason acquisitions who the Red Sox took considerable heat for failing to sign.
Casas’ defense is still a work in progress, but overall he’s taken impressive strides and has become a key contributor in his first full big league season.
Late Wednesday night, the Red Sox acquired right-handed reliever Mauricio Llovera in a trade with the San Francisco Giants, sending out minor league Marques Johnson in exchange.
Llovera, 27, appeared in five big league games for the Giants this season and allowed one earned run over 5.1 innings (1.69 ERA). He’s also posted a 3.92 ERA in 17 games (two starts) in Triple-A, and overall he has a 6.14 ERA in 29 career MLB games between 2020-23.
Llovera has been assigned to Triple-A Worcester and righty Kaleb Ort was moved to the 60-day injured list to clear a spot on the 40-man roster.