Almost every team above or around the Boston Red Sox in the American League playoff race made moves to improve their teams at the 2019 trade deadline. The Hometown Team stayed put.
Some teams made incremental moves, while others (hello Houston) made monster additions. The Sox did neither. Team brass projected confidence Wednesday afternoon that the antidote to the team’s uneven season is within the clubhouse already.
“The club here needs to play better on a consistent basis,” Boston general manager Dave Dombrowski told assembled media shortly after the four p.m. trade deadline had come and gone. “That’s the way I look at it. We like our club. We’ve liked our club all year long.”
Dombrowski seemed to admit his strategy may have been more aggressive if Boston was closer to the Yankees in the A.L. East standings. But coming off a dominant, world championship season, Sox brass clearly were not interested in parting with promising future talent or big league regulars to go for broke this year when a wild card game is the best scenario they can hope for if they play well for the next two months.
The most obvious area for improvement was the Boston bullpen, 18th in the league in ERA with an unseemly 19 blown saves including Tuesday night’s implosion against Tampa Bay. The Sox pen does have the highest strikeout rate per nine innings in baseball and is eighth in fielding independent pitching (FIP), indicating they may be better than their performance thus far indicates. Dombrowski has voiced confidence in Brandon Workman (2.08 ERA) pitching the ninth inning. Twenty-two year-old rookie Darwinzon Hernandez hasn’t allowed an earned run in six second-half relief appearances and Matt Barnes has made 10 scoreless appearances in July after a brutal June.
But what remains frustrating to Red Sox fans is that there seemed to be relievers to be had. Quality arms like Sam Dyson, Shane Greene and Mark Melancon were all moved at the deadline for hardly a king’s ransom. Of those three, only Greene was moved for a top 10 prospect in a team’s system. Meanwhile division rivals Toronto moved relievers Joe Biagini and Daniel Hudson to Houston and Washington respectively for less than top tier minor league talent. Boston may have had to pay a division-rival premium to Toronto, but overall there were too many available relievers moved to believe that the Sox couldn’t have snagged one without breaking the bank or dipping too far into the minor league system.
Meanwhile, it was the 2017 world champs who made the biggest moves, picking up Zack Greinke along with Blue Jays pitchers Aaron Sanchez and Biagini. The Greinke deal is simply a game changer in the AL, giving Houston a championship-caliber top of the rotation with Justin Verlander, Gerrit Cole and now a six-time All-Star and Cy Young winner in Greinke. Biagini bolsters Houston’s pen and Sanchez — while nursing a 6.07 ERA during a lost year with Toronto — is still just three years removed from a near Cy Young campaign. It’s possible no one in the AL is catching Houston now.
The A’s and Rays, both just ahead of Boston in the wild card race, also made moves. Oakland picked up Reds starter Tanner Roark while Tampa Bay added struggling Brewers first baseman Jesus Aguilar. Roark has been about league average for the past few years but could help a rotation looking for help in the back end. Aguilar (.225/.320/.374) has taken a huge step back from last year’s 35 home run campaign.
Cleveland, also ahead of Boston in the wild card race, made significant moves Tuesday night, picking up Yasiel Puig, Franmil Reyes (27 homers, .849 OPS) and Logan Allen, while moving on from Trevor Bauer.
While the Yankees didn’t do much (they picked up a minor league pitcher from Colorado), they’ll have a virtual All-Star team coming off the disabled list at some point this summer with Giancarlo Stanton, Gary Sanchez and Brett Gardner all expected to return sometime in August.
The Red Sox are betting on themselves and hoping to regain some of their 2018 magic during the ’19 stretch run. If they don’t, fans will be justified in looking back on July 31st as the day the contenders got better while the Sox puttered along.