The Boston Red Sox may feel prompted to finally deal with their outfield logjam at next month’s trade deadline.
All season, we’ve known that the Red Sox had three quality starting outfielders in Jarren Duran, Ceddanne Rafaela, and Wilyer Abreu. Then, there was baseball’s number-one prospect, Roman Anthony, who debuted in the majors on Jun. 9.
The craziness that’s transpired since (namely, the Rafael Devers trade) has made it difficult to project exactly what the Red Sox will do at this deadline. But Duran has seemingly emerged as the most likely outfielder to get traded, at least in terms of public perception, and one Boston insider agrees.
On Tuesday, MassLive’s Sean McAdam gave his best guess of Duran’s trade likelihood, which he classed as a “decent chance,” during the most recent episode of the “Fenway Rundown” podcast.
“I see there being a decent chance that Duran goes,” McAdam said. “Trading Duran would not be a white flag of ‘we’re in sell and auction mode.’ I think they’d be looking for some immediate help.”
“You can’t have those four outfielders on the team and keep them all happy with playing time and/or develop Anthony at the big league level. So the notion of Duran being traded would not surprise me in the least… I think it would be done sort of in advance of a trade that they would otherwise make in the offseason with an eye toward trying to get better over the final two months.”
Chris Cotillo, McAdam’s fellow MassLive reporter and podcast co-host, agreed that there was a chance, but didn’t seem bullish on the chances the Red Sox would be able to find common ground on a return package with another contender.
“Yes, he has control, and yes, he had an unbelievable season last year, but think the industry rightly looks at that as an outlier year,” Cotillo said. “The Red Sox are going to want a premium for the player that they saw last year, and teams are going to be wanting to pay for the player they see this year, and I think that makes it hard to do a deal.”
“You are selling to your fan base, ‘Hey, we’re still trying to contend, but remember the best two players from last year who entered this season as our non-(Alex) Bregman category best two position players? Well, they’re gone. And Bregman might walk at the end of the year.”
In this hypothetical, the Red Sox are trying to pull off a trade that would make both teams better, and those can be very tricky to find at the deadline. But that also doesn’t mean it won’t happen, or that Duran wouldn’t still be the number-one name the Red Sox might be looking to trade this winter.
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