Sure, the 2024 trade deadline looks underwhelming. But Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow did his job.
He picked a lane, as he said he would. He stuck to his word and reinforced this team.
The Red Sox got much-needed, solid contributors.
Did he address all the Sox’s weaknesses? No.
Should he have done more? Yeah, probably. But acquisition prices were steep.
Yet, he didn’t sit on his hands.
The 2024 trade deadline should look better for the Red Sox once key injured players return. We’ll see how everything shakes out, though.
(The Red Sox have added as much as $17 million in payroll — including extensions — since the season began. Boston’s still below the first Competitive Balance Tax threshold. I’m sure John W. Henry is loving that.)
Red Sox 2024 Trade Deadline: Underwhelming but Beneficial Moves
The first three of the five trades Breslow made were underwhelming.
Yeah, James Paxton is a competent fifth starter. But he won’t take the load off Tanner Houck, Kutter Crawford, and Brayan Bello.
Danny Jansen makes sense once you think about it. Boston could’ve used an impact right-handed bat, though.
Quinn Priester won’t positively impact the Red Sox this year. He’s an Andrew Bailey project.
That said, the Pirates have pitching depth and need position player depth, while the Red Sox have position player depth and need pitching depth.
James Paxton
Embed from Getty ImagesJames Paxton alone is underwhelming. But he is an upgrade.
Paxton pitched five or more innings with three or fewer earned runs in 12 of 18 starts before the trade. Cooper Criswell and Josh Winckowski have done that combined only eight times in 18 starts.
Paxton had a 4.43 ERA/4.54 FIP with the Dodgers, allowing 11 home runs with a .739 OPS against him. He’s struck out 16 percent of batters faced and walked 12 percent.
Paxton’s allowed a ton of hard contact, and his fastball velocity is down two miles an hour from 2023. His curveball is still effective, though.
Paxton is what he is: a cheap, still effective enough rental.
To pry Paxton from Los Angeles, the Red Sox traded 17-year-old Dominican Summer League infielder Moises Bolivar, who signed in January.
Boston put Brayan Mata on the 60-day injured list to open a 40-man spot. Chase Anderson was designated for assignment to open a 26-man spot.
Anderson was outrighted to Worcester but chose free agency instead.
Breslow said of adding Paxton:
“We didn’t want to walk out of the deadline without having added a starting pitcher.”
Red Sox manager Alex Cora said adding Paxton will help him mix and match the pitching staff better against left-handed heavy lineups.
Danny Jansen
Embed from Getty ImagesLike Paxton, Danny Jansen alone is an underwhelming, cheap rental upgrade.
He could be better defensively.
In 61 games with the Blue Jays, he only hit .212/.303/.369/.671.
However, Jansen is a right-handed hitter whose hitting profile is perfect for Fenway.
Oh, and he’s hitting left-handed pitchers this year.
The 29-year-old doesn’t chase, doesn’t whiff, doesn’t strike out, and takes his walks.
What he can do defensively is block a ball.
Reese McGuire was DFA’d not long after. Mcguire was subsequently outrighted to Worcester.
Pitcher Alex Speas, claimed off waivers from the Astros, was DFA’d to make room. Speas cleared waivers and was outrighted to Worcester.
Jansen gives Cora a righty bat off the bench at all times.
Boston traded Infielders Cutter Coffey, Eddinson Paulino, and pitcher Gilberto Batista to Toronto for Jansen.
Paulino, 22, is a good prospect but was a redundant lefty infielder who is also Rule 5 eligible. soxprospects.com ranked him 15th.
Coffey, 20, ranked 28th by soxprospects, was behind other Red Sox infield prospects.
Batista, 19, was promoted to Salem right before the trade and never debuted for them. Batista was not ranked by soxprospects.com.
Quinn Priester: Red Sox Trade Deadline Move for the Future
Embed from Getty ImagesThe only trade focused on the future was the acquisition of pitcher Quinn Priester from the Pirates for Nick Yorke.
Boston optioned him to Worcester. If he stays there long enough, Quinn would be under team control through 2030.
He has options left after this year, too.
Quinn, 23, has 94.2 career MLB innings with a 6.46 ERA.
If the Red Sox need him to, Priester can eat some innings this year.
Priester was Pittsburgh’s first-round pick in 2019 and a former top 100 prospect. Not long ago, MLBPipeline.com ranked him as high as fourth on the Pirates’ top 30 prospects list.
In 151 career Triple-A innings, he has a 3.81 ERA.
He gets hitters to chase, limits walks, misses barrels, and gets groundballs.
A National League talent evaluator said this to Sean McAdam of masslive.com about Priester:
“He has some pitchability but sounds like he’s in between mindsets, searching for his convicted comfort level on how to get hitters out. […] His strength looks like he has a knack to miss barrels with his two-seam fastball vs lefties; with righthanded-hitters, he’s able to get a high percentage of ground balls and enough strikeouts with his four-seamer and curveball. […] he competes well, has pitchability to work backwards and is primarily a starter who will have to be more precise to log innings after the first time through the order. […] he must sort out his secondary pitch arsenal and may want to increase the use of his two-seam fastball and just elevate his four-seamer on two-strike counts up and out of the zone for chase.”
Yorke, another Rule 5 eligible Sox prospect, seemingly wasn’t high on the team’s infield depth chart. Otherwise, he’d probably have gotten a shot at second base in Boston by now.
Never known for his defense, Yorke had a rollercoaster tenure with the Red Sox.
In 2021, he hit .325/.412/.516/.928 in 97 games between Salem and Greeneville.
Yorke entered 2022 as a top 50 prospect in the game and was ranked as highly as 3rd by soxprospects in April of ’22.
That year was a significant drop-off for Yorke. Turf toe, back stiffness, and wrist soreness limited him to 80 games for Greenville.
Yorke bounced back a bit in 2023 with Portland, making the All-Star Futures game.
He ended ’23 ranked 6th by soxprospects.
The 22-year-old began 2024 ranked 11th by soxprospects.
In 45 games with Portland, Yorke hit .251/.325/.366/.691.
Yorke, in 38 games since his promotion to Worcester, hit .310/.408/.490/.898.
In their latest rankings, soxprospects had Yorke 12th — Boston’s sixth-best infield prospect.
Red Sox 2024 Trade Deadline: Upgrades the Red Sox Needed
The Red Sox desperately needed relievers at the 2024 trade deadline.
Boston has had one of the worst bullpen ERAs since the All-Star break and has lost too many winnable games.
Neither Lucas Sims nor Luis Garcia are great relievers. They are good, quality pitchers who can get it done in the late innings.
The Sox bullpen will be much deeper once Chris Martin and Justin Slaten return.
Lucas Sims: Red Sox 2024 Trade Deadline Move With Potentially Huge Payoff
Embed from Getty ImagesLucas Sims had a 3.57 ERA in 35.1 innings with the Reds in 2024.
However, he had a 2.25 ERA in July with Cincinnati, the first month this season, his ERA aligned with his FIP (2.41).
That’s likely due to the introduction of a cutter, which has been an excellent pitch for Sims.
Batters have a .071 average and slugging percentage on the pitch with a 39 percent whiff rate, 33 percent strikeout rate, and 11 percent hard-hit rate.
Sims’s second-best pitch is his sweeper (.213 average, .361 SLG, 26.5 percent strikeout, and whiff rate), which he throws the most.
Sims’s 4-seam fastball is his second-most used pitch, and it’s been unlucky.
The fastball has a .275 average and .549 slug against it with a 24 percent whiff rate and 23.5 percent strikeout rate. However, the pitch has an expected average of .206 and an expected slugging percentage of .430.
Sims has done well limiting hard contact, getting chases and swings and misses, and striking hitters out. He just walks too many.
With a couple of tweaks to Sims’ pitch mix, the Sox might have a stud.
Boston is responsible for the remaining $921,000 of his 2024 salary.
Brandon Walter, who has been on the I.L. all season with a shoulder injury, was DFA’d and subsequently released.
Waiver claim Yohan Ramirez was also DFA’d
The Red Sox shipped pitcher Ovis Portes, 19, recently promoted to Salem, off to Cincinnati for Sims. Portes was ranked 29th by soxprospects.
Sims and fellow reliever acquisition Garcia from the Angels are among the top 10 pending free-agent relievers by Stuff+.
Luis Garcia
Embed from Getty ImagesLuis Garcia, 37, has been around, spending time with the Angels, Phillies, Padres, Cardinals, and Rangers.
Garcia was in his second stint with the Angels. His first was in 2019 when Andrew Bailey was the Angels’ bullpen coach.
Garcia posted a 3.71 ERA in 45 games in Los Angeles this season.
He gets batters to chase, limits barrels, and induces groundballs.
His whiff, strikeout, and walk rates are all average.
Garcia has allowed a .484 OPS in high-leverage situations in 2024.
Boston is responsible for the $1.39 million left of his 2024 salary.
The Red Sox optioned Bailey Horn to Worcester to open up a roster spot.
Matthew Lugo (ranked 13th by soxprospects), Ryan Zeferjahn (37th by soxprospects), Niko Kavadas (65th by soxprospects), and Yeferson Vargas (54th by soxprospects) are now Angels.
Lugo, 23, Rule 5 eligible this winter, has the ceiling of a utility player.
Zeferjahn’s, 26’s, highest ceiling is middle relief. He’s also Rule 5 eligible.
soxprospects.com projects Kavadas, 25, the last of the Sox’s Rule 5 eligible prospects traded, to be a platoon bat at best.
Boston had just promoted Vargas, 20, to Salem before the trade.
Craig Breslow admitted he felt an urgency to add relievers given the team’s current situation. Breslow also believes that his 2024 trade deadline moves put the Red Sox in a better spot with injured players returning soon.
Featured Image Credit: Maddie Malhotra/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images
For daily Red Sox coverage, follow me on Twitter. For more MLB coverage, follow @BellyUpBaseball and check out Belly Up Sport’s other MLB content.
