Ken Rosenthal Savagely Blasts Red Sox For Trade Deadline Failures

The trade deadline has come and gone, and nearly everybody agrees that the Boston Red Sox were one of the biggest losers.

Boston got lefty reliever Steven Matz from the St. Louis Cardinals. They got Dustin May, a rental starter with a 4.85 ERA, from the Los Angeles Dodgers. And they came up empty in their pursuit of Minnesota Twins ace Joe Ryan, potentially losing out on other opportunitites in the process.

That's bad enough on the surface, but if the Red Sox just look around at what their rivals hauled in, they have to feel even worse. The New York Yankees added seven players, the Toronto Blue Jays added four, and every other team in the American League Wild Card race added meaningfully.

If any fan is looking for a North Star in terms of reacting to the Red Sox's pursuits at the trade deadline, Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, one of the most respected and experienced insiders in the sport, is probably a decent place to start.

And in the hours after the deadline, Rosenthal didn't just critique the Red Sox's moves. He unloaded on their entire business model.

“Epic fail at last year’s deadline with Craig Breslow, and this was an epic fail, as well… Joe Ryan is another starting pitcher who wasn’t traded, but my understanding is any talks that they had with the Twins were feeble at best. They didn’t come at them hard.”

As if the term "epic fail" wasn't bad enough, Rosenthal all but called the Red Sox fraidy cats.

“The Red Sox are one of many teams that uses modeling and tries to figure out what the best values are. It’s all about efficiency and getting the best deal and this and that and the other thing. At some point, you’ve got to fire,” Rosenthal continued.

“They did not even address first base... Didn’t get a starter other than Dustin May, who has not been a very successful starter for the Dodgers. And in their bullpen, with Steven Matz, he's a swing guy, he can be effective, but my goodness. They needed more... There’s gonna be some people in Boston, a lot of people in Boston, questioning what the heck they did.”

Starting on Friday, the Red Sox will host the Houston Astros, who brought back their homegrown superstar Carlos Correa from those same Minnesota Twins. They'll move on to face the Kansas City Royals, who have a worse record, but added more than Boston, then the San Diego Padres, who arguably made the most aggressive moves of anybody.

And the Red Sox have Steven Matz and Dustin May. Right now, it's hard to imagine that being enough.