Red Sox 'Desperately' Canvassing Trade Market

Here on June 3rd, it seems the Boston Red Sox season is at a crossroads. At 25-34, the club looks up from the basement of the AL East with an awful 9-20 home record at Fenway Park.

Still, the hope for a postseason push lingers, as they remain just 3.5 games out of a Wild Card spot in the American League and are expecting the return of ace Garrett Crochet and young slugger Roman Anthony at some point this summer. Built around elite pitching and defense, there is still time for the club to figure out their offensive woes and acquire the necessary piece to turn the season around.

But with a clearly flawed lineup that has struggled to hit for power and produce runs consistently, many believe that Boston should capitalize on their valuable assets as sellers at the deadline, moving on from players like Jarren Duran, Aroldis Chapman, Sonny Gray, or Willson Contreras that don't fit into the long-term plans.

Internally, however, it seems the Red Sox front office is thinking the former more than the latter.

Rumors of Boston's interest in trading for a right-handed bat began swirling as early as May when Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic reported that they were making calls to add offense. Of course, this was an objective of chief baseball officer Craig Breslow as far back as last season and certainly throughout the offseason.

Unable to work out a trade and losing out on Alex Bregman, the Red Sox did not pick up an additional righty to compliment the power added in Contreras and have felt the loss with the lack of output from third base replacement Caleb Durbin.

Now, reports indicate that Breslow is starting to work the phones with an increased urgency.

In an appearance on the Just Baseball Show, ESPN's Buster Olney said that the Red Sox are "desperate" to add a right-handed bat, saying that they are even willing to take on a bad contract to do so.

"What I've heard today is, it's not just that they are looking for a right-handed hitter, they are aggressively looking for a right-handed hitter, and signaling to the industry, 'we're looking to take on money, we're willing to pay a lot of money,'" Olney said.