Red Sox Fans Left Disappointed by Yet Another Trade Deadline

The dissatisfaction Boston Red Sox fans are feeling is something they’ve become used to after the trade deadline in recent years. From Luis Urías headlining the 2023 haul or last year’s shortcomings with Lucas Sims and Luis Garcia, the Fenway faithful have become too familiar with being let down by the team’s last chance to add to the roster.

But this? This feels different.

For the first time since 2021, the Red Sox found themselves in a playoff spot on deadline day. They sat in the second Wild Card spot, just a game and a half ahead of the first team out. With the most talented roster they’ve had in years, they were a couple moves away from looking like serious World Series contenders. Instead, they walked away with Steven Matz and Dustin May, moves that don’t exactly move the needle compared to the moves of the Yankees, Mariners and Rangers.

We are about six weeks removed from the Red Sox trading the best player on the team. After Rafael Devers was moved, Craig Breslow insisted they were still a competitive team. And you know what? He was right.

The team went 22-15 and owned the second-best record in the American League from that day until the trade deadline. Although I believe there were a lot of shortcomings, let’s look at what they did do.

Stats updated prior to games on August 1.

LHP Steven Matz for 3B Blaze Jordan

After being signed as a starting pitcher ahead of the 2022 season, struggles and injuries led to Matz’s transition to the bullpen. With a 3.42 ERA and 2.87 FIP, he is having his best season in years. But the Red Sox have a decision to make: Do they bring him back to the rotation?

If so, he hasn’t been a regular starter in years and hasn’t completed six innings in a game since Aug. 12, 2023. Or, they could keep him in the bullpen, where he would become the fifth lefty reliever on the roster, joining Aroldis Chapman, Justin Wilson, Brennan Bernardino and Chris Murphy.

Matz may help the team, but he does not address a position of need. He doesn’t seem like a likely candidate to be inserted into the rotation, and his presence in the bullpen isn’t something the team needed to add.

Trading Blaze Jordan, while difficult for some fans, was understandable. With Alex Bregman at third, ideally for the foreseeable future, it’s hard to see Jordan getting regular playing time on the big league roster. Being that he’s Rule 5 eligible following this season, it makes sense to move on. But could they have done better for Matz than him?

At 22 years old, Jordan was recently promoted to AAA, where he is slashing .298/.341/.480 for a .820 OPS in 182 plate appearances. His 10.6% strikeout rate ranks 13th lowest among the 362 hitters with 150+ PAs in AAA this season. While he is still a work in progress, you have to wonder if a rental reliever was the best Boston could have done with him.

RHP Dustin May for 1B/RF James Tibbs III and OF Zach Ehrhard

This trade was an abomination and perhaps even more glaring than the lack of other moves. Dustin May is not a part of the Dodgers’ long-term plan. If you count Shohei Ohtani, they have five better starting pitchers under team control for at least the next three years.

They also have other fill-in starters and prospects when needed. And while May currently holds the virtue of being healthy, they didn’t view him as someone who would be on the team much longer.

May has made 19 starts this year and has tossed 104 innings. Before this year, he had never thrown more than 56 innings in a Major League season. In his returning year from Tommy John surgery, he is well beyond uncharted territory and is now the top acquisition for a team looking to make the playoffs and go on a run. All this just two months before he is set to hit free agency.

Before this trade, the Red Sox were riding a rotation of Garrett Crochet, Lucas Giolito, Brayan Bello, Richard Fitts and Walker Buehler, with Kyle Harrison waiting in the wings. It’s hard to see where May fits in to this, but it’s probably not towards the front. He has a 4.85 ERA and 4.70 FIP this year, but also a 5.59 ERA and 5.57 FIP since the start of June, which was also around the time he surpassed 56 innings, the most he threw in any season with the Dodgers.

Given that he is coming off a major surgery, he is a much different pitcher now than he was at the start of his career. The average velocity on both his four-seam fastball and sinker is 2 mph slower than in 2023. He has had to reinvent himself by throwing his sweeper 41.8% of the time this year, a pitch he only threw 7.3% of the time in 2023.

While the sweeper has been effective, the sinker and cutter have suffered. He has allowed an opponents’ slugging percentage near or above .600 on both pitches.

There is a lot that needs to be fixed with May. But even if Andrew Bailey is able to accomplish that, he’s still a rental that ended up costing quite a lot.

James Tibbs III was one of the returning pieces from the Devers trade in mid-June. He was a first-round pick in last year’s draft and has already reached the AA level at age 22. His inclusion in this trade diminishes the return to just Harrison, May, Jordan Hicks and Jose Bello. Like Jordan, even if Tibbs might not have had an opportunity in Boston, a trade of him should’ve netted more than May, especially if he wasn’t the only prospect involved in the deal.

2024 fourth-round pick Zach Ehrhard is also going to the Dodgers in this trade. At age 22, he is also already in AA, where he has slashed .232/.310/.420 for a 111 wRC+ this season.

The Red Sox’s two trades not only failed to make the team considerably better on paper, they also did not address any of the key needs on the roster.

They didn’t clear up the outfield logjam that has been an ever-present issue the entire year, they did not get a number two starter behind Crochet, they did not add a first baseman, and they did not add a backup catcher to replace Connor Wong, who has a 21 wRC+ in 109 PA this year.

In previous years, fans were frustrated to see the Red Sox stand pat at the trade deadline. But as annoying as it can be, sometimes it makes sense. The 2022, 2023 and 2024 teams were not in a position to lean heavily into buying. Those rosters had a lot of holes, and the team was in the middle of building one of the best farm systems in the league. They simply weren’t good enough to go all in, but also not bad enough to blow it up.

This was the year to go for it. All of the young players fans were told to be excited for are now up, and Roman Anthony, the prized prospect, has immediately become an amazing contributor.

A reason why this is so frustrating for fans is that this team is talented enough to make the playoffs. The position players, rotation and bullpen all ranked top three in the majors in fWAR in the month of July. They had tradable pieces at the major league and minor league levels that could’ve been used to better the current roster.

From a strictly Red Sox perspective, the true evaluation of this year’s trade deadline will come at the conclusion of this season when both Matz and May hit the open market. The evaluations of Jordan, Tibbs and Ehrhard will be seen in the coming years if and when they make it to the majors. But for now, Red Sox fans are once again left wondering what could’ve been.