Just don’t do it!
How do we kill the Triston Casas trade rumors? Push them off a cliff? Tempt them with a poison apple? Hire one of those guys from Michael Clayton and make it look like an accident?* Someone please do something!
(*RIP Tom Wilkinson, may heaven provide you with a never-ending supply of fresh baguettes.)
While Craig Breslow said on the record — just last week! — that the Sox are not shopping Casas, MassLive reports today that “there remains a belief in the industry that the Red Sox remain open to trading Casas, potentially for young pitching, to facilitate other roster maneuvering.”
On one hand, that language is so wishy-washy that it presents a slip-and-fall hazard. I mean, shit, there “remains a belief” around my house that we will one day get the kids’ bedtime routine to under an hour — but absolutely no one is betting on that happening before the next Olympics.
But on the other hand, we can’t deny that the Red Sox clearly are at least contemplating a change at third base which, should one come to fruition, would send dominos falling all around the infield. The Sox have been engaged in talks with free agent Alex Bregman, with Alex Cora himself fueling a lot of the speculation by repeatedly praising the third baseman and suggesting he could even play second for the Red Sox. And now we’re hearing that, not only is Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado willing to accept a trade to Boston, but that that he’s actively pushing for one.
I won’t deny that there are plausible arguments that either Bregman or Arendado could improve the Boston Red Sox: both would balance the lineup by adding a right-handed bat, both would provide veteran leadership on a team with an emerging young core, both would add very good defense to an infield that, at times last season, acted as if the baseball was tainted by bird flu. And it’s true that Casas might net a decent young arm in return. But these trade scenarios — most of which contemplate trading Casas for pitching in order to open up first base for Devers and third base for Bregman or Arenado — seem needlessly baroque.
First base, as currently manned by Triston Casas, is simply not an area of need — he is a young, fun, and cheap player capable of hitting 40 home runs if he stays healthy. That’s a player you want on your team! Don’t touch first base!
In fact, there really aren’t many corners of the roster that present glaring areas of need. The starting staff, though one big arm short in my opinion, is currently projected to be the fifth-best rotation in baseball per FanGraphs, while the bullpen is projected to be the second-best. The outfield, through crowded, is outstanding, with the potential to get even better with the development of Roman Anthony. And while the lineup had one too many blackholes last year thanks to sub-par performances at second base, shortstop, and catcher, the Red Sox still put up the 9th best OPS+ in baseball in 2024. And with Trevor Story, Kristian Campbell, Marcelo Mayer, and Vaughn Grissom all looking healthy as we approach spring training, there’s plenty of potential for those blackholes to be filled quite nicely.
Fixing the Red Sox this offseason shouldn’t have been a complicated proposition: add two top of the rotation starters, add a high-leverage arm to the bullpen, add right-handed power to the lineup. These were straight-forward problems that could have been addressed with a straight-forward solution: pay the market rate for good baseball players.
But the Red Sox’ clearly have an institutional fear of free agency. They were unwilling to extend themselves for any of the top pitchers on the market, forcing them to trade from their prospect depth, gamble on a reclamation project, and now, dangle the best homegrown power-hitter they’ve produced in years to try to improve the rotation. They chose to neither resign Tyler O’Neil, nor to even consider free agent replacements like Teoscar Hernandez or Pete Alonso. There are only three avenues to add premium talent to a big league roster — develop it, trade for it, or give it the money it is worth — and the Red Sox have effectively closed off one of those avenues.
So this is what we’re left with. The Red Sox are so afraid to simply pay baseball players what they’re worth that they’re willing to blow up the entire infield in pursuit of some defensive upgrades and a mid-rotation starter. It’s a Rube Goldberg machine of a trade scenario that would ship out one of the best young players in the league for — in the best case scenario — a marginal short-term upgrade overall.
Don’t do it! Just don’t! The risks of this rumored trade are too great, while the potential rewards are too paltry. It appears that the Red Sox are, once again, so focused on being the smartest team in the room that they’ve forgotten something basic: they’re already one of the richest teams in the room, and that ain’t nothing.