With the trade deadline fast approaching, the Red Sox seem to be on the verge of making a huge mistake.
Free-falling out of the playoff race and stuck below the .500 mark, the Red Sox appear ready to trade a number of their veteran players who will be free agents after the season.
That's not the mistake part, however.
(For the longest time, I advocated against a sell-off, maintaining that the Red Sox shouldn't yet give up on the season and that once healthy, they could mount a second-half climb for a wild card spot. This past week has shown that to be an unrealistic proposition. It's time to listen to -- and act on -- any free-agent-to-be not named Xander Bogaerts by Tuesday at 6 p.m.)
The mistake, however, is the Red Sox' insistence -- as reported by The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal and other national reporters -- that they receive major league players in return.
Did the franchise learn nothing from the last time they took this stance?
Recall that in 2014, the Red Sox had a giant sell-off in response to a highly disappointing season that followed a World Series title the previous October. The Red Sox shipped Jon Lester to Oakland, and John Lackey to St. Louis.
But instead of acquiring top prospects from the A's and Cardinals, the Red Sox received Yoenis Cespedes, Allen Craig and Joe Kelly in return.
How'd that work out?
(In fairness, the Red Sox made one other deal at that deadline that did work out, sending Andrew Miller to Baltimore for a young pitching prospect Eduardo Rodriguez. Is it just a wild coincidence that the one trade which returned them a prospect happened to be the only good transaction of that July? Probably not.)
At the time, the Red Sox' stance was that the fan base, having won three World Series in the previous decade, wouldn't stand for a rebuild. So, the Sox insisted on major league-ready talent in return, in order to shorten the road back to contention.
That calculus proved faulty. Cespedes was a bust in the final two months -- in addition to refusing to move around in the outfield -- and was traded that off-season for Rick Porcello. Porcello went on to win a Cy Young award with the Sox and was a key part of the 2018 championship team. But first the Sox had to trade the player they acquired for Lester to get him.
Craig was a monumental bust in Boston. In 65 games over two years, Craig slashed .139/.236/.197 with two homers and five RBI. I repeat: a slugging percentage of .197. He was later outrighted to the minors, where he spent parts of three seasons before the Red Sox released him. He was paid $21 million while at Pawtucket.
Kelly was an occasionally useful bullpen piece, but in five years with the Sox, posted an ERA below 4.00 just once (2017). He was also a force in the 2018 postseason (0.79 ERA over nine appearances that October), but was otherwise just another reliever for them.
Do you sense a pattern here? When you make deadline deals in which you're giving up a star player and insist on major league talent back, you're asking for trouble. That's because a team looking to improve itself for the final two months by acquiring, say, J.D. Martinez or Christian Vazquez, or both, isn't about to surrender any useful major league talent.
That would defy logic. If serves no purpose for a contender to obtain one useful veteran in exchange for another. They would much rather surrender a prospect who isn't quite ready to contribute for the stretch drive. That prospect may one day blossom into a star, but he wasn't about to help now, and now is what contending teams are all about.
A contending team, however, will give up damaged goods or underachieving players -- like Craig, who had suffered a mysterious dropoff at the plate after three straight seasons with an OPS of .830 or better. Or Cespedes, who carried the reputation of being a difficult personality and was frequently injured.
The Mets are one team that has engaged with the Sox on both Martinez and Vazquez. Initial reports had the Red Sox focused on Mark Vientos, a power-hitting third baseman who is ranked as the Mets' No. 3 prospect. But later, the Red Sox were apparently more focused on first baseman Dom Smith, who would be this year's version of Craig -- only far less accomplished.
Smith has played parts of six seasons in the big leagues. His best season came in the pandemic year of 2020 when he played full-time and posted a .993 OPS with 10 homers and 42 RBI in 50 games. But since then, Smith's production has cratered and he's currently hitting .194/.276.284 with no homers in 58 games and 134 at-bats.
No homers in 58 games.
This is someone who interests the Sox?
Remarkably, given his past track record, Smith would represent an upgrade over Franchy Cordero and Bobby Dalbec at first. But he also has just two years of control remaining.
So rather than take a flier on a highly-touted prospect, the Sox are content for a marginal upgrade to finish out the season?
Such thinking is an insult to the fan base. It took another couple of years to recover from the fallout of the 2014 sell-off, all because the Red Sox mistakenly believed that their fans would not accept prospects, no matter how talented. Instead, they took flawed/damaged goods and didn't have another winning season until 2016.
Red Sox fans should be rooting that history doesn't repeat itself over the next 48 hours.