Red Sox shouldn't pursue trade for Christian Yelich

The Boston Red Sox are in need of more offense. While Christian Yelich is a fantastic player, he isn’t going to be the solution to this problem.

Let me start off by saying I’m a huge Christian Yelich fan. Definition of a dude. He just turned 26 and already has a Gold Glove and a Silver Slugger award. The outfielder is above-average at every facet of the game, and he’s still getting better. With all that being said, the Boston Red Sox shouldn’t even consider him as a trade target.

Does that seem harsh? It should. The asking price for Yelich is reportedly going to be high. Why shouldn’t it be? He’s young, under contract through 2022, and isn’t set to get paid ungodly amounts of money.

Personally, I’m one of those “don’t sell the farm” types. I don’t like seeing teams give up young talent that should shape a franchise too often. I also understand that it’s inevitable though. Sometimes it needs to happen if a team wants to improve. A lot of people will disagree with me on that, and would rather get established talent for the unknown.

No matter how you think though, everyone can agree that sometimes it’s not worth it.

For a lot of teams, Yelich would 100% be worth it. How much of an upgrade is he really to the Boston Red Sox outfield though?

Realistically, the Red Sox aren’t moving Andrew Benintendi or Mookie Betts to get Yelich. That leaves Jackie Bradley Jr. as the man being “upgraded” by the Miami Marlins star.

While Yelich has one Gold Glove to Bradley’s zero, no one is going to try and convince you Yelich is the better fielder. Bradley is a top ten (maybe top five) defensive outfielder in baseball.

Then there’s the offense. Last season, Yelich crushed Bradley in batting average and on-base percentage. In fact, those are two categories he regularly tops the Red Sox centerfielder in.

Last season, Yelich also won the slugging percentage category. However, Bradley picked up the W in that area the two previous years.

Then there’s the actual power numbers and run production. Yelich appeared in 156 games compared to 133 for Bradley in 2017. Despite that, he hit just one more homer (18) than Bradley Jr. (17) and hit fewer triples (two compared to three).