Over a third of the way into the season, two months from the trade deadline, the Boston Red Sox are in a complicated position. They're still 3.5 games out of a wild card spot but the offense hasn't improved significantly enough to hold them much closer than that.
The American League, as a whole, has been so underwhelming that it's helped keep the Red Sox in a position to buy at the trade deadline (for now). At least, that's what Craig Breslow plans to do, according to multiple sources. Buster Olney is the latest.
“What I’ve heard today is, they’re aggressively looking for a right-handed hitter… It might be a case where the Red Sox are willing to take on a bad contract,” Onley said of the Sox on Just Baseball's "The Just Baseball Show."
Breslow still believes he can improve this Red Sox team (or save his job) with a big swing of a trade. But not only is taking on a bad contract an utterly horrible idea, this could've been prevented with proper planning, which Breslow hasn't done.
Red Sox may be willing to take on a bad contract in a trade to fix offense, stay in playoff race, which could've been prevented
The Red Sox's offense has been lacking since nearly a year ago, when they traded Rafael Devers on June 15. Boston's lineup has since been virtually powerless, ranking 27th in home runs in the second half of last season and second-to-last with 46 home runs so far this year. Breslow had the power to remedy this in the offseason with an offer to Pete Alonso, Kyle Schwarber or Eugenio Suárez, who each signed perfectly reasonable contracts with other teams that the Red Sox could've beaten or matched (Alonso and Schwarber each got five years), which Olney noted on the podcast.
Breslow's job is seemingly not long for this world, unless the Red Sox can turn their offense around. That hasn't gone well after some of the front office's drastic decisions, like firing Alex Cora and six other coaches on his staff. If Breslow's seat is as hot as it should be right now, he shouldn't be easily permitted to take on a bad contract that could hamper the team in the near future, while its competitive window is supposed to be wide open.
Boston's front office has recently been an endless cycle of new CBOs cleaning up the messes past ones have made over just three-to-four years in the front office. Bringing in another albatross of a contract that the next inevitable CBO is going to have to work around seems like it could hurt the team as much as helping it at this point, especially if there's a work stoppage next year.
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