Why Chaim Bloom, Red Sox are unlikely to make an impact trade now
If Chaim Bloom wants to send his roster a message of encouragement, I suppose he could swing a trade in the next few days. But if he hopes to add an impact player, that's just not going to happen until the end of July.
It is an annual tradition to demand whoever is running the Red Sox to "get a jump on the trade mahhh-ket" when the season is faltering in June, but almost without exception, that simply doesn't happen.
The most commonly cited counterexample doesn't really count, for the purposes of this conversation, because when the Red Sox acquired Steve Pearce from the Orioles on June 28, 2018, no one thought they were landing the future World Series MVP. Dave Dombrowski merely wanted to shore up an area of weakness -- a lack of right-handed hitting off the bench -- and it just so happened that Pearce got very hot four months later in Los Angeles. No one heralded his arrival as particularly galvanizing. That only became apparent after the fact.
This conversation is once again relevant because after a lackluster 4-1 loss to the White Sox on Sunday, the last-place Red Sox slid back to just a game over .500. Since winning six straight last week, they've lost four out of five, including a pair on walk-offs. They're three games out of the wild card and ninth overall in the American League.
That has created a sense of urgency and renewed calls for Bloom to make an early splash. It sounds good in theory, but ignores the reality that relatively few teams consider themselves sellers thanks to the expanded playoffs, and those that do know they'll receive a better return if they wait until the end of July, when every contender and wannabe will be in the market.
"Striking first" just isn't really a thing. Look no further than last year's murderous AL East, where the deals happened thusly: the Yankees acquired Andrew Benintendi on July 27, the Rays got David Peralta on July 30, the Red Sox traded Christian Vazquez on Aug. 1, and the Blue Jays acquired Whit Merrifield on Aug. 2. (The trade deadline Aug. 2 last year.)
Given Bloom's generally cautious nature, plus the fact that his primary need (starting pitching) is on the wish list of basically every contender, and it's hard to envision the Red Sox making the kind of trade that moves the needle. They're far more likely to buy another Pablo Reyes or pluck another Brennan Bernardino off waivers while using the next month to decide whether they're buyers or sellers.
Our buddy Rob Bradford cites last year's Mariners as an example of a team that benefited from an early move. They were six games under .500 last June when they acquired first baseman Carlos Santana from the Royals. They proceeded to win 21 of 25 en route to their first playoff berth since 2001.
While there's no question the clubhouse appreciated management adding a player of Santana's stature, it's also true that during those 25 games, he hit just .175. The real spark came from youngster Julio Rodriguez, who caught fire and carried it to a Rookie of the Year award.
Still, Santana started hot and his mentorship of Rodriguez helped the 21-year-old unlock his incredible talent. So let's give the Mariners that one. It's difficult to find a single other example of a big June trade from the last 20 years.
MLB.com compiled a list, and you have to go all the way back to 2004 to find an impact talent changing hands this early in the offseason. That's when Royals five-tool center fielder Carlos Beltran went to the Astros and then went off in the playoffs, leading Houston to within a game of the World Series. Otherwise, the most notable trade might be the White Sox acquiring rugged right-hander James Shields from the Padres in 2016, a deal that's remembered now for what Chicago surrendered: a 17-year-old shortstop named Fernando Tatis Jr.
The last thing the Red Sox want to do is land on the wrong side of one of those trades. So while it might be cathartic to imagine grabbing Bloom by the lapels and screaming, "YOU NEED TO DO SOMETHING!" that's not how baseball works. Check back in a month, along with everyone else.
