Red Sox: Standing Pat at the Trade Deadline was a Wise Decision

With injuries to the active roster and the pitching staff not preforming to expectations, the Boston Red Sox front office was smart to not make more moves at the trade deadline.

If you were to tell me after the end of last year’s World Series that the Boston Red Sox would be sitting where they are now this season, I would have called you crazy.

Comparing the 2018 and the 2019 seasons is a bit of sore spot for Red Sox fans, in that last year around this time, the Sox were destroying teams and had one of the best records in baseball at 87-36.

This year, the Red Sox currently sit at a 59-50 record, and are seeing diminished results from some of their starting pitchers that were influential in the playoff run last year.

The one big surprise this year has been Chris Sale, who appears to be in some sort of funk where he just cannot find consistency in his game. He is either on fire, striking out 10-12 batters and giving up less than 2 runs, or he is giving 5+ earned runs and averaging a home run per game.

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This is very uncharacteristic of the ace who crafted a stellar 2.11 ERA last year. Sale was placed on the Injured List on Saturday, and Dr. James Andrews will be looking at his MRI, which may explain those issues.

With the trade deadline closing in on July 31 and the Boston Red Sox 2.5 games outside of the wild card, Red Sox fans were wondering what the front office was going to do to improve the team.

The first acquisition was pitcher Andrew Cashner, who was having an alright year in Baltimore with a 9-3 record and 3.83 ERA (which would make him the lowest ERA starting pitcher on the Red Sox).

He unfortunately has been abysmal since his arrival in Boston, being moved to the bullpen due to his horrendous 7.52 ERA.

And that was it.

There was no more acquisitions by the front office on the one of the busiest days of the year for a general manager.

This left a sour taste in the Red Sox fans, with many hoping that a few trades could shore up the starting rotation and could push the team into a playoff picture to go for back-to-back World Series titles.

Midway into August, a few things are starting to take shape:

-Not trading for rental players and sending prospects the other way was a smart move by the front office

-The Boston Red Sox will probably not make the playoffs this year

By all means a 59-50 record is nothing to turn a cold shoulder too, it just so happens that the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays are preforming better in the division and the team is now 6.5 games back of a wild card spot.

Add to this dilemma in that Chris Sale is on the IL with elbow issues, Dustin Pedroia is hobbling around on one knee and is done for the season, and the Sox losing some key series in the month of August, the defending World Series champions appear to be heading towards vacation when October rolls around.

With hindsight being 20/20, it appears that Dave Dombrowski and his band of misfits made a smart decision in not trading prospects for rental players like Madison Bumgarner.

Trades of this calibre would require significant prospect capital and with a team looking for a wild card spot, rather than defending the top spot in the division, the risk just wasn’t worth it.

While fans would obviously want to see the Red Sox compete again for a World Series championship, the fact is that given how the starting rotation is preforming this year, the odds were not in the teams favour.

For the Red Sox, not a single starting pitcher has an ERA below 4.00, and it would be tough to imagine seeing the same rotation pitch against teams like the Houston Astros or the New York Yankees with their stacked bats in the lineup.

The future does look bright for the Boston Red Sox with players like Rafael Devers and Andrew Benintendi still producing at a high level, but the struggles of the rotation will most likely see a new World Series champion this season.