Boston Red Sox should make zero big trades

Big trades involve big names, and the Boston Red Sox need to cling to their big names.

However despondent the Boston Red Sox look, their staff of big hitters and all-star pitching forms a real contender.

No, this contending squad is not the 2020 active roster. This is the 2021 active roster.

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This is the roster that has Chris Sale, Eduardo Rodriguez, and Colin McHugh joining Nathan Eovaldi and Martín Pérez in the starting rotation. This is the roster with a fit Rafael Devers and a J.D. Martinez that no longer relies on viewing replays of his at-bats between innings.

Yes, late Friday night, Boston dealt relief pitchers Brandon Workman and Heath Hembree to the Philadelphia Phillies for relief pitcher Nick Pivetta and minor league starting pitcher Connor Seabold, but, as this transaction is absent of the aforementioned “big names,” this is not a big trade.

Who are Boston’s big names?

The big names are the players on the team who could easily be stars.

Martinez is a perennial candidate for the American League’s most valuable player. Before he was forced to deal with baseball’s new rules that take video out of the clubhouse, he drove 100+ runs home, batted above .300, and knocked over 35 baseballs into the outfield seats.

Sure, that makes him a valuable trade target, especially with Mitch Moreland and Michael Chavis playing behind him, but his leadership is too important for him to be whisked away in the middle of an already tumultuous season.

Xander Bogaerts could easily wear the captain’s “C” over his heart for his devotion to the Fenway Faithful. His glove is indispensable and, like Martinez, he makes the top 15 in M.V.P. voting on a regular basis.

His hitting has definitely faltered in 2020, cutting .027 off of his 2019 batting average .309 to his 2020 .282 batting average. This makes him a more available trade target for teams in need of a good shortstop down the home stretch of the season, but, like Martinez, the two-time all-star holds too important of a leadership role to be dealt away midseason.

If the Red Sox expected both these players to play even worse in 2021, then there would be some logic to consigning them to another club sooner rather than later to achieve the best value, but with crowds and a full season possibly returning in 2021, their energy and high-quality play are sure to return, as well.