Could the Shane Victorino trade be the first of many?
While Boston Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington insisted Monday night the club wasn’t close to completing any other deals, he also didn’t rule out the possibility of moving additional pieces before Friday’s Major League Baseball non-waiver trade deadline.
“We’ve been talking a lot about all sorts of stuff,” Cherington said on a conference call. “We don’t have anything else, certainly nothing to announce, and I wouldn’t say there’s anything particularly close. Probably some things we could do but not anxious to do quite yet.
“We’ll keep working, and we’re, again, looking at and talking about all kinds of stuff, different types of deals — big, small and in between. It’s a lot of talk, and we’ll see where it leads to. I think at the very least we’ll have a lot more information by the end of the week than we do now.”
It’s difficult to extract much from those comments, other than to note the Red Sox aren’t sitting on their hands in the days leading up to the July 31 deadline. Trading Victorino to the Los Angeles Angels in exchange for infielder Josh Rutledge certainly classifies as a minor move given the veteran outfielder’s minimal impact the last two seasons and his impending free agency this winter, but it perhaps represents the type of deal we could see more of in the coming days if the Red Sox continue to sell pieces.
It’s also interesting to hear Cherington is looking into trades of all sizes, because it suggests the Red Sox are open to making a major splash, though any such deal almost certainly would be geared toward improving for 2016 and perhaps beyond.
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Thumbnail photo via Twitter/@Eich_AJ
