2020 Red Sox Trade Deadline Preview: How Will Boston Approach Unique Date?

Chaim Bloom’s wild first year running the Boston Red Sox will continue with an unprecedented MLB trade deadline approaching.

The Red Sox and all of baseball are gearing up for the Aug. 31 trade deadline while also navigating a 60-game season in a pandemic with the MLB playoffs rapidly approaching. No one knows what the financial landscape of the sport will look like in six months let alone three years.

Like everything about baseball in 2020, it comes down to your appetite for risk.

WHERE THE RED SOX STAND
Just two teams in all of baseball (Pittsburgh and Los Angeles Angels) have a worse winning percentage than Boston. Only Texas has a worse run differential. This season hasn’t gone the way the Sox hoped, especially after losing Chris Sale and then Eduardo Rodriguez for the season. Even with an expanded playoff field, it looks more and more like a lost season every day.

WHERE THE REST OF THE LEAGUE STANDS
Major League Baseball extended its playoff field from six teams in each league to eight. A staggering 26 teams are within at least four games of the final playoff spot in their respective leagues. Then again, you also have a team like the Cardinals, who have played at least 10 fewer games than the majority of the league after being temporarily shut down due to COVID-19 outbreaks. Obviously, more outbreaks are possible.

THE COVID FACTOR
Speaking of the coronavirus, how does that affect the trade deadline? The quick answer is, in a variety of ways. No one can say with 100% certainty the season and the playoffs will be completed. We’re one massive team-to-team (to team?) outbreak away from this entire thing being done. So, if you’re a general manager, do you want to part with precious prospect assets to acquire a veteran for a stretch run that might not even happen?

THE ECONOMIC FACTOR
There’s also the financial aspect of the pandemic. We just don’t know what sort of economic pitfalls will come from an entire season without fans in the stands. If you can’t get a good idea of what your payroll might look like in 2021 or 2022, it might be difficult to commit to a player who’s signed beyond this season. Theoretically, a team willing to include money to help pay for rentals might be better-suited to maximize the return. Bloom admitted Tuesday night on NESN that a big part of the Red Sox maximizing their return in a trade with Philadelphia for Brandon Workman and Heath Hembree was Boston’s willingness to send money in the deal. The Boston Sports Journal’s Sean McAdam recently reported that’s something the Red Sox could do as the deadline nears, and Bloom admitted as much during his NESN appearance.

“We’re in a different economy,” he said. “That’s true outside of baseball and certainly true within baseball. It’s true for the Red Sox, as well. … It’s not something we take lightly, but at the end of the day, if we have the chance to get a talent package that makes sense for us, it’s a lever we can pull. We know it’s going to have influence this summer as it always does to varying degrees.”

For their own financial situation, the Red Sox don’t have to shed any payroll. As long as the season reaches September, the luxury tax will reset, so they don’t need to trade away any contracts to achieve that previously stated goal.

TRADE PIECES
We don’t feel like we’re talking out of turn here when we say the Red Sox should be open to everything ahead of Aug. 31. That’s in large part because Bloom himself has said as much. Will players like Xander Bogaerts or Rafael Devers be shopped? It certainly doesn’t sound like it; Bloom has said both players are part of the core Bloom wants to build in Boston. After that, though, who knows. The Red Sox currently have four regulars who either are in the final year of their respective contracts or have a team option for the 2021 season. Blowing up the entire thing seems unlikely — president Sam Kennedy recently said the team’s intention is to contend in ’21 — but it’s not like Bloom has drafted, developed and acquired the large majority of these players. He was hired to execute his vision, and the trade deadline is one of the times on the baseball calendar where he can really get to work doing that. Nothing should surprise us in the next week, especially given the club’s current standing in baseball.