Despite their surprising success over the first half of the 2021 Major League Baseball season, the Boston Red Sox still can improve.
MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand on Thursday named a first baseman as the Red Sox’s most-glaring need ahead of the July 30 MLB trade deadline. Bobby Dalbec largely has struggled, and Feinsand believes Boston can bolster its postseason prospects by acquiring a left-handed-hitting upgrade at first.
“Boston’s .663 OPS at first base ranks 12th in the AL, though Bobby Dalbec has 10 home runs in 226 at-bats,” Feinsand wrote. “The Red Sox lineup is predominantly right-handed — Rafael Devers and Alex Verdugo are the only everyday lefties, while Marwin Gonzalez is a switch-hitter — so adding a left-handed bat would be preferable.
Fiensand then named the Colorado Rockies’ C.J. Cron as a potential fit for Boston’s apparent need at first. Cron is batting .252 with 11 home runs and 32 RBIs and a .813 OPS in 2021, his first season with the Rockies. His one-year, $1M contract expires after this season, so the Red Sox won’t have to make a large commitment to the 31-year-old if they acquired him this month. Furthermore, he played seven of his first eight MLB seasons in the American League, so he’d be somewhat familiar with the circuit during the stretch run.
A host of names already have surfaced as potential Red Sox trade targets, so we can add Cron to the list and evaluate the pros and cons alongside the others.
For what it’s worth Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom sounds willing to make a trade so long as the move(s) push the team toward its goals.
