List Of Potential Red Sox Trade Targets Shrinks With Angels Blockbuster

The Red Sox and other teams who might be looking to buy ahead of the MLB trade deadline learned Wednesday night they have an unexpected competitor for potentially available players.

The Los Angeles Angels, seemingly in the blink of an eye, went from a team that could have traded the modern-day Babe Ruth in Shohei Ohtani to a team ready to push in chips and go for it. LA swung a late-night blockbuster trade with the lowly Chicago White Sox, acquiring starting pitcher Lucas Giolito and reliever Reynaldo Lopez from the South Siders.

There wasn’t much if any chatter tying the Red Sox to Giolito or Lopez, but both pitchers would have checked boxes for Boston. Chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom recently said the Sox are looking for starting pitching, and another report indicated they would be in the market for a right-handed reliever — like Lopez.

Getting both Giolito and Lopez will help the Angels, but it came at a steep price. The Halos had to part with both their Nos. 2 and 3 prospects, per MLB.com, to make the trade.

Bloom has noted he’d be open to the idea of adding a starting pitcher who is signed beyond 2023. White Sox right-hander Dylan Cease would fill said role, but it sounds like he’s staying put.

Also complicating the market is the number of teams who still believe they can contend for playoff spots. Eleven of the 15 teams in the American League are at worst within 5 1/2 games of a playoff spot. In the National League, that number is nine, and that doesn’t include the Padres and Mets, two big-spending clubs who obviously have talented rosters and conceivably could rattle off eight or nine wins in a row and get back into the race.

Ultimately, a team like the Red Sox might have to “settle” for rentals. MLB.com on Thursday released a ranking of the 14 best remaining starters who could be traded. Nine of those pitchers are either about to enter free agency or have an opt-out clause.

If the surging Sox decide to invest solely in the 2023 club, these are among the notable starting pitching rentals:

LHP Blake Snell (Padres)
LHP Jordan Montgomery (Cardinals)
RHP Jack Flaherty (Cardinals)
RHP Michael Lorenzen (Tigers)

Snell is among the favorites to win the NL Cy Young Award. He hasn’t allowed more than one earned run in a start since May 19 (against the Red Sox), a 12-start stretch in which he has a 0.78 ERA. ESPN’s Jeff Passan recently reported that San Diego has rebuffed teams calling about the southpaw. Bloom is one of a handful of people in the sport who might know Snell best as he was in Tampa Bay when the Rays drafted and developed the pitcher.

Montgomery, Flaherty and Lorenzen are far more in line with the traditional deadline depth rentals (in the mold of, like, 2003 Jeff Suppan to name one of a million from the past). That could make the most sense for the Red Sox, too, assuming everything shakes out in their favor with returning injured players. Boston expects to have Chris Sale, Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock back in the rotation at some point.