With luxury tax fears still driving decisions, trading has seemingly become Boston’s workaround for ownership-imposed limits.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - Alex Speier’s weekend notes column for The Boston Globe should be required reading for anyone that calls themselves a Red Sox fan.
It’s the perfect blend of reporting and analysis from a true baseball-mind who has been on the beat at Fenway for a long time.
On Saturday, the bulk of Speier’s piece was about Craig Breslow, and how the Red Sox chief baseball officer has become one of the preeminent “traders” in all of baseball.
According to Speier - since Breslow took over the job in November of 2023, Boston has made 44 trades involving big leaguers. Only the Rays (49) have made more such-trades than the Red Sox in that same span, with the Orioles a distant third at 39 trades in those 26 months.
For context, as illustrated by Speier, Breslow’s 49 trades overall (majors + minors) in that span of time is already one more trade than former CBO Chaim Bloom made in his 46 months on the job.
So why is it that Breslow is averaging nearly 2 trades a month since taking over the gig?
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Speier has a theory that I’m 100% buying:
“Of course, it’s also worth noting that trades can serve as an alternative to the risks of free agency. Whereas top free agents usually require long-term deals with a likelihood of cratering performance at the back end, trades can allow teams to acquire players either for more of their prime seasons or limit the exposure to long-term risk.”
No further analysis required. Speier included quotes from Breslow, which he has to do. But we don’t need to include them here, because they’re purely lip service.
The Red Sox have prioritized avoiding tax penalties more than building the strongest possible roster every season since the end of 2019. This is not an opinion. This is a fact that they’ve all-but said verbatim at various points over the last six years.
Even after last offseason’s successes within the financial structure of acquiring guys like Garrett Crochet, Aroldis Chapman and Alex Bregman via trades and free agency, you had reporting come down Thanksgiving Weekend that said the organization is fearful of having to pay the tax penalties associated with running into the Competitive Balance Tax (CBT).
Breslow is always talking about systems, especially when it comes to Driveline Baseball’s approach to hitting. Clearly, he’s found a system that he thinks will allow him to keep this team competitive while working within the confines of the current Red Sox financial structure.
The results have yielded a playoff berth in his second full season, so I can’t knock him for this. And if you want to be critical of any person based on this quirky stat, all of the anger should be pointed at an ownership group that cares more about saving money than winning games.
Red Sox team president said on a podcast in mid-November that the Red Sox front office was “hungry,” implying a big offseason of spending ahead.
Fast forward to December 29, and Boston joins the Rockies as the only other team in all of baseball not to make a single free agent signing since the offseason got underway on November 2.
Whether or not Breslow likes to trade is one thing. What we can almost say for sure is that Breslow has to trade if he wants Boston to remain competitive in baseball’s best division.
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Tom Carroll is a contributor for Roundtable, with boots-on-the-ground coverage of all things Boston sports. He's a senior digital content producer for WEEI.com, and a native of Lincoln, RI.