BOSTON — There was a moment at about 5 p.m. Tuesday when it looked like the Red Sox might be up to something big.
MLB Network’s Jon Morosi tweeted that one of the Red Sox big-three prospects had been pulled from the Sea Dogs lineup an hour before the 6 p.m. trade deadline:
“Roman Anthony, a top Red Sox prospect, scratched from the lineup today at Double-A Portland.”
The only way that’s newsworthy to MLB Network is if it was trade-related. If the Red Sox were going to move Anthony, well then something big was going down.
Tarik Skubal? Garrett Chochet? Vlad Jr.?
But the Red Sox weren’t moving Anthony, who, as it turns out, was never actually in the Portland lineup. Nothing big was going down. More than likely, something big was never in the works. The trade deadline was, as it often is, anti-climactic.
BetMGM BET UP TO $1,500! BONUS BET REFUND AFTER A LOSS
STATES: AZ, CO, IA, IL, IN, KS, LA, MD, MI, NJ, OH, PA, TN, VA. Visit BetMGM.com for Terms and Conditions. 21 years of age or older to wager. MA Only. New Customer Offer. All promotions are subject to qualification and eligibility requirements. Rewards issued as non-withdrawable bonus bets. Bonus bets expire 7 days from issuance. In Partnership with MGM Springfield. Play it smart from the start with GameSense. GameSenseMA.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-327-5050 or visit gamblinghelplinema.org. US Promotional Offers not available in New York.
Whether that was a good thing or not will be determined by whether Anthony, Marcelo Mayer and Kyle Teel turn out to be key parts of the future Red Sox or some version of Blake Swihart 2.0.
In the end, Red Sox baseball boss Craig Breslow did what he said he was going to do without really doing what people were daydreaming about when he said it. He upgraded.
A little.
The Red Sox got better in the present without surrendering Anthony or any other prospect, who projects to be a mainstay in the Boston lineup in the second half of the 2020s. Presumably, that was the goal. When Breslow said he planned to upgrade at the deadline to support this team that’s been in playoff contention a little sooner than people expected, this is what he meant.
Given the moves he made, it was pretty clear Breslow was never planning to do anything that would derail the long-term build-from-within plan. He wasn’t chasing Jason Bay, Nate Eovaldi or even Kyle Schwarber. Breslow traded prospects the Red Sox might lose in the Rule 5 Draft, whose path to the majors was blocked or were simply too young to worry that much about.
He traded them for bargains that should make the Red Sox better. How much much better?
James Paxton felt like a surprising DFA by the Dodgers, but it’s still a little hard to set expectations terribly high for a guy that a playoff team was willing to dump.
Danny Jansen, the right-handed bat they got was a platoon catcher who was hitting .212 on a last-place team.
The best move the Red Sox made as far as showing a commitment to winning, was still locking up Alex Cora. He’s the walking embodiment that getting to the postseason is not a 1-in-30 crapshoot. Cora has shown he’s good enough to beat a slightly more talented opponent, by maneuvering his chess pieces better.
After Tuesday he’s got better bullpen pieces to play with Lucas Sims and Luis Garcia aren’t stars, but they’ll help. So will Chris Martin, Justin Slaten and perhaps Liam Hendriks eventually.
Whether the deadline was a success depends on how they’re defining success. Is the goal to get to the playoffs or to make a run when they get there? This was a better deadline than the recent Chaim Bloom indecisionfests. But was it enough? Time will tell.
Follow MassLive sports columnist Matt Vautour on Twitter at @MattVautour424.
