The rate at which the Red Sox have made roster moves in the last two weeks has been astounding. Every day brings with it a minor trade or an option or a DFA.
Beginning April 21 through Thursday morning, the Red Sox made a total of 20 transactions involving their major leaguer roster, including some days in which several moves were made. Some involved injured players going on the IL — or, in the case of Triston Casas, shifting from the 10-day IL to the 60-day IL. A total of 17 players were involved.
Thanks to the run of injuries that took place to the parent club, many of these moves were borne out of necessity. When players are hurt, they need to replaced by healthier ones — there are no alternatives. But many were also done as upgrades, where the team thought there were better options available, either internally or externally.
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The days of constructing a roster over the offseason and then keeping it largely intact until at least the trade deadline are long gone. Now, the Opening Day roster is merely an outline, a suggested blueprint with regular updates and changes made as as matter of routine.
Every competitive advantage is sought. If a team believes Player A represents a slight improvement to the roster over Player B, there’s a good chance that Player B’s days are numbered.
The game has always been a meritocracy, where roster spots are won and lost based on performance. But never more so than in today’s game.
Just ask Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow.
“You’re constantly balancing long-term and short-term outlooks,” said Breslow, “what the implications are a week from now, a month from now, a year from now. At the same time, it’s important and meaningful to address the roster when opportunities arise to do that. Sometimes it takes being aggressive or thinking in ways we hadn’t. Stabilizing a roster has significant impact on a lot of things, none less important than our ability to win games.
“In the offseason, it’s possible to be a little more deliberate and intentional and think through all of those things. Whereas often (in-season) we have a short window of time to execute. (Recently) a few things have come together that we think allow us to improve our team without costing us in the long run. That should always be our objective. Moves in April or May tend not to be as significant in terms of magnitude as the moves you make in the offseason or July (at the deadline). But that doesn’t mean that they ultimately become less impactful.”
In the last two weeks, the Red Sox have effectively traded Joe Jacques, Joely Rodriguez, Emanuel Valdez and Bobby Dalbec for Cam Booser, Naoyuki Uwaasawa, Bailey Horn, Dominic Smith and Zack Short. (That doesn’t begin to take into account the moves that were made to account for players on the IL).
There are no immortals on that list. But the Red Sox — and most other organizations — believe that even a small (but measurable) uptick in value can make a difference over the course of a long season.
“Of course it’s a star-driven league. We know that,” said Alex Cora. “But what you do with the edge of the roster is very important. Having flexibility is huge. You can move guys around. It’s always important. I do believe the edge of the roster can help you win, I don’t know….eight games, nine games a season. That’s important at the end. It is.
“We have all these projections, all these numbers. Some of them they say 82 (wins), another one is is 78. But at the end, you still have to go out there and play. And if you can steal a win here, steal a win there, it adds up to what you’re trying to accomplish.”
It’s part of an industry-wide trend that may be driven by the reliance on analytics. Just as all teams now have access to the same data points when it comes to evaluating free agents, the same principal applies when it comes to the willingness to make small improvements that could translate into an additional handful of wins.
“Teams generally are more transactional,” said Breslow, “which means there are more marginal players available on waivers and in small trades, or veteran players with (opt-outs). For me, what kind of opened my eyes is my experience in Chicago, where players we acquired via small trades or waiver claims ultimately became the most dependable arms in our bullpen.
“Mark Leiter signing a minor league deal, or Julian Merryweather being a waiver claim — those guys turned into leveraged relievers. I started thinking, ‘Hey, there’s a way to replicate that.’ The other side is, you’re overly aggressive and you don’t give players enough runway to show who they are. So we’re constantly trying to strike that balance. But the one thing we should be doing is being aggressive when we see an opportunity to upgrade our roster.”
Currently, almost one-third of a major league roster — typically, eight of 26 spots — is allotted to relievers, and no area undergoes more churn than the bullpen. Relievers can be invaluable one year and forgettable the next, so there’s bound to be plenty of turnover.
In recognition of that fact, Cora said last September that he hoped to have more major league relievers with remaining options on this year’s roster, allowing him increased flexibility when the inevitable ups and downs occur. Don’t like the way your seventh-inning guy is throwing for now? Send him to the minors in exchange for a fresher arm. And 10 days later, the two can be flipped again.
Breslow acknowledges that even in a time when nearly everything can be quantified, often the decision behind whether to swap out one player for another can be a less exact science.
“Ultimately, we want to evaluate how this potential target compares to the alternatives,” he said. “Is there a (numerical) threshold we’re trying to accomplish? Yes, sometimes there is, like projected WAR. But sometimes it’s not something that can be quantified as easily. Sometimes it’s about upside that can be realized through development intervention that we can make. We might think, ‘If we can add this pitch’ or ‘if we change his usage,’ that’s going to make him X better.”
At times, there are factors that go beyond analytics and quantifiable value. If there’s a choice to be made between acquiring an external option and promoting someone already in the organization and the two players are essentially even, Breslow said the team might lean toward providing opportunity to the player in the minors — to send the right reinforcing message to the player development staff and others in the pipeline.
The danger comes when there’s too much turnover on the roster and it impacts the clubhouse vibe. Relationships are formed and team chemistry can be negatively impacted when players are constantly coing and going.
“We work so hard in spring training (addressing) chemistry and culture, and all of a sudden, you’ve got a whole different roster,” admitted Cora, citing some of the risks.
But in the end, this is a performance business with wins and losses at stake.
“I think,” concluded Breslow, “what teams are realizing is that there are wins available on the margins and in order to realize those wins you have to be transactional. The parameters around what transactions are viable and aren’t are largely driven by the resources you have as an organization. What we have in Boston is the ability to be decisive and aggressive. Hopefully, if we get a lot of these right, which I think we can, we are able to influence the wins on the field. And if we get some of these wrong, they don’t become prohibitive mistakes.”
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After the turmoil they experienced in recent weeks, the Red Sox managed to finish up the homestand without incurring any additional injuries or loss of manpower.
They finished 4-2 on their homestand, a step forward after going a woeful 3-7 on the first one. They began to incorporate a handful of new players who recently joined the roster — the series with the Giants saw no fewer than four players make their Red Sox debut — and seemed to have survived the worst of their recent string of injuries.
Vaughn Grissom is expected to be the next player to make his team debut Friday. It will be another seven weeks or so (when Casas returns) before they can claim to have three-quarters of their envisioned starting infield playing together.
The winning homestand and some stabilization may provide the necessary momentum in the upcoming week, when the Red Sox will have one of their more challenging road trips: three games against the Minnesota Twins, followed by two against the Atlanta Braves.
The Braves supremacy is obvious. Most talent evaluators regard them as one of the two most talented teams in the big leagues and their first month (20-9) has done nothing to dissuade anyone, even with the devastating loss of Spencer Strider.
The Twins, who began the year horribly, have rebounded with 10 straight wins — even if it must be noted that seven of those came against the woebegone White Sox.
“Atlanta is obviously Atlanta, and Minnesota’s been playing really, really solid baseball of late,” said Rob Refsnyder. “But shoot, we have, too. Guys have really stepped up. Young guys are figuring it out, making really great adjustments. Wilyer (Abreu) has been fantastic, and Rafaela’s hit some balls really hard the past coupe of games sand playing really solid shortstop. The bullpen’s settling in, and the starting pitching’s obviously been incredible. It will be a great test playing against these teams.”
Refsnyder credited Breslow for being aggressive with some roster moves to cover for the injuries.
“He brought us some really solid clubhouse guys,” said Refsnyder, “some guys who have had a lot of success in their careers, with Coop (Cooper) and Dom (Smith) and a really versatile piece in Zack (Short). Give Breslow a lot of credit. He went out good some really solid players. And just bringing in some veterans guys with experience helps. So the roster seems a little more stable.”
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Just when it seemed like Mike Trout might becoming himself again with 10 homers in his first 29 games, he suffered a torn meniscus in his left knee, which will require surgery and sideline him for an extended period. The expectation is that Trout will return at some point this season, but this setback continues a disturbing trend.
This season will now likely mark the third time in the last four full-length seasons that Trout will fail to play 100 games. He played in just 36 games in 2021, before rebounding to play 119 in 2022. But last year, he was available for just 82 games.
From his age 29 season, Trout has, because of a succession of physical setbacks including a torn calf muscle, a back injury, a hand injury, and now, his knee, played in fewer than half of his games.
In addition to robbing the sport of his talent for most of the last four seasons, the ailments have drastically altered his career path and profile.
It wasn’t long ago that, with 285 homers through the end of his age 27 season (2019), you could start thinking about Trout becoming a member of the 700-homer club, populated by only Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds.
Now, with Trout about to turn 33 in August, that plateau seems impossibly out of reach. With 378 career homers, Trout is under contract for another six seasons. Given how banged up he is and how much time he’s missed, the likelihood of Trout hitting 300-something homers over those final six seasons is remote.
Moreover, there’s the question of his future with the Angels. When asked before the season about his frustration level over reaching the playoffs just once in his career — a decade ago, incredibly — Trout seemed to crack the door open at least somewhat to asking for/demanding a trade if the Angels didn’t become more competitive in the near future.
Given the onerous nature of the contract and the injury risk which will only grow as he ages, it’s hard to think that any team would be willing to absorb the nearly $223 million remaining (starting next season) for such damaged goods.
Worse, whether he rebounds physically and becomes something close to who he once was, there seems little chance the Angels are going to be a contending club anytime soon.
How terrible it would be if one of the game’s greatest ever talents got to the end of his career with a mere three Division Series games to his credit.
