The Red Sox spent the first half of the season making the deadline decision easy. Sell. Then they won ten in a row and complicated it.
That was the state of play Friday, when Boston took Game 1 of a doubleheader against Tampa Bay 10-0 for its 10th consecutive win, with a chance at 11 and a return to .500 in the nightcap.
Craig Breslow has not committed in either direction. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported Friday that Boston’s plans are fluid and that the club “isn’t discounting pursuing help before Aug. 3.”
Passan also laid out the caution sitting behind that. The Red Sox spent half a season as a thoroughly average team, and they know a couple of hot weeks does not rewrite a year. Should the run stop, Passan wrote, Boston can flip to selling and get real value back for Aroldis Chapman, with Sonny Gray, Willson Contreras and Garrett Whitlock as further possibilities.
The Chapman piece may already be settled. Jon Morosi reported Friday that a trade of the All-Star closer looks increasingly unlikely to happen at all, pointing to Boston’s rising postseason probability, which FanGraphs put at 44.3 percent after the Game 1 win.
If the Red Sox do buy, the target is not a mystery. Buster Olney reported in early June that Boston was pursuing a right-handed bat aggressively enough to absorb an unwanted contract in the process. Nothing since has suggested that need went away.
Some restraint is warranted on the other side of it. A share of the offensive production during the streak has come from depth pieces like Anthony Seigler, and a front office deciding whether to spend prospects owes itself an honest read on which parts of this are repeatable.
The market has been quiet since the All-Star break, so Boston has not missed anything yet. Breslow’s front office also has a reputation for standing still. The deadline is Aug. 3.
