Red Sox engaged with Twins on Joe Ryan only to balk at the trade deadline — again

New York Times

2 days ago

As the minutes ticked closer to Thursday's 6 p.m. ET trade deadline, the Boston Red Sox reached out to the Minnesota Twins about coveted starter Joe Ryan. But according to league sources briefed on discussions from the Twins' side, talks fell apart when the Red Sox were unwilling to offer any of their big league outfielders, or an enticing enough package of their top-tier prospects.
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Jhostynxon Garcia, the Red Sox's top outfield prospect, was in the mix to be in the deal. But despite a highly-regarded farm system, sources said that the rest of the haul offered by Boston was not substantial enough to land Ryan, owner of a 2.82 ERA whose value is enhanced by being under team control through 2027.
So, despite a dire need to bolster their rotation and Craig Breslow's repeated public declarations about investing in this team, the Red Sox pivoted to much more modest additions like pitchers Steven Matz and Dustin May. That left Breslow to defend his moves after the deadline on Thursday, an acknowledgement that fans expected more reinforcements for a team that has shown flashes of potential.
'I understand the frustration and the disappointment, because we're all looking at the last week right now in terms of the trades that were made and weren't made, and there's not a lot of sympathy for how hard we tried to get deals across the line,' Breslow said. 'We believe that we have a really young, exciting, talented team, and one that is capable of continuing to perform at this level and make it to the postseason.'
Adding a top-of-the-rotation starter at the deadline to join ace Garrett Crochet would have made Boston's playoff chances even better. The club holds the second wild card spot in the American League with a 59-51 record, putting them a season-high eight games over .500 FanGraphs places their chances to secure a wild-card spot at 53 percent — odds that might be better had they approached the deadline more aggressively.
Instead, their trades didn't do much to move the Hope-O-Meter.
Heads of baseball operations have changed in Boston, but the approach remains the same. The Red Sox have lacked an all-out decisiveness at the deadline for years, and Breslow continued the trend despite his big talk. Last month, in the aftermath of shipping Rafael Devers to San Francisco in a blockbuster deal, he struck a bold tone.
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'I think we've talked a lot about looking to the future, at some point, the future has to be now,' Breslow told The Athletic then. 'We went into 2025 expecting to compete for the division and expecting to make it to the playoffs.'
Breslow brushed aside the notion that the Devers deal was a salary dump. He insisted that it was part of an effort to rework the chemistry of the team and open playing time for some players and prospects. Yet, Breslow's aggressiveness in trading Devers was nowhere to be found at the deadline, when he ultimately didn't do more to bolster a young group.
Instead, Breslow landed a reliever in Matz, the veteran lefty in his first season primarily working out of the bullpen. And for two prospects to the Dodgers, he landed May, who has struggled for consistency this season in his first year back from his second Tommy John surgery with a 4.85 ERA through 18 starts. He is a free agent this winter.
'The team has been playing well, in a position where the playoffs are pretty firmly in view, and we felt like we needed to do what we could to try and bolster the team,' Breslow said. 'I think I've been pretty outspoken about that, and so we pursued as much as we possibly could.'
Of course, 'as much as we possibly could' implies holding back. The Red Sox, understandably, were not going to trade Roman Anthony. But a more aggressive approach would have dictated that virtually every player should have been available. Judging by the returns, that likely wasn't the case.
San Diego hotly pursued Jarren Duran, and while the Padres may not have had a starter that matched Duran's worth, the Twins did. If the Twins wanted Duran or Wilyer Abreu, it would have certainly hurt the club, but adding Ryan would have given that much more of a boost. The best trades are not painless.
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But once again, the Red Sox balked. The additions of May and Matz don't make the Red Sox worse, of course. But in a wide-open AL playoff picture in which teams like the Yankees got better, Breslow instead took a middling path.
A week before the All-Star break, in the midst of a 10-game winning streak, manager Alex Cora was asked about how to avoid the kind of second-half swoon that torpedoed the Red Sox's playoff chances in each of the last three seasons.
'When teams add and you stay put, other teams get better,' he said. 'It's not that you got worse. It's just that other teams took a step forward, and we haven't done that in a few years here.'
After Breslow's relative inaction, the Red Sox may add 2025 to that list.
— The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal contributed to this report
(Top photo of Joe Ryan: Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)