In the hours leading up to the trade deadline, Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow says he was willing to get “uncomfortably aggressive” if it meant landing some of the most impactful players on market.
But by the time Thursday’s 6 p.m. deadline came and went, it was clear other teams weren’t willing to bite.
The Red Sox made two trades in what was largely an underwhelming deadline, acquiring right-hander Dustin May from the Los Angeles Dodgers and left-hander Steven Matz in a separate deal with the St. Louis Cardinals.
May is expected to slot into Boston’s starting rotation while Breslow said he envisions Matz as a high-leverage reliever who can pitch in the seventh, eighth or ninth inning.
Both players are due to become free agents after the season.
The May deal came down minutes before the deadline, with the Red Sox sending back outfield prospects James Tibbs III and Zach Ehrhard to the Dodgers. The Matz deal was finalized late on Wednesday night and saw corner infield prospect Blaze Jordan go to St. Louis. To clear space for the newcomers on the 40-man roster, starting pitchers Hunter Dobbins and Tanner Houck were transferred to the 60-day injured list.
Speaking to reporters after the deadline, Breslow acknowledged he’d hoped to do more.
“We pursued a number of really impact opportunities, obviously not all of them work out but it wasn’t from a lack of trying to be as aggressive as possible, from an unwillingness to get uncomfortable,” Breslow said. “But ultimately it takes two teams lining up for those trades to line up.”
Breslow said that with the team playing as well as it has he felt it was important to bolster the roster, and he also wasn’t willing to trade players from the big league club — for example, Jarren Duran — if it meant hurting the team’s chances down the stretch.
Instead he made the club’s farm system the focus of his efforts, saying that to accomplish what they hope to accomplish they couldn’t take anyone off the table.
“We couldn’t go into this with untouchables, and we didn’t,” Breslow said. “We were willing to talk about all of our guys in the name of improving the team, it just didn’t work out.”
The players who the Red Sox did acquire could potentially still address the club’s needs, but both come with question marks.
May, 27, has posted a 4.85 ERA with 97 strikeouts and 43 walks in 104 innings with the Dodgers this season. Through 19 games (18 starts) May has pitched at least five innings 16 times, but he has also allowed multiple runs in 14 of his outings. His advanced metrics are also largely below average, and he’s particularly struggled this summer, posting a 5.59 ERA over his last nine appearances since the beginning of June.
May has also dealt with significant injuries throughout his career, twice undergoing major elbow surgeries in 2021 and 2023 before missing all of 2024 after undergoing surgery to repair an esophageal tear suffered last July while eating dinner with his family.
While not the clear-cut No. 2 starter the Red Sox were believed to be targeting, May will bolster a rotation that was growing perilously thin following a string of likely season-ending injuries to Kutter Crawford, Houck and Dobbins. His addition will also allow recently optioned Richard Fitts the chance to further develop in Triple-A alongside left-hander Kyle Harrison, one of the club’s other depth options.
“What we see in Dustin is a guy who really limits hard contact, keeps the ball on the ground at a strong rate. I think that’s something that will play well here at our park,” Breslow said. “He’s battle-tested, has premium stuff and is a bona fide starter that can take the ball for us every five days.”
Matz has spent the majority of his career as a starting pitcher but has recently found renewed success out of the bullpen as a multi-inning reliever. This season Matz has a 3.44 ERA with 47 strikeouts over 55 innings in 32 appearances, though he recently endured a rough month of June, allowing 10 earned runs in 12.1 innings.
Breslow said he anticipates Matz will remain in the bullpen and that their preference would be not to stretch him back out as a starter or bulk reliever.
“He’s obviously served multiple roles in the big leagues but it seems like out of the pen his stuff has ticked up, he has a really good fastball that plays to both sides, he’s a great strike-thrower, he’s been in pressure situations before,” Breslow said. “We feel like he’s someone that (manager) Alex (Cora) can call upon in the seventh, eighth or ninth inning and get really big outs for us.”
How the Red Sox deadline is eventually judged will depend on how productive May and Matz are in Boston and on whether or not the club makes the playoffs. But if the team doesn’t play meaningful baseball in October, this deadline is likely to be remembered more for what the Red Sox didn’t do versus what they did do.
The club did not add a premium starter in the mold of Minnesota’s Joe Ryan, who was the subject of considerable speculation among fans. It did not add any position players, particularly a slugging first baseman, and it did not clear its long-term outfield logjam.
Meanwhile, the Seattle Mariners, one of Boston’s top competitors in the AL Wild Card race, landed two of the biggest bats on the market in Eugenio Suarez and Josh Naylor. The Houston Astros reunited with former franchise shortstop Carlos Correa, among other deals, the New York Yankees loaded up their bullpen by acquiring closers David Bednar and Camilo Doval, and the Texas Rangers nabbed one of the top starting pitchers on the market in Arizona’s Merrill Kelly, who was rumored to be a Red Sox target.
Breslow said he can’t ignore what other teams are doing and on paper you could make a case they improved more than the Red Sox did. But at the end of the day, everyone is going to be defined by what happens from Friday through the end of the season.
“Ultimately those questions are going to be answered for us,” Breslow said. “We were as aggressive as we could possibly be in pursuits, some of them worked out and some of them didn’t.”
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