Buy? Sell? Stand pat? What Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom plans to do ahead of the Aug. 1 trade deadline remains a bit of a mystery, but the team has certainly made the case that it’s worth investing in with a 10-3 record in the month of July that has allowed it to pull within a game and a half of a playoff spot.
Making his weekly appearance on Gresh & Fauria on Tuesday, Red Sox manager Alex Cora weighed in on the team’s trade deadline situation and sounded like someone who expects Bloom to try to add. Listen to the full interview below.
“Conversations have been going on for a while. We understand what we need to do, not only for the present, but also for the future. The present, right now, we’ve put ourselves in the conversation,” Cora said. “…I know Chaim is working hard with the front office, thinking about what we can do to improve the team, but at the same time kind of think about the future of the organization. It’s exciting times right now.”
There’s still that refrain about “the future” that we’ve heard since Bloom took over, so no one should be expecting him to truly go all-in and start trading away multiple top prospects. But there are still ways to improve via trade without mortgaging the future, and Cora’s remarks about being “in the conversation” and Bloom trying to “improve the team” suggest that he, at least, believes those kinds of improvements could be in the works.
One area in particular that Cora acknowledged could be addressed is the starting pitching. With Tanner Houck, Garrett Whitlock and Chris Sale all on the injured list, the Red Sox have been rolling with a rotation of three starters (Brayan Bello, James Paxton and Kutter Crawford) and two bullpen days, with Nick Pivetta at least providing some length out of the bullpen on one of those days.
That isn’t a formula for long-term success, though, and Cora knows the Sox may soon need another real starter if one or two of those injured guys aren’t yet ready to return.
“We’re taking advantage of the schedule in a sense for the pitching department,” Cora said. “With all the off days, I think we’ve been able to get away with having three starters and Nick. Nick’s a quote-unquote starter, too, but we use him as a reliever. The off days have benefited us. At one point in the season, it’s gonna get heavy with the schedule. … By that time, we probably need another starter.”
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