Life at Fenway Park without Rafael Devers
They are examples that introduce an annual question: Why aren't teams trying to fix what ails them before the calendar hits July? Dave Dombrowski did it seven years ago, and five years later, Jerry Dipoto took the same route.
On June 28, 2018, the impetus for the then-Red Sox president of baseball operations to make a deal for Steve Pearce didn't seem all that complicated. His contending team needed a right-handed complement to Mitch Moreland at first base. In the next two months, the eventual World Series winners went 37-15, landing at 49 games over .500.
For the Seattle chief decision-maker, it wasn't quite as simple, living life two games under .500 and desperately needing a jump-start. He got it in dealing for veteran Carlos Santana, propelling the Mariners to a 37-16 mark over the 60 days.
Now, it would seem the Red Sox are in need of something along the lines of what those clubs experienced. Heading into Saturday's game against the Blue Jays, they are three games under .500, having lost six in a row. The offense has been the worst in baseball since dealing away Rafael Devers, and pressure seems to be piling up.
So, why no trades?
Before the series opener with the Blue Jays, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow explained how the baseball world is viewing such deals these days, and what obstacles exist when it comes to deals this time of year.
"I think there are these benchmarks in the calendar when June becomes July everybody gets the memo that it's time to have pre-deadline initial conversations. People start to reach out and start doing these check-ins," he said.
"I think there is some element that you need to play enough games to know who you are and what you want your approach to be. Sure, we're going to look to buy and sell, but there is also the, if we're buying what are we buying? You don't want to get caught up in, 'This is what we need,' and not getting a lot of production from it and it turns out it was a two- or three-week cold streak from somebody and now the performance is much more in line with what we thought it was going to be and this area of need we thought we had, we don't.
"My guess is somewhere at some point guys decided it was pretty inefficient to have a conversation on June 1 and say you're to buy and come July 1 say, 'Actually we have played terrible baseball for a month and we're selling'."
We do have an example from almost two weeks ago of how a June trade gets done, being the Rafael Devers drama. But it is telling that other than that Perfect Storm of chaos, teams are once again slow-playing team building with still more than a month until the trade deadline.
"Until there are way more June trades, June trades are outliers," Breslow said. "I think it's pretty logical why that's the case. Fewer and fewer teams are going into seasons thinking we're not going to compete. Given you are going into a season with expectations of being around and adding at the deadline and pushing a playoff berth you want to give that as much room as you can. I would imagine all 30 teams want to go into a season thinking you have a chance to make the playoffs and we want adding at the deadline to be the right decision."
So, did the deal of Devers lead to more calls offering to plug any perceived gap Devers' absence left behind?
"I don't think so because I think there were a lot of teams that recognized that was a pretty clunky roster, regardless of who you could have or would have traded," Breslow added. "That's a lot of players for only eight positions. Moving Raffy is a big bat in the middle of the lineup but it also added some flexibility.
"It just does seem like, 'OK, the calendar just flipped to July. Just checking in.'"
Breslow has stated numerous times in recent days that he has every intention of living the life as a buyer during trade deadline season. But even though it would seem that it might behoove the Red Sox to define themselves as aggressors sooner rather than later, the CBO points out it's not that simple.
Dombrowski knew exactly what he needed. So did Dipoto. Even with the recent offensive downturn, Breslow doesn't appear to define exactly what sort of target would be worth investing in.
"Yeah. I think so," he said when asked if the organization was still sifting through the most pressing area to bolster. "We can say our starting pitching has been inconsistent. That is absolutely true. But we also have some guys who are starting to turn the corner. We want to make sure when we identify an area we can improve we're improving what the alternatives that we have here.
"On the one hand, you can be like, 'We have this guy we think can be blank.' Now, the other side of that is that he hasn't been or isn't yet. Winning seasons are precious and when you have a chance to bring in someone who can immediately upgrade your team you want to be able to do that. You want to make sure if we're going to give up players we really like and bring someone it better be someone we already have here."
Time will tell. The problem is that this trade deadline time doesn't appear to be on the Red Sox' side.