The trade deadline and Chris Sale. They will be two of the hottest topics involving the Red Sox for the next two months.
You can find Sale down in Fort Myers continuing his comeback from Tommy John surgery, with the lefty now throwing off a mound on his way to real, live game competition. There have been no proclamations or even guesses when it comes to a timetable for Sale’s return, but it certainly seems the pitcher’s presence isn’t far off from being felt.
So, when it comes to the Major League Baseball trade deadline, coming on the final day of July, it is interesting to contemplate how a Sale return might impact Chaim Bloom’s way of thinking. Appearing on the Greg Hill Show, the Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer explained where he stood on the dynamic.
“He’s coming along,” Bloom said. “As you guys have heard, he’s coming along slowly but surely. He’s now been off a mound a bunch of times, kind of building up the duration of that every time that he gets on the mound. So we’re just going to keep moving forward. As you guys know, it’s been frustrating we’ve had all these little setbacks that had nothing to do with the Tommy John surgery. It just slowed down the timetable and the more it slows down the more careful you have to be. So time-wise it’s been frustrating but he’s done great with everything that actually has to do with the rehab itself. The way he is talking now, he sees what is going on here and he wants to help. And the way he’s talking right now, he’s really, really excited. He’s feeling it. We obviously want to make sure we’re not skipping steps, but he wants to come back and help this group out.
“As far as the deadline approach, look, it’s hard to imagine a more impactful acquisition than getting Chris Sale back on your club. But I don’t think it really changes for us just in terms of this is kind of how we looked at it coming into the season. You need as much depth as you can so you try and build a team that is not reliant on Chris coming back, and when he comes back that’s extra. Believe me, we’re going to be able to find a spot for Chris Sale when he’s ready to go.”
And if there was any doubt how Bloom and Co. were viewing their approach heading into the deadline, it wasn’t difficult to decipher the executive’s intentions with his team sitting one game out of first-place.
“I think when you’re looking out ahead of any trade deadline you have to be responsive to where you are in the standings, and we knew coming in that we had a talented group and we thought they had the upside to contend,” Bloom noted. “So I wouldn’t say this is coming out of nowhere, but obviously there was a lot of different ways this season can do. There is still a lot of time between now and the deadline. But you have to respect and factor where you are. We can’t 180 from the bigger picture goals that we have and get away from what we’re trying to do and worked so hard to try and do, reposition the organization for sustained success. But the playoffs are precious. They are important and you go out and do everything you can to help the group.”
