The Yankees' trade for Todd Frazier may have fouled up the Red Sox's deadline plans
Boston reportedly had its sights set on Todd Frazier leading up to the trade deadline
By
Dayn Perry
•
2 min read
Late Tuesday night, the Yankees finalized a major trade with the White Sox that landed third baseman Todd Frazier and relievers David Robertson and Tommy Kahnle in the Bronx. Furthermore, you may recall this headline snippet, which preceded by mere days the transaction of note:
That's prompted by a Ken Rosenthal report. Now, we point this out not to criticize Rosenthal, who's the best in the business when it comes to reporting on such matters and doing so with integrity and accountability. Rather, it's a reflection of the fluid nature of deadline trade discussions. Said fluid nature allowed the Yankees to pluck Frazier from the clutches of their AL East blood rival.
As noted in this space on a number of occasions, the Red Sox have a hole at third base. They've DFA'd Pablo Sandoval despite his having $50 million or so left on his contract, and they've used seven different players at the position. None of those remaining players on the roster project to offer much improvement over the dismal outputs to date. Hence, the Sox's vigorous interest in Frazier.
Now, though, Frazier is a Yankee, and the Sox still don't have a contending-caliber third baseman. As for the remainder of potential solutions on the trade market, there's not much. Maybe there's Jed Lowrie, if you buy that he can sustain his offensive performance to date. Josh Donaldson's name has been bandied about. However, the price would be high, and the Blue Jays would understandably be loath to trade him to a division rival. Josh Harrison is a possibility, but it's not certain that the Pirates are going to sell leading up to the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline. Mike Moustakas? The Royals seem inclined to take one last shot at a playoff berth.
Frazier -- days ago on a non-contending roster, on an expiring contract, and with a right-handed pop that would be a nifty fit in Fenway -- was the ideal guy. But he's now in pinstripes. Perhaps this will push the Sox to consider giving top prospect Rafael Devers a call-up. Devers put up a robust .944 OPS at Double-A as a 20-year-old and recently earned himself a promotion to Triple-A. Since arriving at Pawtucket, he's continued to thump the ball. To be sure, it's not like Dave Dombrowski to hand a key role to a prospect mid-stream (and they've stated they want to be cautious with Devers), but the Yankees' acquisition of Frazier has put Dombrowski and the Red Sox in an uncomfortable spot.
The Sox are still solid favorites in the AL East (per SportsLine, the Yankees' chances of winning the division improved from 15.1 percent to 16.5 percent after making the trade with Chicago), but they still have that hole at third. Also now within the range of possibilities is Frazier -- the slugging third baseman who Sox fans probably thought was theirs -- coming up big against Boston while wearing the uniform of the hated Yankees.
In that sense, it's "your move, Boston" -- only the Sox's most obvious move is no longer available to them.
