Report: Red Sox Not A Match For Manny Machado Trade
If the Boston Red Sox wanted to truly go all-in on a World Series in 2018, a trade with Baltimore for Manny Machado would be the move. Machado, while a pure rental, would deliver a massive upgrade to what’s been an underperforming hot corner.
But it turns out that the Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski may not have the goods to pull off a trade for the Orioles’ Machado, or at least make them ‘a match,’ according to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal.
From Rosenthal:
The Boston Red Sox are among the clubs to contact the Orioles about Manny Machado, but president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski concluded the teams likely do not match up on a trade at this time, according to a source with knowledge of the discussions.
Although the O’s are in an obvious rebuild, it goes without saying that they won’t sell the 25-year-old Machado for anything less than what he’s worth. And it’s no secret that the Red Sox’ once-loaded farm system, which ranks 24th in all of baseball, has been stripped almost completely bare under Dombrowski thanks to countless win-now trades.
Rosenthal previously suggested that the centerpiece of any Machado-to-Boston trade would be Rafael Devers.
The 21-year-old Devers is just 128 games into his MLB career, with 21 home runs and 65 RBIs to go with a .259 career average. Devers also went 4-for-11 with two homers and five RBIs during his four-game postseason run last fall. With the exception of Michael Chavis, who was busted for performance-enhancing drugs and hit with an 80-game ban as a result, the Red Sox are relatively hopeless in their organizational pipeline at third base beyond Devers. That makes a Machado rental a massive risk.
A three-time All-Star, Machado has at least 33 homers and 86 RBIs in three straight seasons. And even for a downright disastrous Oriole squad sitting 30 games under .500 in June, Machado is hitting .310 with 18 home runs and 53 RBIs this year.
Fortunately for the Red Sox, they still have a little more than a month to try and force a fit with the O’s.