Gasper: Red Sox not good enough to buy at deadline
On Friday’s Felger & Mazz program, Christopher Gasper explained why he doesn’t think this year’s Red Sox team is worth adding to.
Red Sox Buying or Selling?
Parts of conversation abbreviated for clarity.
Mike Felger: Gasper, how come you want the Red Sox to stand pat or sell?
Christopher Gasper: Well, I mean, you’re overselling it a little bit. It’s not like that’s what I want them to do. Like anybody following the team, I want the team to be good, that’s more enjoyable. But if I take the emotion out of it, I can understand where they would not feel compelled to invest in this team.
And I think people like yourself and Ken Rosenthal are overstating the situation based on a team that’s six games over .500, and at one point, was seven games over .500 in late June.
Look, we’ve seen this before. It amazes me how short the memories are around here. It’s like suddenly, this team being six or seven games over .500, it’s the impossible dream ride. The team was nine games over .500 on July 28th.
Now we can debate as to whether Chaim Bloom should have done something or not. He felt they were underdogs. They were only a game and a half out of the third wild card spot. They didn’t do anything. They ended up finishing in last place.
In 2022, the team was off to a much better start than this start. They were 11 games above .500 on June 26 and possessed the first wild card. They are not a half-game out of the third wild card like they are now. They were in possession, clear possession of the 1st wild card spot on June 26th of 2022. Where did that team finish? They ended up finishing in last place.
So, they’ve had good Junes before. That doesn’t mean that the team is an actual contender and automatically worthy of investing in. I think it’s much more likely that ownership will look at this and say, “We like the progress of the players like Jarren Duran and Tanner Houck, but we still don’t feel the overall progress of the team is worth investing in and worth disrupting our plan.”
I don’t think management wants to part with any of the prospects that even remotely show promise. When you talk about improving the team, it’s not just in a vacuum. It’s not like free agency where it’s like, “Spend money!”
If this were the off-season, I’d be with you guys. Spend! But to improve your team during the season and make a trade, you must give something up. You’ll have to give up prospects or players already on the team. I don’t think they’re good enough to warrant that.
And I don’t think that they’re good enough to a point where you want to disrupt that and disrupt their timeline of being an actual, real contender.
Segment Audio
Ryan Beaton is a producer for 985thesportshub.com. You can follow Ryan at @ry_beaton on Twitter.
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