The Red Sox have won 11 straight games and are still deciding what kind of team they are.
ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported this week that Boston’s trade deadline plans remain fluid, with the front office weighing a first half of genuine mediocrity against the two weeks that followed it. Both halves of that description are accurate. Boston was 37-48 before the streak began. After Friday’s doubleheader sweep of Tampa Bay at Fenway Park, the club is 48-48 and tied with Minnesota for the American League’s third wild card, having climbed from 11 games under .500 without changing a single thing about its roster.
What makes the decision awkward is that the two most valuable pieces Boston could sell are the two players most responsible for the run. Sonny Gray is 11-1 with a 2.54 ERA and 85 strikeouts in 95 2/3 innings, and at that price on the open market he would draw calls from every contender with a rotation question. Aroldis Chapman has 20 saves and a 2.12 ERA with 38 strikeouts in 29 2/3 innings, and closers on expiring money move every July. Trading either would be a defensible reading of a .500 team’s odds. Trading either in the middle of an 11-game winning streak would also be the kind of move a fan base remembers for a decade.
Craig Breslow’s actual problem is the arithmetic of a coin-flip roster. Boston is not far enough ahead to justify surrendering prospects for a rental, and not far enough behind to sell without abandoning a playoff spot it currently occupies. Teams in that position usually wait, which is a strategy right up until the last week of July, when waiting becomes a decision by itself.
Sixteen days remain before the Aug. 3 deadline, and the schedule will settle much of it. If Boston holds the wild card into the final week, the streak stops being a hot stretch and starts being the season.
In fantasy terms, nothing about Gray’s or Chapman’s outlook changes until a trade actually happens, and both should be held. Chapman is the one to watch: a move to a contender that already has a closer would cost him saves, while a move to a team without one changes very little. Boston’s offense is worth chasing during this stretch — Carlos Narváez and Caleb Durbin are both playing every day and producing, and Durbin in particular is widely available in mixed leagues.
