Red Sox General Manager, Theo Epstein did a radio interview on WEEI earlier this morning. Judging by the sounds of it, it doesn’t appear the front office is doing anything more than their due diligence with respect to exploring trades for a starting pitcher.
“There’s nobody we can go out and acquire that is going to take the place of Clay Buchholz. If you asked me ‘What player to do you want out there on this club in all of baseball?’ If I could name one guy to acquire for this team, it would be a healthy Buchholz and I think we’re going to have that.”
While I agree with everything he said, I feel as if this is a bit of a cop out. Of course, Buchholz would be the best player the Red Sox could “acquire.” He’s already a member of the team, so his return would cost nothing. In all likelihood, Epstein is playing a game of misdirection. It makes a lot of sense, because once other teams (read: Yankees) find out the Red Sox are interested in a particular player, the price immediately increases. On one hand, it’s a smart move, but on the other it comes off as obvious and transparent.
Later in the interview, he gave an update on Buchholz’s balky lower back.
“It’s been a slower process than anybody has wanted, especially Clay, but he is getting better. We’ve had three opinions on it now and everybody feels it’s just a matter of time and we’re going to be have to really patient with it so we can let the muscle heal and let him go through his delivery without any symptoms. Let’s say the news was different, and we don’t expect this at all, and it’s going to be a little bit longer, I’m sure it would affect how we look at it. I just don’t think there’s anybody out there we can acquire who can come close to what we would have to replace in Clay. And when it comes down to depth options we have a lot of those internally. I’m sure we’ll look around, but I do believe Clay is going to come back healthy and be that type of acquisition that we thought we couldn’t make in the trade market.”
Finally, Epstein exclaimed that the farm system was healthy, and would not hinder their ability to make a trade at the July 31st deadline.
“Don’t think we’re limited just because we made a trade last winter.”
To listen to the entire interview, click here.