Sometimes the best trades are the one’s that weren’t the most apparent to the public prior to them going down. Like the deals that brought Josh Beckett and Curt Schilling to Boston previously or the deadline deals that sent Nomar Garciaparra and Manny Ramirez out of town for positive gain, the current Red Sox front office’s ability to think creatively around trade options has done them well.
The fact that Theo and team made a compelling offer at the deadline for Felix Hernandez only cement the point that the “obvious” trade, at that time Halladay, isn’t always the only, or the best, option.
The hard think about writing about “those kind of deals” is that until they are whispered, it is complete conjecture. Without inside information on the other team involved, it would be hard for anyone in our shoes to lend credence to any particular move.
That said, one whisper that caught me thinking this weekend comes from Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald. After commenting on the Red Sox displeasure with the “statistical measures of Jacoby Ellsbury’s defense in center field – yes, the UZR debate has gone mainstream – Silverman wonders if a move to left field might be in Ellsbury’s future if he can’t correct his route running and reads on the ball. That thought, coupled with the current vacancy in left lead to this thought;
One situation that bears close monitoring is Carlos Beltran with the New York Mets.
The Big Apple’s other team has descended back into the depths of mediocrity the past two years. There has not been a word about the team going into rebuilding mode, but Beltran, arguably the best defensive center fielder in the game the last few years, has $18.5 million left on each of his remaining two years in 2010 and ’11. He also has a full no-trade clause.
Beltran’s salary is about $1-2.5 million more than what Bay is likely to end up commanding per year, not that big a difference at all, plus Beltran plays the premium position and is considered the better all-around player.
Ellsbury is likely to stick in center field, but if you are looking at contingency plans in case the Sox do not re-sign Bay, this one qualifies as the kind of creative thinking Epstein and Co. have displayed regularly. If Hanley Ramirez was worth calling about last winter, Beltran certainly is as well.
Would the Mets even consider a Beltran deal? What would it take to get him? and lastly, Would the Red Sox be interested?
The above are all valid questions for consideration and I welcome the debate in the comments. But as alluded to in the intro to this post, this line of thinking is just a reminder that the Red Sox options aren’t currently an open book to be analyzed. If not “interest in Carlos Beltran”, there are many other paths mapped out to the 2010 roster on a whiteboard in Theo’s office that don’t involve a player that has hit the public’s conscious as an option yet.