Six-Player Deal Sends Caleb Durbin From Brewers To Red Sox
Clearly, none of those people who argues that the day after Super Bowl Sunday should be national holiday is in charge of the Brewers or the Red Sox. Things got complicated very early this week, as Milwaukee and Boston announced a six-player trade on Monday morning.
The Brewers received infielder David Hamilton and left-handed pitchers Kyle Harrison and Shane Drohan. The Red Sox received infielders Caleb Durbin, Andruw Monasterio, and Anthony Seigler, along with Milwaukee’s competitive balance Round B draft pick. The headliner of the deal is Durbin, who will slot in as Boston’s everyday second or third baseman. When you factor in that Boston also traded for Willson Contreras, signed Isiah Kiner-Falefa, and claimed Tsung-Che Cheng off waivers, the Red Sox have now added more than an entire infield this offseason. Don’t worry; their infield situation is still plenty complicated. Harrison headlines the package going to Milwaukee. The Brewers get the chance to work their magic on two young pitchers, and they get to add to their collection of speedy, scrappy, undersized infielders.
It was an odd trade in some ways. All six players were on 40-man rosters already. The Red Sox got the comp pick (as of now, the 67th pick in the draft) even though they were also getting the biggest name, a player who will go straight from Milwaukee’s starting lineup into their own. The left-handed Hamilton has a few more tools than the right-handed Monasterio, but the two are at least comparable; it’s likely that the handedness of the two players affected Boston’s willingness to part with him. You could argue that the Brewers gave up more than the Red Sox, but that they needed what they got much more. The Red Sox have one of the deepest rotations in the league, so Harrison is going from a team that would have struggled to find room for him to a team that will likely need him to hold down a rotation spot from day one.
Let’s start with Durbin, who ranked just 21st on our Brewers org list in May, then went on to break out and finish third in the National League Rookie of the Year voting. The Yankees sent the brawny, 5-foot-7 Durbin to Milwaukee in the Devin Williams trade. He put up 2.6 WAR over 136 games, which works out to just under 3.1 WAR over a full season. His offensive profile follows a familiar pattern: bottom of the scale in terms of bat speed and exit velocity, top of the scale in terms of contact rate and strikeout avoidance. Thanks to a predilection for pulling the ball in the air, Durbin popped 11 home runs in 2025. That makes him sound like a perfect fit for Fenway Park (a fact chief baseball officer Craig Breslow noted during a Zoom call with reporters on Monday), but Statcast estimates that he would have hit just five home runs there last year.
Durbin certainly earned his rookie success. He played great defense and ran the bases well, and advanced metrics like xwOBA and DRC+ indicate that he deserved his production at the plate. Still, it’s probably a bit much to expect him to repeat the 105 wRC+ he put up in 2025 without any regression. It seems more reasonable to put up closer to two wins, serving as a well-rounded store brand replacement for Alex Bregman. Durbin doesn’t have quite the same plate discipline, and he’s likely to bang more balls into the Green Monster and fewer over it, but he’s still got five years of team control. Breslow said on Monday the team hasn’t decided whether Durbin will play second or third base.
It would be easy to spend a whole article slogging through the Boston infield situation, but I’ll try to lay it out as simply as possible. At first base, the Red Sox traded for slugger Willson Contreras, but they also have slugger Triston Casas, who may or may not be ready on Opening Day after rupturing his patellar tendon in 2025. At shortstop, they have Trevor Story, who projects to put up a bit over two wins in the final year of his contract, but has had just one healthy season in the past four years. The 23-year-old Marcelo Mayer would seem to be the shortstop of the future, but he struggled in his debut in 2025, and he’s had trouble staying healthy since the Red Sox drafted him in 2021. The simplest configuration has Casas at DH, Contreras at first, Story at short, and Mayer and Durbin at second and third (or vice versa).
Complicating all this is that the team also got Monsterio, signed Kiner-Falefa, claimed Cheng, still has Romy Gonzalez coming off a breakout 2025 season in which he put up a 123 wRC+, and also has an outfield crunch that could at least theoretically still see Kristian Campbell end up as an infielder. Monasterio has spent at least some time as Milwaukee’s starting third baseman in each of the last three seasons, and in 2025, he looked like an average hitter at the plate, but it’s hard to imagine him getting too much playing time in Boston. These are all good problems to have, and we haven’t even gotten to the deeper names like Nate Eaton and Nick Sogard (both of whom got significant playing time in the postseason), and of course, Seigler. RosterResource projects Durbin to start at second, with Mayer and Gonzalez platooning at third, though manager Alex Cora said during Fenway Fest in January that he hopes to get Mayer more at-bats against left-handed pitching.
All of this is still a downgrade from having Rafael Devers or Bregman. We’re not positive who will play where because none of the players we’re talking about is an undeniable star. Considering their resources and position in the win curve, the Red Sox probably should be consolidating their depth into a star player rather than trading one away and letting the other walk in free agency. Still, that’s a lot of depth.
At lot would have to go right for this to be a very good infield. At least three of the following things would have to happen: 1) Durbin would repeat his rookie success, 2) Story would stay healthy and continue his good BABIP luck, 3) Mayer would stay healthy and figure things out at the big league level for the first time, 4) Gonzalez would repeat his breakout campaign. Getting three of those four seems pretty unlikely, but having all this depth makes the floor very solid. The team will have replacements for anyone who gets injured. If Mayer fails to hit lefties (assuming he gets the chance), Gonzalez can step in. If Gonzalez steps back, the team can count on solid defense from Monasterio and Kiner-Falefa. Likewise, if Durbin’s offense steps back, the rest of his game should keep him at least around replacement level. And if all else fails, Campbell (or even Ceddanne Rafaela, again) can jump back into the infield. Maybe you’ve noticed that I haven’t dived into the balance of right-handed batters and left-handed batters here. That’s because I don’t want to. We’ve talked about this infield enough and you can’t make me do it.
Fiiiiine, I guess my editor can make me do it. Curse you, Matt! After well over a year of hand-wringing about the overwhelming left-handedness of the lineup, it should be fairly balanced. Right now, RosterResource projects it to feature four lefties and five righties against right-handed pitchers. However, positionally, most of the infielders (including both catchers) expected to make the Opening Day roster are righties and most of the outfielders bat left-handed. There are also two switch-hitters in the mix, though both are likely to begin the year in Triple-A. One of them is Anthony Seigler, whom we’ll get to now.
Seigler was the Yankees’ first-round pick in the 2018 draft, an exciting switch-hitting, switch-pitching(!), two-way prospect who in 2019 ranked eighth in the organization. He signed as a catcher and infielder, but he’s struggled with injuries and underperformed at the plate. Then in 2024, he put up a 122 wRC+ with 12 home runs in Double-A. He became a six-year minor league free agent after the season, and the Brewers signed him to a minor league deal with a non-roster invite. He put up a 143 wRC+ in Triple-A in 2025, but struggled in his first taste of the big leagues.
He is now 26, and the rest of the paragraph is just my paraphrasing the notes Eric Longenhagen sent me on Seigler after the trade. Seigler is much better hitting from the left side. He possesses plus-plus plate discipline and plus bat speed, along with the ability to lift the ball. However, Eric doubts that Seigler’s swing will play at the major league level, which is to say that he’ll strike out a whole lot. Eric doesn’t consider Seigler an option as a catcher. As a second or third baseman, he has nice actions and feel for his position, but he has below-average range and throwing accuracy. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but Eric considers him a nice depth player. “The measured power is impressive,” Eric told me, “and so is his approach,” but he’s going to strike out a lot and provide substandard defense.
I apologize to any Brewers fan who had to wade through all that just to get to their portion of the trade. Kyle Harrison is the main piece of the return, but let’s stay in the infield and start with David Hamilton, who certainly sounds like a Brewers guy, at least to a point. He’s a 5-foot-11 middle infielder with speed, defense, and not much power. He’s 28 years old, but he’s got just two years of service time, so he won’t be a free agent until 2030. He first debuted in 2023, and appeared in more than 90 games in each of the last two seasons, stealing 33 bases in 2024 and 22 bases in 2025. His defense grades out pretty well, too. However, he stops sounding so much like a Brewers guy when you talk about his offensive profile. Hamilton doesn’t have great contact ability. He put up a 94 wRC+ and 1.6 WAR in 2024 thanks to a .316 BABIP, but the batted ball luck disappeared in 2025, and his wRC+ fell to a bleak 60.
Maybe Milwaukee is planning on adding another infielder, but Hamilton only has one minor league option, so it certainly seems like he’s going to start the season on the 26-man roster. It’s hard to imagine the team just plugging him and his 83 wRC+ ZiPS projection into the starting third base spot. RosterResource has Hamilton in a bench role, with Joey Ortiz shifting over to third and Jett Williams starting at shortstop. That’s a whole lot to ask of the 22-year-old Williams, who was acquired in the Freddy Peralta trade earlier this offseason. He excelled in Double-A last year, but he’s never played in the majors.
All this puts this infield in a precarious position. The Brewers sold high on Durbin, but if Williams isn’t ready, they’ll need to depend on Hamilton in a major way. In doing so, they are taking the opposite approach of the Red Sox in their infield. Boston is stockpiling depth, while the Brewers appear to be handing the keys to a 22-year-old rookie and relying on a 28-year-old with 1.5 career WAR to fill in the gaps. They’ve certainly hit big on this formula in the past in the form of Durbin, Ortiz, and Brice Turang, but as usual, they’re walking a fine line.
Now that we’ve dispensed with the infield, we can get to Harrison. The left-hander came to Boston in the Devers trade, so let’s all spare a moment for Maddie Landis of Talk Sox, who on Monday morning published an article titled “The Rafael Devers Trade Tree Is Rotting” just 79 minutes before ESPN’s Jeff Passan broke the news that made it both perfectly timed and instantly obsolete. The 20-year-old Jose Bello is the only remaining part of the Devers return still in the Boston system. Breslow really wanted out of that contract.
The Giants drafted Harrison in the third round of the 2020 draft, and he found early success, running a 3.19 ERA in Low-A in 2021, then a 2.71 ERA and 3.20 ERA across two levels in 2022. He made his major league debut in 2023, and he now has 42 career appearances and 37 starts under his belt, with 194 2/3 innings pitched, a 4.39 ERA, and a 4.44 FIP. He’s mostly run decent strikeout rates and iffy walk rates while struggling to limit hard contact. His fastball has generally been around or below the league average in terms of velocity. None of that makes him sound like the centerpiece of a deal for Devers or Durbin, but as Harrison told David Laurila, he was a different pitcher once he got to Boston last year.
In Boston, he raised his release point and his arm angle slightly. His four-seam fastball added half an inch of rise and more than an inch of arm-side run. His slow, bendy slurve added even more horizontal movement, and the Red Sox encouraged him to try throwing the pitch inside to righties looking for whiffs, instead of just using it as a backdoor pitch intended for called strikes and weak contact. Lastly, after experimenting with a splitter, Harrison switched from a one-seam changeup to a kick change, which once again added more movement. Just as important, he added two new pitches, a cutter and a sinker reserved for left-handed batters. He was no longer a three-pitch pitcher, and he went from throwing the four-seamer 43% of the time all the way down to 16%.
These are huge differences. It’s essentially three new pitches, along with completely different usages for the other two. The sample size is small, too. Harrison made 18 starts in the minors (six with the Giants and 12 with the Red Sox), so we’re talking about just three major league appearances in Boston with this new repertoire. Harrison is only 24, and we shouldn’t assume that the Brewers are just going to roll with these changes. They’ve been turning pitchers into the best versions of themselves for years now, and clearly, the paint is far from dry on Harrison’s profile as a pitcher.
Harrison will certainly get his chance to make it all work. He moves from an overflowing Boston starting pitching situation to a Brewers rotation that looks a bit threadbare without Peralta. (Full disclosure: On the advice of my wife, I deleted a pasta-themed version of the previous sentence that compared the Red Sox rotation to an overstuffed ravioli that explodes the moment you drop it into boiling water, so I’ll just tell you that the Boston rotation ranks first on our Depth Charts even without Harrison, while the Milwaukee staff ranks 16th.) The Brewers have Brandon Woodruff, Jacob Misiorowski, and Quinn Priester (who in early 2025 was also traded from Boston to Milwaukee) in the front of their rotation, so Harrison should slot in toward the back.
Last we come to the 27-year-old lefty Drohan, whom the Red Sox drafted out of Florida State in the fifth round in 2020. He ranked 41st on their top prospects list last year. Everything you read from here on out was written by Eric Longehagen, who put a future value of 40+ on Drohan:
Drohan has transformed in many ways since he was drafted, as both his delivery (a much shorter arm action) and repertoire have changed multiple times. His prospect value peaked in mid-2023 when he climbed to Triple-A as a starter and threw 125 innings as a wild, changeup-oriented swingman prospect. The White Sox used a Rule 5 pick on him in 2023, but he needed nerve decompression surgery before the 2024 season and was DFA’d and returned to the Red Sox during his rehab. He was put on the IL again in August 2024 with shoulder inflammation.
Because of the timing of Craig Breslow’s hire and Drohan’s White Sox stint and injuries, the 2025 season was really the first time the Breslow Era development staff was able to work with him, and he drastically changed his repertoire and pitch usage to include more breaking stuff in 2025. Drohan now throws a ton of sliders and cutters, he had a one-tick velo boost, and was a throwing starter-quality rate of strikes for the first time since 2022. He now throws many more low-80s sliders and upper-80 cutters than before (he previously had a slider that was in between the two) and his fastball is playing like a comfortably plus pitch even though it’s only sitting 93.
There hasn’t been any one drastic change here. Drohan looks like he’s in slightly better shape than he was in 2023 and is getting down the mound a little better, but there hasn’t been any huge alteration to his delivery or fastball movement that would totally explain why he’s gone from having a 45 fastball to, at least from a miss and chase standpoint, a plus heater. The way his new breaking stuff tunnels off his fastball (especially the cutter) might be helping his fastball play better. Though Drohan’s changeup is still his best pitch on pure stuff, it’s the one he has the least consistent feel for locating, and it’s feasible that simply de-emphasizing it has made him a more capable strike-thrower.
Drohan had an “arrow up” 2025 and was put on the Red Sox 40-man after the season, then traded to Milwaukee. Because he has all three option years remaining, he’s very likely to play an up/down starter role for the next year or two, and then either settle into a long relief role (the role I think he’d most thrive in) or toward the back of Milwaukee’s rotation.
Davy Andrews is a Brooklyn-based musician and a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Bluesky @davyandrewsdavy.bsky.social.
There is no such thing as batted ball luck, and people with this kind of math background should know this. Entirely skill based inputs can still result in variable results, and that is what is happening here. No luck is involved.
What do you call it when those variable results tend in/against your favor?
We’ve been over this before in the comments I believe, but “luck” is obviously just useful shorthand. I think you just don’t understand what people mean by luck. If 20 balls are hit with a 50% chance of falling for a hit, there’s about a 2% chance than at least 15 of them fall in for hits. Yeah it’s just variance if the player ends up with 15 hits, but that’s quite clearly what everyone is talking about when they say the batter was lucky. Weird hill to die on.
This is the weirdest verbal argument that people continue to make around here, because it’s not even about semantics, just connotation, and it’s wrong even about that. Clearly you already understand that “luck” is a synonym for “random variation” in this context. You’re just objecting to the connotations that you incorrectly believe “luck” carries — seemingly that it is somehow opposed to “skill-based inputs,” which it isn’t.
Have you considered that a definition of “luck” is when you have variable results from a constant level of skill and hard work? Things that are outside of the player’s control?
If you roll a die ten thousand times you’ll get five thousand heads, but depending on your luck you might get ten tails in a row to start out.
That’s….very, very unlikely. I’ll give you 75:1 on it!
(Actual odds are closer to 125:1)
I’ll give him any odds he wants that rolling a die 10,000 times will result in more than zero heads.
Ten thousand probably isn’t a big enough sample for this.
What kind of a die gives you heads or tails?
I don’t know why you’re being downvoted. All of this is true. Of course, what Jimmy said is also true. In general, I would say we need to do a better job of communicating that the “luck” here isn’t really luck, it’s a combination of miniscule factors that we haven’t (yet) been able to measure.
i know that we are well within the classical regime here, but i’m pretty sure one of the big things about physics is that we *cannot* measure all the factors. i think the issue is that humans cannot achieve that level of precision, and are subject to randomness. there’s inherent variance of how the human body moves and interacts with the world. heck, weather is random. on the large scale lots of it averages out, sure, but i’d argue that that randomness, and the existence of genuinely chaotic systems, makes the difference between, say, a wall scraper and a warning track flyout, which take two very similar inputs and have very different outputs on the game state. is that luck? i’d say so. it’s probability breaking in one’s favor.
i’m sure there’s a nifty quantum mechanical or statmech/thermo interpretation but i’m too tired and stupid to know anything
I agree with all this, except do we know that collapse of the wavefunction, how it collapses, is luck?
disclaimer that i know nothing, i am just an enthusiast.
the relevant stuff is probably “bell’s theorem” which deals with hidden variable theories. any sort of hidden variable theory we have come up with so far (that is, the idea that there is some information stored in a particle that determines how it collapses) is inconsistent with measurement. so to our best understanding it is entirely probabilistic, at the time of measurement.
The Red Sox have finally secured the most Pedroia-esque Pedey replacement, and I couldn’t be more excited! This was a moment 9 years in the making.
Kinda sorta.
As to whether Durbin will man the keystone and legit be that Pedey 2.0, or take up residence at the hot corner, remains to be seen. Reportedly, the org liked Mayer’s play at 3B during Breggy’s injury, but Durbin performed well at 3B with the Brewers in his breakout campaign. Either could do it. Who knows what Cora will prefer by Opening Day
Despite Durbin’s red-flaggy exit velo, barrel%, hard-hit%, and slow-mo bat speed, something tells me his bat will find a way to blossom at Fenway. Lotsa opportunities for doubles and plenty of steals, and lots of balls in play. I’m looking forward to that, as I’ve always had a soft spot for high-contact, low-strikeout types, and Durbin generates consistent (albeit soft) contact aplenty. He’s like if a shorter Luis Arraez batted right-handed, had wheels, and played good defense.
Luis Arraez has a career .329 BABIP in the majors and Durbin probably had a .280-.290ish BABIP in the minors. There are similarities but they’re very different players
I do realize that. It was a not-serious, joke-ish comp
I hope this happens, though if everyone stays healthy Cora will be playing matchups a ton of the time, with Mayer sitting against lefties.
If the Brewers’ rotation looks a bit threadbare, I’m curious to hear how you’d describe rotations in 80% of the league.
Woodruff
Priester
Misoriowski
Sproat
Henderson
Patrick
Zerpa
Ashby
DL Hall
Gasser
I’d take the B team above over more than one other starting rotation right now.
I agree Brewers rotation is better than it sounds in the article, but the B rotation would be bad outside Patrick and Gasser. Ashby might be good SP but is already elite LHRP and he should stay in pen. DL Hall looks he is not good enough to be a SP and is injured every year. I dont believe in the “turning Zerpa into SP” talk. Brewers dont even need that. There is like 8 better SP options in front of him. Keep him in pen, where he is good.
Only two of those 10 pitchers (Priester and Patrick) threw for over 70 innings in the majors last season. That B team isn’t even real depth, as Zerpa, Ashby, and Hall were all nearly entirely relievers last season. Gasser has 7 career major league starts over two seasons. I trust the Brewers to cobble together a staff, but you’re not making much of an argument here.
Zerpa, Ashby, and Hall were relievers in part because the Brewers have so many other good starting pitchers that have pitched in front of them. So, in a way, you just supported my argument – and then said I don’t have much of one.
All three of those guys are relievers because they have not been forced into starting. All three would be exposed as SP (and Hall injured).
I’d swap Patrick with Sproat, and I’m not at all convinced that DL Hall can be an average MLB reliever much less a starter.
Ashby and Zerpa are probably also much better as relievers. I think that the 6th-10th starters are (in order) Sproat, Harrison, Gasser, Crow, and Drohan.
Which still could be better than what the Nationals or Cardinals or A’s or White Sox are rolling out, but a lot of things would have to go right for a team to win games with that rotation.
I didn’t say their B team rotation would win a lot of games. My point was that I didn’t agree with the author’s statement that the Brewer’s rotation was threadbare.
The question is with all right handed projected rotation and 5 lefties in the pen, who would get the first crack at the rotation. Gasser has more experience and should be fully healthy this year. Do Ashby or Hall get a shot at starting before Harrison? Harrison has 2 options remaining. I think he starts in the minors unless he has a lights out spring.
I think Sproat and Harrison are probably the first two guys up, and then after that it’s Gasser who I think will be fine once he gets used to pitching again.
I think Ashby could start and maybe even be pretty good, but I think the Brewers are in why-fix-what-is-broken territory. He came back from a fairly rough injury, and he’s got at least two pitches that play up as double plus in short stints (the sinker and the curveball) that were more average when he was a starter.
Hall is a mess, his stuff is way down since the trade to the Brewers. They need to figure out how to get him back to what he was in short stints with the Orioles.
I think Ashby’s fits with loss of command would be maddening when starting.
Ashby’s contract makes me think the Brewers would gladly give him another shot. Those option years aren’t getting picked up if he is a reliever, but are a bargain if he can hold up to a starters work load and find enough command to be effective
Sox get some improvement and brewers will probably make Harrison better and give him runway to improve. Win win
I love this deal for the Red Sox.
(I don’t like it at all for the Brewers, but let’s focus on the good for now)
I was looking at Caleb Durbin’s batted ball profile after the trade and he hits a ton of balls to left field. Sure, he’ll lose about half of his homers from 2025 if he played half his games at Fenway, and his batted balls on contact are pretty bad–like bottom 5% in MLB. But that’s only 5 homers he would lose, and he pulls the ball in the air a bunch–about 20% of the time, which is 50th out of 156 right handed batters from last year. There are going to be a ton of outs from 2025 that are going to turn into hits. With how little he strikes out I think he has a strong chance of holding onto his total offenseive performance from 2025. with a possibility of running an OBP in the .340-.355 range.
The only reason this deal is more like a double than a home run is that I’m not convinced his rate stats will hold up over 650 PAs. For one, his batted ball distribution is going to be pretty lousy if he has to play in Kansas City or Texas, and he’s not a great fit for the Yankees stadium either. And while he had neutral platoon splits last year it does look like the Brewers sat him against tough right handed pitching about a quarter of the time.
But then they also get Monsterio, who is basically the platonic ideal of a utility infielder. Can cover anywhere in the infield in a pinch capably, will give you about a 90 wRC+. A much stronger hitter against left-handed pitching than right-handed pitching but you need guys like this to fill out the roster. Between him and Kiner-Falefa they now have no reason to ever play Rafaela at second base ever again.
And even if Harrison pulls a Quinn Priester with the Brewers, it is a no-brainer to trade him for a 2 win guy who is under team control for a while and plugs the biggest hole on your roster. For all the talk about how he was a different pitcher after the trade, it’s not like his Stuff+ or PitchingBot grades were radically different. He went from 96 Stuff+ to 98. If he pulls a Quinn Priester with the Brewers it’s probably because they did something to him.
And for their trouble, they also get a Comp B pick. You make this deal every day of the week if you’re the Red Sox and in their position.
I don’t mind this deal on both sides, but the Sox probably came out ahead a bit since I don’t rate Harrison highly. I don’t rate Durbin highly either though. I think there’s a chance we look up and he’s got an 85 wRC+ in June and the Red Sox are looking to upgrade. I would’ve liked a more sure player at 3B/2B since Mayer hasn’t hit and is hurt a lot. I think Durbin just had his career year and is at risk of really bottoming out since he’s got zero power and if pitchers just challenge him I wonder if he just stops getting on base. But will be fun to see play out.
I think the plan was to get someone better but they struck out. Fortunately, they didn’t trade any of their most valuable trade chits.
OOPSY takes into account a lot of batted ball metrics and is basically predicting the same thing as you. In fact you can basically arrange the projection systems in a line based on how much they account for batted ball data. Steamer projects him for a 106 wRC+, ZiPS for 102, and OOPSY at 89.
When he makes contact the outcome is typically not very impressive, and so I think that is a risk. If your guy only has a 4% barrel rate it’s not good news. But for this team he can smack hits off the monster all day in Fenway, so even if he does regress I think his overall offensive value won’t drop too much.
“…they now have no reason to ever play Rafaela at second base ever again”
A very important take from this deal that cannot be overstated. The more Rafaela plays in CF, the better the Red Sox are. MLB should fine Cora one day’s pay per every inning he uses Rafaela in the infield. Its practically managerial malpractice (assuming he’s making that decision)
Don’t underestimate Alex Cora’s ability to move players around almost randomly. For example, what if they need Durbin to fill in at catcher? Now, you can slide Rafaela to 3b and see how Casas handles center.
comment deleted, posted this in the wrong place …
What about on Sundays?
Those are the same as most other days except they can’t eat at Chick-Fil-A
And for the Red Sox, this was especially good in that if you look at who thy had in the IF prior to the trade, it was scary. An iffy Meyer, an injury-prone Story, IKF, these are not guys you want to rely on much. Durbin is a legit if lower tier regular and since they screwed the pooch by not getting Bregman or at least Eugenio Suarez, well, this is a big save for the Sox.
Between Story, Mayer, and Gonzalez they had about 50% of a solution to their 2B / SS / 3B situations because there are a lot of injury questions there. Durbin brings that up to about 80% solved, and Monasterio and IKF can handle the last 20%.
Is it a great offensive group? No, but they now have three guys in Durbin, Gonzalez, and Story who will probably give them something like a league average bat, with Mayer the wild card. You can do worse than that.
This trade is so confusing for both sides. I don’t understand either team’s overarching strategy.
For the Brewers, you trade Freddy Peralta for Jett Williams, who makes Caleb Durbin expendable, so then you can trade Durbin for Kyle Harrison, even though you just got another Kyle Harrison from the Peralta deal in Brandon Sproat, not to mention the other half-dozen Kyle Harrisons you had even before that deal, and the Kyle Harrison you just traded with Peralta to get Williams and Sproat. The Brewers made themselves worse in 2026 so they could add long-term pieces they already had in abundance. I guess the thinking is that Made is going to make having Durbin irrelevant soon anyway, so they should sell high on him, but I just don’t see how you’re a better team with Williams, Sproat, and Harrison than with Peralta, Myers, and Durbin, both in the short- and long-term.
For the Red Sox, it’s a good move in a vacuum, but in the grand scheme of things, you traded Rafael Devers so you could have Caleb Durbin. A team of Boston’s stature should not be starting Durbin at third every day, especially when your lineup is already bloated with hit-over-power guys.
Whether it’s a great idea or not, I think you have spelled out the Brewers’ strategy quite well here. It’s to accumulate as many Kyle Harrisons as possible. I think reasonably enough, they seem to believe that their organization can consistently add value to Kyle Harrisons, and then use them both on the mound and in future trades.
Bernie Brewer sat on a mile-deep wall
Bernie Brewer had a bad fall
All the king’s Kyle Harrisons and all the king’s David Hamiltons couldn’t put Bernie together again.
A team that won 97 games last year started Durbin at third every day
surely this is by accident
Brewers know they are a bit worse in 2026 without Peralta, but thats the plan. And btw they got him by trading a veteran with one year of control, they also got Durbin by trading veteran with one year of control. If they dont operate like this, they wouldnt have Peralta and Durbin in the first place.
I don’t know about that. The Devers trade is because he’s no longer a third baseman. It’s pretty clear that the Red Sox botched everything else with Devers, but they weren’t wrong about that part.
Meanwhile Durbin put up 2.6 fWAR in 506 PAs last year on the strength of a 105 wRC+ and competent infield defense while the Red Sox had at least one glaring hole in the infield. He only slightly overperformed his xwOBA and is going to a stadium that will juice his BABIP. And while there is some downside risk here (see OOPSY for a look at the scenario where it goes wrong), he is predicted to put up 97 and 106 wRC+ by the two main projection systems here at Fangraphs.
The Red Sox’s side makes total sense to me.
Would you rather have Devers or Durbin + Ranger Suarez?
The marginal gain from Suarez is limited by how many SP the Sox already had. I’d have been much happier if they had used that money for an infielder. I don’t think they were ever going to meet Bregman’s price and had been looking at him as a one year option when they signed him. I do not get why they didn’t go after Eugene Suarez his defense was basically neutral last year but a plus in previous years but his power would have really helped this lineup.
How is the marginal gain from Ranger Suarez limited? There are 1500 or so innings that a team needs to pitch every year. That’s a lot of innings. I feel like it’s almost impossible to make the case that Ranger’s addition was redundant or overkill.
The Sox have a pile of starter’s to the point that they can trade multiple ones without it affecting their ability to build a rotation or depth. Look at their potential 5th starters before the Suarez signing you had Early, Tolle, Crawford and Sandoval. These are not typical 5th starter types Not even including Harrison or Bennett.
Projections: ERA and FIP
Suarez 3.62 3.61
Early 3.81 3.77
Tolle 4.04 3.95
Crawford 4.32 4.25
Sandoval 4.01 3.92
They likely would get 2+ WAR season from the spot Crawford has posted a 2.4 and 1.8 season, Suarez is projected to provide 3.4 WAR with a full amount of starts. So their marginal gain was maybe 1.5 WAR if you round up.
No doubt he improves the club but having signing someone like Bregman would have netted 2+ WAR and being able to score more runs for the other pitchers on staff would goose their win total higher. It’s the difference between upgrading a position of strength versus upgrading a position of weakness.
First, a 1.5 WAR marginal increase is actually quite large.
Second, you’re not factoring in the WAR that Sandoval, Tolle, Crawford, or Early could provide in the pen
Third, look at the Dodgers last year. They had insane pitching redundancy and they still ended up giving 104 IP to Dustin May, 42 IP to Landon Knack, and 36 IP to Tony Gonsolin. And in addition to that they stretched out their bullpen big time and gave insane amounts of IP to long relievers like Casparius, Dreyer, and Wrobleski. Do you think the 2025 Dodgers would have enjoyed having 150 of those IP covered by Ranger Suarez? That would easily have been a 3+ WAR swing.
Fourth, you’re not accounting for the additional value a big game pitcher provides in the postseason.
You can never have too much pitching.
Good points. I think I would also have targeted a 3b/bat before another #2ish starter, and I think that was the Red Sox plan too. But they struck out on their other targets so pivoted to the Suarez.
In defense of the move, both Early and Tolle were rushed to the Majors last year and allowing them more time in AAA is necessary is probably good. Sandoval and Crawford both have health questions and it remains be seen how good they’ll be when they return.
Devers is gone and making or not making this deal doesn’t change that. But even using that framing, they traded Devers so they could have Durbin, Suarez, and $120 million left over.
And a Comp B Pick!
And Monasterio!
And Siegler!
And Devers was no longer a 3B!
And Dustin Ma…. Never mind.
Dustin Maaaayyyyyyybe not
I don’t know how you came up with this given the article, it’s almost entirely wrong.
Underestimate Matt Arnold at your own peril.
Just a heads up – Trevor Story’s contract is guaranteed through the 2027 season with a club option for 2028, so 2026 isn’t the last season on his current deal.
As for the Brewers, I can’t predict that this was a bad trade for them right now. The Quinn Priester deal was similarly confounding and somehow they came out of that with a win. There are definitely scenarios where the Brewers wind up in a better situation than if they hadn’t.
But I don’t like it. This is the sort of deal a team makes when they start believing they’re the smartest guys in the room. And maybe they are, but usually the smartest guys in the room don’t trade away two players that gave them 3.3 fWAR for them last year for a guy who only produced 0.5 fWAR last year. Especially when those two players are the only credible starting third baseman on the 40-man roster and the only credible MLB-caliber utility fielder. And also give the other team a draft pick for the privilege of doing so.
This is the kind of deal a team makes when they think that Brock Wilken is going to beat out Durbin for the 3rd base job in training camp anyway. Or when you have a deal in place for Isaac Paredes. Or even Brett Baty. It really feels like the Brewers are going to try and make this work with David Hamilton
They obviously really like Harrison a lot. There’s no other reason to make this deal. But I just don’t think Harrison is suddenly a different guy after he went to the Red Sox. He made literally two starts where he pitched for 9 innings in total, so we’re already dealing with some very small samples. He has a sinker now which gets good grades from Stuff+ but he only threw 0.5% of the time after the trade, which is how many pitches? And a cutter that he threw 11% of the time after it and that gets an 86 from Stuff+ and which got absolutely hammered when he threw it (the sinker also got hammered too).
If he’s going to make this trade work for the Brewers, I think it’s going to be because the Brewers did something else to help him. Almost like there are grade levels to pitching organizations: First you go to the Red Sox to fix some things, and then you go to the Brewers to fix the rest.
Honestly I would have thought that Harrison, Drohan, and Hamilton (the latter of which I don’t think has any value) would have been a pretty lukewarm return for Durbin alone. I would think that either they’d get more volume or they’d get a higher-profile prospect instead. Then they throw in Monasterio and the pick anyway? The Brewers seem like they’re on a mission to get rid of their two undersized low-power out-of-nowhere rookies who were something like the 3rd and 4th most valuable rookies in the NL last year to take chances on post-prospect lefty pitchers. It’s the sort of move a team makes when they think they’re smarter than anyone else.
I think if you could get an honest answer out of Arnold that he would say they would’ve preferred to make this deal next offseason instead of this one. But I assume they didn’t think the return would still be there. Either from Durbin regression or just matching up well with another team’s needs.
The reason I’d say it’s early is because if you look at the prospect crew that should be arriving mid-2026 through 2027, there’s a lot of potential options there. Definitely a high chance of some sort of logjam where you have too many decent players to get full value out of them. So a “shape of the 40-man” trade like this would look awfully appealing. Just a year early so things will be stretched to fit on opening day.
Overall I like the approach of trading these types of players for some potential upside. We just spent the whole NLCS talking about how the 2025 Brewers roster structure is the classic “our stuff doesn’t work in the playoffs” meme. It’s good to see they’re hoping to reach a bit higher vs just running the exact same philosophy back.
I think this is mostly spot on — they had a deal now and moved early to get ahead of a roster crunch, and get a couple optionable arms to add to their mix.
I don’t think it deviates from the stack wins in the regular season / “stuff not working in the playoffs” model much, though. Harrison has prospect pedigree but you’re really have to squint to see an ace coming out the other side. This is the same ‘stack up modest-ceiling players we think we can develop ‘ model they’ve been running, and if anything I’d bet the Brewers will look even more Brewer-like in the playoffs if they get there in 2026 — they’ll need Misiorowski fully clicking or Woodruff fully healthy to have an ace, and unless Chourio or Turang take an offensive leap they will have the same kind of lineup filled with competence and not a whole lot of power or elite hitting.
But it’s not like they can just not play someone at third base in between now and then.
Jett Williams doesn’t seem like a great fit at third base due to his throwing problems. And he’s probably an outfielder when Pratt and Made show up anyway.
They could let Brock Wilken have the job. He’s a 40 fielder at third base but I think he’ll probably hit. Eventually. Maybe not in 2026.
Cooper Pratt almost certainly needs more work too.
They could sign Ramon Urias, but he typically plays much better defense at second than at third.
Maybe they can get some team to trade them a third baseman for Garrett Mitchell, but they can probably see that he’s hurt a lot just like we can.
It would be great for them if they could trade him for Baty, but I have to imagine that if they were going to do something like that they would have already done it. It’s hard to see the Mets going for that.
Maybe they could package Mitchell and Quero and one of their many starters (Gasser? Harrison? Drohan?) in a deal for Paredes? That seems light.
But I think the Brewers really assume someone will step up and I don’t think that’s a good assumption.
Mets are gonna keep Baty now that Lindor is going to be out.
I’m guessing the Brewers think this is the high-water mark for Durbin, and I don’t necessarily disagree. Counting on a rookie to fill the hole in the infield though is asking a lot.
And yet just last year they counted on a rookie to fill the hole in the infield and now everyone is lamenting them repeating a successful formula.
Didn’t they also do the exact same thing the year before with Joey. I think they’ve earned some trust on this one.
Too much is made of how they were top-whatever NL ROY finishers. They were undeniably valuable, but in a weak year for rookies with weak stats underlying their performance. Reasonable to want to sell high.
What a weird trade. The Brewers sold high on Durbin, but they don’t have a great replacement. The Red Sox traded from a surplus to fill a position of need, but it seems like a pretty underwhelming solution. And then they also swapped utility infielders for some reason?
It seems like a Harrison-for-Paredes framework should have been doable.
Either Red Sox value Durbin more than Paredes, or Astros wanted a lot more than what Red Sox sent to Brewers
Who knows, they could actually still make a trade for Paredes. There’s nothing here that precludes them trading for Paredes or Baty.
And maybe I’m not that well versed in what most front offices see in Harrison and Drohan. Maybe their value around the league is a lot higher than I expect.
But I wouldn’t be trading Paredes unless one of Abreu, Duran, Tolle, or Early is coming back as the headliner.
Duran is probably worth more than Paredes and I could see the Red Sox not wanting to trade him, and they seem to really love Duran.
And the Red Sox traded players a whole bunch of players who are probably worth less collectively than either Tolle or Early are worth individually.
The way the roster is assembled, something’s gotta give eventually on the position-player front. Not expecting a Paredes trade anymore, but there are other needs. For example, the lefty bullpen depth is suspect, with Jovani Moran the next best up after Chapman.
Casas is estimated back by May. Yoshida and Casas on the bench together while one of the 4 outfielders rotates with them through the DH slot doesn’t make a ton of sense if the intention of having IKF, Montaserio, etc. is to use them as robustly-fielding Swiss army knives. Casas and Yoshida prevent the roster flexibility that Cora likely would prefer.
Yoshida is a target of loathing from many fans because of his lack of production, lack of versatility, and underperforming the contract, but he did actually hit quite well down the stretch in 2025 (and in the playoffs). It would be compelling to see what he could do as a supportive bat on a club with a decent lineup and better fit for a lefty DH with strong contact skill. Hopefully Breslow can move one of Yoshida or Casas to maximize the flexibility cultivated from the new infielders
I don’t think Casas will be clogging up a bench spot in the majors. He’ll be assigned to AAA when he comes back in May. He’ll only get another shot in the majors if there are injuries, someone stinks it up big time, or he absolutely goes nuclear at AAA. Shouldn’t be a problem.
Yoshida is such a question mark that I don’t really mind their stated intention to rotate the 4 Outfielders through the DH slot (and possibly give Rafaela a few innings at 2B). If Yoshida rakes they could also decide to limit Rafaela’s starts to lefties but have him pinch hit, pinch run, and play defense late in almost every game. He’d still get around 700-800 innings in CF that way and around 350ish PAs. I’d rather see him play more often, but what do you do if Duran is playing like a 6 WAR player again and Yoshida has a 120 WRC+? In that scenario you’d obviously play Rafaela less, and that’d be ok.
I agree about the lack of lefty reliever depth. My best guess is that Sandoval is destined for the pen. That’d give them Chapman, Sandoval, and Moran with Samaniego, Tolle, Bennett, and Early at AAA
I wish it was that easy but how can they rotate the 4 outfielders through the DH spot and still give Yoshida enough AB’s. Casas will, almost certainly spend some time in AAA and if he hits then he is either traded or Yoshida has no place on the roster whatsoever. However, a slugging Casas is much more valuable than Yoshida in that scenario so how do they trade Casas? Too many starting pitchers, if that’s possible, too many average infielders and DH’s, not enough spots for the 4 very good outfielders. It looks like Breslow is going to have swing his sword and break this Gordian Knot that is the Red Sox roster construction.
Or a single player gets injured, all of this is cleared up immediately, and every fan thanks the old gods that Breslow refrained from selling low on Duran, Abreu, or Rafaela.
Or no one gets injured but one guy has a severe down year. Again, every fan thanks the old gods.
Or no one gets injured and everyone plays well. In that case we’re talking about 2700ish total PAs to fill across the three OF positions and DH — enough for each of Anthony, Duran, Abreu, Rafaela, and Yoshida to get 540ish PAs. And those PAs would be optimized and allocated according to individual strengths and weaknesses (Rafaela facing fewer righties, Rafaela always playing CF late in games to help protect leads, Abreu and Duran sitting against some lefties etc.) In this scenario the team is great but everyone calls into WEEI to complain. Let them.
Last year, only Duran amassed over 540 PAs at OF/DH. Depth is important. They don’t need to trade anyone.
I really hope Yoshida does not get as many plate appearances as Anthony (or any of the other outfielders). If he was right handed or could play the field, I could see a bigger role for him, but for now I think he’s just a pinch hitter.
I’m with you.
I was just pointing out that in a magical scenario where all 5 players are perfectly healthy and all playing as well as can be imagined, you can still conceivably give each of them plenty of PAs (540ish). And that only one player on the Red Sox managed to amass even that many PAs at OF/DH last year (Duran)!
But if the Red Sox do find themselves with peak Anthony, peak Duran, peak Rafaela, peak Abreu, and peak Yoshida they will absolutely give peak Anthony 650ish PAs and peak Yoshida 450ish.
You can do this with OF defense too btw. Each OF position will see about 1500 innings played this year. That’s 1500 * 3 / 4 = 1,125 innings each for Anthony, Rafaela, Abreu, and Duran if you want to be perfectly equitable. Rafaela had 1,167 innings in the OF last year. So even in this perfectly equitable, perfectly healthy scenario, Rafaela would get roughly the same number of defensive innings in the OF as last year
If all of this happens the Red Sox will win the World Series, so nobody will be complaining except other teams. 😉
Yep, pinch hitter, and insurance for injuries. Anthony has had an injury history too. Leave him on the roster as a strength against righties when necessary.
Worrying about getting Yoshida enough AB’s is a sign that the position players are already good. Breslow doesn’t have to do anything about this. Casas won’t be ready to start the season anyway, and he can be stashed in the minors (as can all of the infielders in the Durbin trade, and Campbell). The Sox now have an absurd amount of depth, though they will probably need it.
Hasn’t Rafaela been worse against lefties over his career? I can’t see him becoming a platoon bat just because that’s normally how thins work. I’d also argue playing hi at 2nd is malpractice, given his glove. Leave the kid alone and let him become the Mike Cameron he is destined to be.
Nice observation. I’m a little skeptical that his deficiencies against lefties should be expected to continue. It would be interesting to know his minor league splits.
Regardless, even if Rafaela does suck against lefties, you’d still play him against lefties over Abreu and Duran (they suck more or the same against lefties and Rafaela is better defensively). That’s still optimization, even if Rafaela isn’t particularly good against lefties
Yeah, he should not platoon because he is by far the best CF we have (and probably in the AL, too). He’s a big plus whether he hits or not.
I agree with both you and Jimmie. I think there’s a chance Tolle gets the multi-inning job.
I agree–I don’t think this package comes close to getting Paredes. They were likely holding out for one of Tolle or Early or Duran or Abreu.
I see Durbin as Paredes lite (and probably better on D). Sox should stand pat.
You are probably right on both questions. Durbin might have had his career year already but I like his all-around game. It isn’t difficult for a right-handed pull hitter to reach the Green Monster, especially one who makes lots of contact. Combine that with solid defense and he might be a pleasant surprise. Paredes wasn’t going to come cheap and the price probably included Early or Tolle. A price that was too high to pay before seeing just what these two hot prospects really have.
And if Durbin is bad there is depth to replace or mitigate him.
Sox did not want to block Mayer, and they couldn’t move Story to not block him at short.
In what world will the Brewers need Harrison to hold down a rotation spot on day one?
Yeah, I’ve got Henderson, Sproat and Gasser all ahead of Harrison unless he kills it with all those new pitches in ST.
FG DC has Harrison as 6th, lol. There is not knowing who is on the Brewers and then there is not even looking at your own website to learn who is on the Brewers.
Is it? FGDC projections:
Devers: 3.2 WAR in 686 PA
Durbin: 2.5 WAR in 581 PA
ZIPS 3 year projections:
Devers: 7.4 WAR in 1,943 PA
Durbin: 6.4 WAR in 1,489 PA
That’s maybe a slight edge to Devers. And with the money left over, you can sign pitcher like Ranger Suarez. Of course, you can make the case that these projections aren’t telling the whole story, but it does feel like you should actually make the case instead of letting the term “star player do the heavy lifting.
What do you mean? He made his case right here:
“He played great defense and ran the bases well, and advanced metrics like xwOBA and DRC+ indicate that he deserved his production at the plate. Still, it’s probably a bit much to expect him to repeat the 105 wRC+ he put up in 2025 without any regression. It seems more reasonable to put up closer to two wins”
*sigh*
Sigh? Acknowledging that his underlying metrics matched his production and then being vague about how much he’ll regress isn’t making a case.
His projections reflect regression. Durbin put up 2.6 WAR in 506 PA. FGDC puts him at 2.5 WAR in 581 PA; ZIPS 3 year says 6.4 WAR in 1,489 PA, or about 2.2 WAR per 506 PA.
Even with that regression, he’s still pretty close in expected production to Devers. He’s just not an “undeniable star” like Devers, with $250 mil left on his contract.
The sigh was sarcasm directed at Davy, not at you
Oh. Well then I guess I’m the jerk. Sigh (directed at myself).
Well the jerk store called…
So many people not only overrate Devers, but don’t take into account the Red Sox roster construction and who they had in the minors at the time of the trade.
Devers is a great hitter. Likely to continue to be for quite a while. But a bad 3B apart from the arm, and likely will not be a 3B going forward. So it’s a great bat, with value taken away for defense.
Before this trade I thought the Brewers should sign Rengifo or R. Urias, now I think they should sign both. IMO, Jett Williams would benefit from several more months in AAA, not weeks.
I agree.
MLBTR pitched the Brewers as a landing spot for Paredes earlier because of the presence of Tyler Black and Garrett Mitchell.
To me, this reads like those trades where a fan says “what if this other team took all my team’s spare parts and I got this great player in return?”
If I were the Brewers I would trade Mitchell, Black, David Hamilton, DL Hall, and Carlos Rodriguez for Paredes without blinking. I doubt the Astros would agree to it. Sure it would solve all their depth problems, but how much better would it make the team?
Houston has a genuine need for Mitchell, but it would take adding a legit and healthy prospect to make it happen. Gasser or Pratt appear to be the most expendable now and should at least get Dana Brown to take Arnold’s call.
I don’t think there would be any issues with trading Gasser at this point. He’s good, but he definitely seems to be expendable.
The only real issue is that Paredes’ batted ball profile is so weird. The fact is Paredes has way more value to three teams than anyone else: The Astros, Rays, and Red Sox.
It doesn’t make sense to me that the Astros are going to trade him at all. They’d be much better off seeing if they could swap Christian Walker for Yoshida or something like that if they really want a left handed outfielder.
For clarity, can we define what makes Rafael Devers and his 3.3 WAR an undeniable star?
Since when is stardom determined exclusively through a derived stat
You’re on the wrong site.
Really? Because I would think any stathead worth his/her salt would be capable of holding more than one number in their head at a time. WAR isn’t infallible.
So make the case against WAR and for whatever criteria you prefer.
Why would I make a case against WAR? WAR is useful. But you’re arguing it’s the end-all, be-all of baseball statistics when its creators (no matter the flavor) would be the first to tell you that WAR has significant uncertainty and shouldn’t be used on its own to evaluate players. Anyone who has read this site for any length of time should know this.
Depends on your definition of “star”. Here, it’s based as much on value as FG has made possible. Elsewhere, “star” is determined by more flawed ideas that aren’t based in science or statistics that have rigor.
Probably the 135 wRC+ and career 29.1 WAR.
So they could replace him with McCutchen.
I read “undeniable star” as somewhat sarcastic given the gap between what a lot of fans think Devers’ value is and what his actual value going forward is.
If so, I agree. Maybe I’m just so used to hearing people, including here on Fangraphs, ridicule everything to do with trading Devers.
As a Red Sox fan, I can tell you that Red Sox fans, as a group, are ignorant AF.
It seems like he’s suggesting that non-Red Sox fans are the problem.
Need Drohan to click so I can broadcast my age to everyone by making “Don’t Mess with the Drohan” jokes.
It seems like you didn’t actually delete the pasta-themed sentence.
Just pointing out that Durbin led the league in HBP with 24 in 136 games.
Durbin was also hit a lot in the minors and missed time. In Milwaukee he missed almost no time due to being hit by pitches
Not saying it’s “the” factor but if I am a GM and a player’s value is boosted significantly by a high risk practice I evaluate differently then the more typical player.
As a Brewer fan, appreciate everything Caleb did as a Brewer. But I absolutely understand if the Crew thinks Caleb’s success model is unsustainable longer term.
Get him a Bonds-esque elbow guard asap.
There are a few guys, obviously, who had long and successful careers with getting HBPs as an important part of their games. Marte and Rizzo are some recent examples. But I do wonder how common it is for a player who gets hit a lot to start getting hurt and having to change his approach.
Jason Kendall, Craig Biggio, and Don Baylor both come to mind as guys who made it work.
I thought of them too but I wondered if I was engaging in a little bit of survivorship bias, like when people point to pitchers in 60s and 70s as proof that guys can throw 300+ innings.
All the players you mentioned could take a pitch and pop back up but the leader among the Human Dart Boards is Ron Hunt, who also had a solid career, with 50 in 1971.
This will be interesting to watch going forward because he does so little damage when he connects that if pitchers start flooding the zone against him he might take a bigger hit to his OBP from less walks and HBP compared to the boost he might see to his AVG and that could really hurt his offensive value.
The bit about the rottenness of the Devers trade tree is confusing. Are you saying this trade further supports that idea? Because that doesn’t make sense. This trade involves the Red Sox using a piece from that trade as the centerpiece of a deal to fill their biggest remaining need for the coming season.
Whatever you want to argue about their motivation for making the deal, you can’t argue that Harrison hasn’t provided them with some excellent value.
Exactly this.