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Update: The deal, as expected, is hung up in the medicals stage, per Chris Cotillo. Rutschman is dealing with a wrist injury (tell me where you've heard that one before) and missed time due to an ankle injury and concussion earlier this year.
Update 2: The deal is done, per Jeff Passan. Still waiting on official terms of the deal.
Original story as follows.
Well folks, Craig Breslow has officially heard your complaints. After playing things far too passively at last year's trade deadline, he flipped Connelly Early for Curtis Mead in the summer's first blockbuster. And now, he's going even bigger, picking up Adley Rutschman from the Baltimore Orioles.
After a year and a half in which he seemed greatly diminished by injuries, Rutschman is back on his game this year. He’d lost some bat speed; it’s back. He’d lost a bit of the edge he once provided on defense; it’s back. He’s a switch-hitting catcher with a strong track record who might have a gear we haven’t seen yet. It’s all too little and too late for the Orioles, though. They had a lousy 2025 and are headed in the same direction this year. They committed to a younger catcher, Samuel Basallo, both because of his huge power potential and because he was willing to sign a team-friendly extension; Rutschman wasn’t.
Their surplus behind the plate turns into the Boston Red Sox's gain. There's no word on the return yet, but it'll be sizable, even before factoring in a division rival tax.
There are significant fallout questions to address here. What happens to Carlos Narvaez now that a three-time All-Star is in the mix? Will the Red Sox try to enter extension conversations with Rutschman, who is 28 and under team control through 2027, before the lockout? What else is on tap for Breslow today?
No matter what the answers to those questions are, what matters most is that the Red Sox have their catcher of the future. Rutschman still hasn't recaptured the magic of his first few seasons when he was worth a whopping 11.1 fWAR, but he's been excellent this year both at the plate (115 wRC+, .764 OPS) and behind it (+9 Fielding Run Value). He's also a switch-hitter who crushes southpaws (.783 OPS against left-handed pitching in his career), filling the quotient of a right-handed slugger the team has needed since Mead went down in his second at-bat with the team.
Once the deal has been finalized and the prospect package is confirmed, we'll have plenty more to break down about this trade.
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