Red Sox Pull Plug on Vaughn Grissom, Closing the Book on Disastrous Chris Sale Trade

After two forgetful years in the Boston Red Sox organization, infielder Vaughn Grissom knows freedom again.

On Tuesday, the city he loosely called home since 2024 bid him farewell, trading him to the Los Angeles Angels in exchange for outfield prospect Isaiah Jackson. In 31 games with the MLB team, Grissom slashed .190/.246/.219 with -0.7 fWAR and just three extra-base hits.

It wasn't all his fault, but the fact remains, Grissom fell out of favor fast in Boston. That reality only exacerbated the failure that was the Chris Sale trade for Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow.

As is always the case, the analysis of this trade shouldn't be black and white. The context surrounding Sale's status with the Red Sox at the time he was traded doesn't change because he tapped into the fountain of youth with the Atlanta Braves. The Sale that the Red Sox were dealing was one they couldn't depend on anymore.

After signing his extension with the team ahead of the 2019 season, Sale made just 56 starts from 2019 to 2023. In that span, he won just 17 games and ranked 111th in ERA. To add injury to insult, pun intended, Sale also had three seasons in which he made fewer than 10 starts. It's revisionist history to say the act of trading him was a mistake. Now, paying him $17 million so you could acquire Grissom? One of the biggest failures of the Breslow regime's player evaluation. A process that's had some home runs, to be sure, but this one was a massive whiff.

It's not hard to see what the organization liked about Grissom at the time. Starting with the obvious, his age. At just 22 years old, it was conceivable the Red Sox had their second baseman of the future, adding him to the young core of Marcelo Mayer and Roman Anthony.

Remember, Kristian Campbell hadn't ascended through the ranks yet. At the time, Mayer was the plan for the long haul at shortstop with some serious uncertainty at second base; uncertainty that still lingers going on nine years since Manny Machado took out Dustin Pedroia's knee in Baltimore.

Moreover, the profile of hitter Grissom projected: He was a true hit-over-power bat with a projectable, athletic frame and a pretty good feel for the strike zone. While 2023 was forgettable, he flashed great potential with the bat in 2022 when he hit .291 with five homers in 156 plate appearances.

They thought they were, at worst, getting controllable, steady play at second base for the next half-decade. Little did the organization know he'd hurt himself in spring training, get violently ill right before returning from the injured list, lose 15-plus pounds, and absolutely eviscerate his standing in the organization.

By the time he flashed his potential late into the 2024 season, Campbell had emerged as an untouchable asset, and Grissom's hopes of being a Boston Red Sox contributor dwindled. Couple that with a .176/.300/.235 slash line in spring training in 2025, and the young infielder never stood a chance.

At least for him now, he has a chance to rehab his standing in Major League Baseball on a team rife with question marks but hungry to return to the postseason for the first time since 2014. For the Red Sox's troubles? They get a young outfielder with 10 professional games under his belt.

If Breslow is fortunate enough to have a long career as a decision-maker in an MLB front office, trades like this will happen from time to time. Yes, Sale winning the National League Cy Young in 2024 makes it hurt even more, especially as the Red Sox continue to covet top-of-the-market starting pitching. But that much is honestly irrelevant to the point; it was time to move on from the postseason hero.

Good process, bad results.