Brandon Glick

In part two of our analysis of the Red Sox's short-side platoon success, I figured it'd be fun to directly compare today's subject, Romy Gonzalez, with Rob Refsnyder (our topic of conversation yesterday). I won't rehash what we spoke about in the Refsnyder piece, but it's worth noting up top that he's deriving most of his success from pulling the ball, while also sacrificing some production against off-speed pitches to better prepare for fastballs and breaking balls. Like Gonzalez, Refsnyder plays primarily against southpaws; Gonzalez draws 53.4% of his plate appearances against lefties, compared to 72.3% for Refsnyder. Here are their stats in those situations: Refsnyder: .287/.384/.521, 144 wRC+, five home runs, 25.0% strikeout rate, 13.4% walk rate Gonzalez: .337/.392/.663, 184 wRC+, six home runs, 26.4% strikeout rate, 8.5% walk rate We've already spoken at length about what Gonzalez does to left-handed pitching, but it's fascinating to compare him to the team's designated lefty destroyer and see just how good he's gotten at the job. His 1.063 OPS against southpaws this season ranks fourth in all of baseball, behind only Aaron Judge (1.281), Paul Goldschmidt (1.181), and Cal Raleigh (1.082). His .323 ISO ranks fifth, his slugging percentage ranks fourth, and his on-base percentage ranks just outside the top ten. By all accounts, he is one of the five-to-ten best hitters against left-handed pitchers in baseball this season. Let's dig a bit deeper. Among qualified hitters against left-handed pitchers, he ranks tied for second in BABIP (.429). That's kind of a "yikes" stat in a vacuum, but consider that he's also spreading the ball to all fields pretty well—his 31.9% opposite field batted ball rate is 23rd in baseball against southpaws—and owns the sixth-highest hard-hit rate (46.4%). Plain and simple, he owns lefties, and whatever "luck" he gets is well deserved given his quality of contact. Unlike Refsnyder, Gonzalez is hitting every pitch type better this year, but he's experienced a drastic uptick in production against breaking balls. His wOBA this season against the breaking stuff is at .441, more than doubling his .215 mark a year ago. To put that into context, Nick Kurtz ranks second in baseball with a .430 wOBA, and LaMonte Wade Jr. ranks last with a .242 mark. Gonzalez's xwOBA against such pitches (.331) betrays that a little bit, but he's still more than tightened up the most problematic hole in his approach. For what it's worth, Gonzalez is actually still pretty bad at pulling the ball in the air (13.2%), which is problematic considering that he plays half his games in Fenway Park. If he can improve upon his plate discipline—his chase (33.4%) and whiff rates (32.3%) are in the bottom-quartile among all hitters this year—he can probably drive a few more of those balls to left, rather than punching them weakly to right. Nevertheless, you'll live with some of that swing and miss if he can continue to attack lefties in his preferred manner. Overall, the Red Sox have two of the very best hitters in baseball against left-handed pitchers. Considering that first base and designated hitter remain fluid in Alex Cora's lineup, that's a valuable thing to have when trying to play the platoon advantage, especially off the bench late in games. The presence of Gonzalez (and Refsnyder) shouldn't preclude the front office from trying to make a permanent upgrade over the offseason, but the Red Sox's offense has been thriving this year thanks to the versatility of its myriad pieces. Without the two "lefty mashers", it's hard to think the story would be the same. View full article

I don't mean to alarm anyone, but the Red Sox are within three games of the division lead with three left to play against the Blue Jays (in September)...

Couldn't agree more. They produce at All-Star rates against lefties. No reason to keep those guys out of the lineup, at least while we're trying to win!

Let's play a fun little game that definitely wasn't spoiled by the headline of this article. Can you name the Red Sox's four best hitters according to weighted on-base average (wOBA) this season? I'll list them below: Alex Bregman (.386 wOBA) Romy González (.373) Roman Anthony (.369) Rob Refsnyder (.364) So, to recap, that's the team's best overall player atop the list, a guy who hammers left-handed pitchers to the tune of a 1.055 OPS in 102 plate appearances, and the former best prospect in baseball fresh off one of the best rookie months in franchise history. The next player on the list isn't one of the team's outfield stars (Jarren Duran, Wilyer Abreu, and Ceddanne Rafaela occupy the next three spots), nor is it breakout rookie catcher Carlos Narváez. Instead, it's 34-year-old outfielder Refsnyder, who makes his hay the same way González does: crushing lefties. He's rocking a .277/.364/.485 slash line overall, good for a 130 wRC+ that's right in line with what he's done in Boston since arriving prior to the 2022 season. His strikeout rate (26.5%) is up a few ticks from his career norms, but he's made up for that by raising his walk rate (11.9%) as well. His .208 isolated slugging (ISO) is his highest in any season with more than 50 plate appearances, and he continues to work a comical BABIP, standing at .349 for the season. That latter number might sound like it suggests some forthcoming regression, but it's actually lower than his career number in a Red Sox uniform (.352). Part of the reason for that last tidbit is just the kinds of situations the Red Sox put Refsnyder in. Over 72% of his plate appearances this season have come against southpaws, and his OPS jumps by more than 200 points when he gains the handedness advantage. As you might expect, Refsnyder's aptitude for pulling the ball reaches another stratosphere against lefties, though even his cumulative totals are wildly impressive. Just take a look at how silly his spray chart (courtesy of Baseball Savant) is this year: Refsnyder's pulled-ball rate is up to 44.6% this season, which would rank tied for 42nd in baseball if he had enough plate appearances to qualify. That number would also rank second on the Red Sox behind Bregman, a reminder of what good right-handed hitters can do when they learn to take advantage of the Green Monster in left field. None of this should be surprising if you've followed Refsnyder's decade-long career journey. The book on him is eminently clear; he's just doing his thing better than usual in 2025. Case in point: his wOBA against both fastballs (.379) and breaking balls (.399) are up to near-career-high levels (his wOBA against fastballs is the highest of his career), and he's doing it while sacrificing some production against off-speed offerings (.227 wOBA, worst since 2022). It's a common profile we've seen aging hitters take in recent years—George Springer of the Blue Jays might be the poster child for it in 2025—and one that Refsnyder is making work with ease and grace. In Romy González and Rob Refsnyder, the Red Sox have two brilliant short-side platoon options to deploy in the infield and outfield, respectively. That's usually not the most efficient way to build a team—it's often advisable to target left-handed hitters who can crush righties since they are far more common—but Boston is making it work. Regardless of what the future holds for the retirement-considering veteran, Refsnyder's role-filling greatness shouldn't taken for granted. View full article

I believe it's because he pitched for the Pirates prior, and stats technically don't transfer over to the other league (NL to AL) mid-season. They may have that changed how that works, though.

The Red Sox are basically gonna draw the Royals' all-deadline rotation this week. First up: Bailey Falter.

Nothing in baseball is guaranteed. Tanner Houck, fresh off a brilliant 2024 campaign where he earned his first All-Star nod and pitched to a 3.12 ERA in 178 2/3 innings, was supposed to be the No. 2 to Garrett Crochet this season. Instead, he was miserable in limited action, surrendering a hideous 8.04 ERA in 43 2/3 innings. He was originally placed on the injured list back on May 12 with a strained forearm flexor, and numerous setbacks have kept him from appearing in Boston since. Now, according to Chris Cotillo, Houck will undergo Tommy John surgery in short order. The procedure and subsequent recovery will likely keep him out through the end of the 2026 season. Houck, 29, is due to be a free agent after the 2027 season. Given his troubling injury diagnosis and the exceedingly-high likelihood of a league-wide lockout in 2027, it's possible we've seen the last of Houck in a Red Sox uniform. View full rumor

Craig Breslow and company elected to play it safe at the 2025 MLB trade deadline, bringing in a few high-upside but low-floor pitchers. How much did the team improve? View full video

Re-signing him has a lot to do with it, at least in my estimation. If the plan is to treat him purely as a rental, giving up Tibbs+ makes no sense. If the goal is to keep him around, I can squint hard enough to see the logic. The thing with a guy like May is, maybe the Red Sox did want to sign him in free agency, but perhaps not enough to beat out 29 other teams to do it. So, they wanted to bring him in now to see what he's got and how he reacts to their system and pitching development team. That kind of information is invaluable, and can really only be ascertained when you have a guy in your building. Alternatively, maybe the Red Sox knew how much they already loved him and how badly they wanted to sign him in free agency. So, in an attempt to give themselves a leg up in his sweepstakes, they brought him in now with the plan of trying to sell him on Boston for the long-term by showing him how great the franchise/fanbase/internal development team is. Again, something that can really only be simulated during a free agency visit.

I genuinely do not know who is starting today's game. FanGraphs suggests it's a bullpen game with Criswell leading the charge. ESPN and MLB say it's TBD. I think it might be May, who is on the normal four days of rest after starting against the Red Sox last week. But he was just acquired yesterday, so maybe not? We'll see...

In total at the 2025 MLB trade deadline, the Boston Red Sox brought in two players (pitchers Steven Matz and Dustin May) and shipped out three prospects (infielder Blaze Jordan, outfielders James Tibbs III and Zach Ehrhard). It was an underwhelming deadline to say the least, though is it really as bad as it looks? Like movie, album or video game reviews, grading trades immediately after they come out is a futile task. You're sure to piss someone off by assigning a grade they disagree with, and most people don't even have the same relative scale. Heck, IGN gives practically every single major film that comes out nowadays a 7/10. Nevertheless, they do serve as an easily digestible way to recap an important event, and it's fun to look back on a grade years down the line when the benefit of hindsight has rendered them incorrect and obsolete. For the crowd more interested in the overarching stuff, I'll share my general thoughts on the Red Sox's deadline here before diving into each trade below. Given info from trusted sources, my understanding of how the Red Sox approached this deadline is as follows: Craig Breslow's plan was to wait out the market, not with the intention of driving prices down, but with the goal of seeing how other American League contenders handled their business. With the Yankees, Blue Jays, Astros, and Mariners all going all-in at the deadline (and the Rays and Tigers making some solid moves to beef up their rosters), it became clear that the Red Sox would have had to gut the farm system in order to compete with the likes of the newly-formed ruling class in the junior circuit. With a team more built for 2026 and beyond than 2025, Breslow pulled prospects like Payton Tolle and Jhostynxon Garcia from deals, which effectively took them out of the running for Joe Ryan, MacKenzie Gore, and the like. We know they were close on guys like Merrill Kelly and Zac Gallen, too, but the best prospect they were willing to part with was Tibbs, who the Dodgers took more of a liking to than the Diamondbacks. Let's unpack that briefly. Did the Red Sox do the right thing in the face of the Yankees building a super bullpen or the Astros reuniting with Carlos Correa? Objectively, probably yes. Subjectively, hell no. The team was never dealing Tolle without a controllable starter coming back in return, but their insistence on holding onto every top outfielder on the team just remains a mystery to me. You don't want to deal Jarren Duran (or Wilyer Abreu)? Fine, but then at least make the prospects who are blocked by all those guys, like Garcia, available. Ultimately, I just think the messaging has been mixed from Breslow and his front office. They shockingly sold Rafael Devers in the middle of a winning streak and swore they would be buyers at the deadline. Technically, they did live up to that promise, but getting rental flyers in Matz and May hardly qualifies as a team doing more than the bare minimum. The Red Sox are in worse shape now in terms of both farm system talent and relative major league talent (i.e., the teams close to them in the standings got better than they did). No matter how you chalk it up, that's a failure. Boston Red Sox 2025 Trade Deadline Grades Trade: Boston Red Sox trade INF Blaze Jordan to St. Louis Cardinals for LHP Steven Matz I have to rewrite this section after the deadline hit because I cannot believe this was the only bullpen move the team made. Mind you, I wasn't necessarily expecting the team to add another reliever. The bullpen now has five left-handers (Matz, Aroldis Chapman, Justin Wilson, Chris Murphy, Brennan Bernardino), three of whom are due to be free agents at the end of the year. Considering that they picked up a potential closer in Jordan Hicks in the Devers trade, it is absolutely bewildering to me that they didn't deal Chapman given the price closers were going for at the deadline this year. Mason Miller and Jhoan Duran are controllable and in a slightly different tier of reliever, but oh my lord, did you see what the Athletics and Twins got in return for them? I like Chapman, and had the team made any other moves that signified they were planning to "go for it" this year, I don't mind the idea of hanging onto your 37-year-old rental closer having a career resurrection in Boston. But Matz and May do not qualify as such. This was an easy chance to upgrade the team for 2026 and beyond without gutting the current roster of an irreplaceable piece, and though that's not technically what I'm grading, Matz is completely and wholly redundant on this team right now. He's great against opposing lefties, but so is, like, half the bullpen. Blaze Jordan is a good prospect who was having a good year, but he was eminently blocked at just about every infield position. He's not a huge loss, but it's just odd to trade a valuable player for a pitcher who does nothing this roster already couldn't do. Matz—who has a 3.44 ERA and 2.87 FIP in 55 innings this year—will pitch well in Boston until he becomes a free agent in November. Well enough to change literally anything about this team's fate? Probably not. A very nothing-burger move. Grade: C Trade: Boston Red Sox trade OF James Tibbs III, OF Zach Ehrhard to Los Angeles Dodgers for RHP Dustin May This ended up being the "blockbuster" move of the deadline for the Sox, insofar as you don't count Devers and you really stretch the definition of blockbuster. I really do like May, who has a tantalizing fastball-sweeper mix and is still only 27 years old. However, his results (4.85 ERA, 4.70 FIP in 104 innings this year) scream mediocrity, and that's about the last thing this rotation needed. His ceiling is that of a No. 2 starter, but his current form is more like a higher-upside Walker Buehler. If he weren't an impending free agent, I could see the logic behind this move, but it's hard to get a guy to change his mechanics/pitch mix/delivery/spin in the middle of the year, especially two months out from free agency. If there's a plan in place to work with him and potentially re-sign him, I can be talked into this being a smart, under-the-radar play. If not, I just don't see it for this team. If it was a rental starter the team was willing to settle for, then why not pony up a little further to go after a sure-thing veteran like Merrill Kelly? Tibbs is a very good player (.760 OPS across two levels this season), and it's frustrating to see the team use the best prospect acquired in the Devers deal for a rental pitcher who may not be around next spring. Still, I've pounded the drum for the team to use its extreme outfield depth to upgrade the roster, and it did so by letting Tibbs and Ehrhard (.796 OPS across two levels) go. I just don't know if May was the right guy to do it for. Grade (if re-signed): B Grade (if not re-signed): D+ What do you think of the Red Sox's deadline moves? What grade would you give Boston for their haul (or lack thereof)? View full article

Glad they're passing on him for that price (Top 100 guy, it appears). Get a sure thing right now.

Also, feel free to dump league-wide trades in here, too. Red Sox are involved in a lot, from what we know, though I'd only expect them to complete one (maybe two) more deals today: one bringing in a starter, and then one potentially trading out one of the rental relievers.

Hey all! In lieu of our normal game thread, we're going to roll with this deadline thread. As a recap of what's already happened with the Red Sox (will keep this updated throughout the day): Red Sox trade Blaze Jordan for Steven Matz (Cardinals) That's a left-handed reliever down. What are you thinking with the deadline coming in at 6pm EST today?

I mentioned Duran (for a single paragraph) precisely because I anticipated people ignoring the focus of the article, Cease. He's a great target for the Red Sox and I'd hate for him to get lost in the shuffle because people disagree with me about Duran's value.

Thankfully Bregman's absence is confirmed a planned rest day for a day game after a night game. I don't expect any deals during the game; I imagine post-5pm (EST), the dam will break around the league.

With a day off tomorrow, this could be the last look at the current version of the Red Sox's roster. Hug watch is on.

I know, I know. I need to stop trying to make fetch happen. But, unlike my previous piece, which was very popular and beloved by all, I'm not advocating for the Red Sox to trade anyone away. Instead, something caught my eye in the comment section on my exploration of Jarren Duran's value, which was a near-unanimous consensus that Dylan Cease, the San Diego Padres starter who was offered in a failed exchange for Duran, just isn't that good—or, at least, that he's been awful this season. I take issue with that assessment, especially since he's a proper fit for what the Red Sox want to do with their starting pitchers. And before any of you ask, no I haven't changed my stance on trading Duran. I remain steadfast in the belief that he provides more value to other teams than the Red Sox, but if Cease and Ethan Salas weren't enough to get a deal done at this deadline, I can't imagine anything will. So, lock him behind the air-tight seal on Planet Druidia, don't tell anyone the combination is "1, 2, 3, 4, 5", and pray he's still wearing one of those meaningful-yet-hideous yellow "Boston" uniforms on August 1. Now, turning our attention back to Cease, he's good! Like, No. 2 starter good, and a seamless fit between Brayan Bello and Garrett Crochet at the top of the rotation. His surface stats, which have been the subject of much criticism, aren't pretty; a 4.79 ERA, 1.29 home runs allowed per nine innings, and 1.34 WHIP hardly scream "co-ace". It also doesn't help that he's only accrued six of baseball's most over-cited statistic, quality starts, a number that ties him with Walker Buehler, who hasn't exactly been a world-beater in his first season in Boston. Oh, and also, he just got shelled in his most recent start against the New York Mets on July 28, surrendering five earned runs and five walks in 4 2/3 innings in a game the Padres miraculously won 7-6. Acknowledging all that, I'm sure the comment section is ready to have a field day with my support of Cease. However, lest I leave myself defenseless, it's important to point out that the majority of the damage done to Cease came after he was hit in the back of the head by a comebacker off the bat of Francisco Lindor. And, for what it's worth, his stuff was still downright elite in the outing, as every single one of his pitches graded out as above average on the Stuff+ leaderboards. That most recent start was really a microcosm of Cease's whole 2025 season. His stuff remains as good as ever, but some bad bounces and pitch counts that get elevated far too quickly have prevented him from delivering the caliber of performance fans expect from someone of his stature. His xERA (3.53) and FIP (3.64) both grade out on the upper-end of starting pitchers, and his chase (31.3%), whiff (33.8), and strikeout (29.9%) rates are all above the 80th percentile among all qualified MLB pitchers. Each of those numbers far surpasses what Bello and Lucas Giolito have done in Boston this year, and even the mighty Garrett Crochet falls short of Cease's whiff rate. In fact, remove batted ball metrics from the data set, and Crochet's peripherals align almost eerily well with Cease in 2025. Of course, you can't actually remove batted ball metrics in reality, and that's where Cease's profile looks the rockiest. His average exit velocity allowed ranks as exactly league-average (89.4 mph), but his barrel rate allowed (10.7%) and hard-hit rate allowed (42.3%) ranks in the bottom-third of qualified pitchers. He's also inducing practically no ground balls (37.1% rate, 24th-percentile), though that's an issue that stretches back to even his best years with the Chicago White Sox. Apologies for the whiplash that I'm putting you through in this piece, but even those poor metrics aren't a death knell to Cease's value. That batted ball data is nearly identical to his 2024 season, when he posted a 3.47 ERA in nearly 190 innings and finished fourth in NL Cy Young voting. So, what's different this time around? Well, a .323 BABIP that's 60 points higher than last year's mark (and 30 points higher than his career number) isn't helping the cause, nor is the Padres' bizarre tinkering with is arsenal. Since arriving in San Diego, he's added a sweeper and sinker to his pitch mix, the latter of which is getting hammered to the tune of a .500 batting average and .489 wOBA this season. His fastball-slider combo remains as good as ever, though he's throwing those pitches a combined 87% of the time. His search for a viable third pitch remains ongoing, and his knuckle curve certainly hasn't been up to the task, allowing a .304 BA and .426 wOBA. Like above, it should be noted the expected stats on all of his pitches far surpasses the actual performance of them this season, and if you believe in Andrew Bailey and Craig Breslow's pitching model, it's not hard to believe they could be the ones to unlock the full potential of his arsenal. Just a brief look will show you how much he'd benefit from working with a team that emphasizes sliders actually sliding across the horizontal plane. So, if you can get A.J. Preller to give up on the whole Jarren Duran pursuit, and if you can isolate Cease as a rental starter in a hypothetical deal, he suddenly becomes a lot more attractive for the Red Sox. He alone won't be worth Duran, and it's reasonable to suggest a prospect near or just barely on the consensus Top 100 lists could make for a solid one-for-one swap (or, alternatively, a couple of prospects that rank around the top ten in Boston's farm system). Personally, I think Jhostynxon Garcia assumes that mantle perfectly, though if he's too rich for Breslow's blood, a package centered around James Tibbs and a low-level flyer could be enough to get the deal done. Remember that rental pitchers historically always go for more than rental bats, and the price on those has already been set somewhat high this year (which can certainly be attributed to the lack of surefire sellers on the market). Also, the Padres don't have to trade Cease—you need to give them something better than the compensatory pick they'd receive from letting him sign elsewhere after slapping him with the qualifying offer. If the Red Sox do fancy themselves as contenders this year, which keeping Duran around through the trade deadline would suggest, then it's absolutely imperative that they bring in a good starting pitcher to round out the rotation. If they'd rather not sell the farm for a player at the peak of his value with a few years of team control remaining (Joe Ryan, Edward Cabrera), then they could make a calculated move by bringing in Cease and hoping they make the right tweaks to align his results with his peripherals. View full article

Chris Paddack was traded yesterday, hence the start from Pierson Ohl. Hopefully, the Sox can take advantage.

I completely agree Cease isn't worth what he once was, and if you think Duran is too good for him, then I stand by you in that belief (I am a huge Salas fan, which pushes that particular deal over the edge for me). The issue is Duran is absolutely not bringing in a controllable No. 2 starter. Like, the Pirates will not accept him for Mitch Keller in a one-for-one swap. A very good outfielder though he may be, opposing teams aren't going to value him at his 2024 peak, they're going to value him as guy about to turn 29 who is playing high-quality (but not elite) baseball this year. If that's disparate enough for you (you meaning "anyone") to hold onto him in the hopes that another team offers more for him over the offseason, then I understand and support that notion. I just remain steadfast in the belief that losing this half-year of team control and this pennant race when there are zero good outfielders available on the trade market is going to hurt Duran's value too much to lose out on.