If MLB wanted to get into the prospect evaluation business for stuff like this I very much doubt they would want to change a deal so drastically as to remove Espinoza from it. Easier to tell the Padres to send something extra back to the Red Sox. Given the relatively minor nature of the withheld information, telling the Padres to protect their top 20 or 30 prospects and letting the Sox pick someone from the rest might be reasonable. In other words, nothing to get real excited about.A reasonable plan to me would have been to identify someone to mediate who had prior front office or scouting experience and can properly assign value to players.Both teams would have been instructed to identify 3 prospects that would be used to "trade" for Espinoza. The central idea would be that they should be lesser prospects than him. Each team could strike one player from the other list. They would then present to the mediator why they feel the players they identified would be appropriate compensation (legitimate, yet lesser prospect). If they each had the same player on their lists it would default to that player. You would want to make the process so the Padres don't go after someone like Kopech and the Sox don't offer some rookie league late rounder. It's not perfect, but it's the best scenario I can think of.
Justifications for the Sox somehow getting Espinoza back sounds like fanboy talk.
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