The path to the next Red Sox championship goes like this:
-- Devers still in his prime and Casas entering his.
-- Someone from the Duran/Rafaela/Abreu group becoming an impact starter in the outfield.
-- Story at 2B and Yoshida at DH still making meaningful contributions.
-- Minimum salary, above average players at C, SS, and CF, allowing the team to spend real money on other positions, presumably a middle of the order right-handed hitter and/or a frontline starting pitcher or two.
-- A more reliable pipeline of upper-minors pitching depth, the most valuable commodity in the game.
This is not going to happen in 2024. And even if you believe it might happen in 2025 (asking a lot, in my opinion), how is locking in Dylan Cease as your ace for that one year worth knocking out a major pillar of the rebuilding plan by trading six years of Mayer, let alone adding anything else to a deal?
The smarter play, at this point, would be to wait until next offseason or the one after that and trade someone from the pitching pipeline or someone who emerges from the Bleis/Cespedes/Castro youngster group to get THAT year's Dylan Cease. In other words, make the big trade as the last piece to the rebuild, not the first.
Of course, Montgomery is a different story, since there's no reason to believe that spending money on him in 2024 would weaken the team in 2025 and beyond -- and if you think you want him as one of the front-line starters on the 2026 team, now's the time to get him.
-- Devers still in his prime and Casas entering his.
-- Someone from the Duran/Rafaela/Abreu group becoming an impact starter in the outfield.
-- Story at 2B and Yoshida at DH still making meaningful contributions.
-- Minimum salary, above average players at C, SS, and CF, allowing the team to spend real money on other positions, presumably a middle of the order right-handed hitter and/or a frontline starting pitcher or two.
-- A more reliable pipeline of upper-minors pitching depth, the most valuable commodity in the game.
This is not going to happen in 2024. And even if you believe it might happen in 2025 (asking a lot, in my opinion), how is locking in Dylan Cease as your ace for that one year worth knocking out a major pillar of the rebuilding plan by trading six years of Mayer, let alone adding anything else to a deal?
The smarter play, at this point, would be to wait until next offseason or the one after that and trade someone from the pitching pipeline or someone who emerges from the Bleis/Cespedes/Castro youngster group to get THAT year's Dylan Cease. In other words, make the big trade as the last piece to the rebuild, not the first.
Of course, Montgomery is a different story, since there's no reason to believe that spending money on him in 2024 would weaken the team in 2025 and beyond -- and if you think you want him as one of the front-line starters on the 2026 team, now's the time to get him.