Winter Meetings are coming up soon. Yamamoto will be posted in under 30 days, from what I've read. Breslow is saying that he doesn't have restraints, so....
Are Devers, Bello, Mayer, etc available? I think the vast majority of us want to build around them rather than move them, but in what trade scenarios would you be comfortable including these guys? Will he view Devers contract and defensive shortcomings and think now would be a good time to trade him and free up money? I'd prefer to hold onto Devers at $31M AAV through his age 37 season even if he's slotted directly into DH sooner rather than later, but I'm not in charge. I'd also have no interest in trading Bello, Mayer, Anthony, Rafaela, and Teel, but I'd assume those are the exact players other teams will want. What kind of outside the box thinking will Craig utilize to improve this team?
In short, I'm excited for this offseason and really hope Breslow improves the team sooner rather than later. How he does that is yet to be seen.
I'd assume (or at least hope) that the answer is "everyone is available", but that doesn't mean trying to sell them, so to speak.
I really can't think of a feasible trade where moving Bello makes any sense. He is - literally - the only starting pitcher in the entire organization that you can look at with any degree of certainty and say "he is a rotation piece for the next several seasons." Everyone else has questions surrounding age, injury, performance or contract status.
Devers would need to go to a team that has a boatload of money, and realistically won't be traded in the division (so - Mets, Phillies, LAD, LAA, Atlanta, Texas, Houston and probably ChC and SFG). Then you'd need to remove teams that are already set at 3b (and 1b - assuming Devers could move there) which rules out Atlanta and Texas (probably Philly and Houston as well, but for fun, I'll leave them in there). Then you need to find a team that has something you actually want - which probably rules out LAA as they're a dumpster fire and probably SFG. So you're left with between 3 and 5 teams that could make any sense for Devers (Mets, LAD, ChC and possibly Philly and Houston). That'd be a very tough needle to thread - especially considering the optics of trading another "face of the franchise" to LAD or sending him right out to Breslow's old team (ChC).
The players that it'd be both really tough to see them move but could make any sense for Boston (and where I could see wide appeal to other teams) from the "etc" camp are Casas, Mayer and Anthony (Devers slides to 1b in this scenario if you're talking Casas). Those would have to be for some
really good pieces - in my mind those pieces have to be SP1 / SP2 type pieces that are seen as at worst comparable to Bello in terms of performance, upside and control. (Case in point - and this isn't realistic for MANY reasons, but if Mayer is moved you're getting back a "Zac Gallen" type piece.)
I really don't see someone like Devers, Bello, Casas, Mayer, Anthony or Teel being moved - but I do think you're going to see SOME prospect / young player consolidation into MLB pieces - I just think it's more likely to be from among - no particular order - Houck, Crawford, Yorke, Bleis, Duran, Abreu, Rafaela and Cespedes. Call it something like Yorke, Crawford and Cespedes (or Duran and Houck) for Cease just to spitball something that looks "close" in terms of BTV numbers.