As the Red Sox brass arrived for the winter meetings in Nashville this week, fans couldn’t help but wonder if the team has a surprise trade or signing up its sleeve.
More importantly, do fans really want a surprise?
After all, a year ago at this time, the team came out of left field to introduce new manager Bobby Valentine, who flopped early and then often.
The year before, the Red Sox came out of nowhere at the winter meetings to ink Carl Crawford to a seven-year albatross of a deal that everyone, including Crawford, realized was a colossal debacle.
And yet, there are – wait for it – surprisingly encouraging signs that the Red Sox are more than capable of zigging in a direction that makes the team better in both the short and long term when others are expecting a zag.
Remember that by late July and early August of this year, as the Red Sox’ season spiraled out of control, the top brass – owners and baseball operations -- came to the realization that the team had gone off the rails.
Courtesy of the free-spending Dodgers and an open-to-fresh-thinking Red Sox, the salary dump of Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto to LA – for some promising prospects as well – was a move that was beyond surprising.
The move was shocking – shockingly great – and it set in motion this offseason of seemingly endless possibilities for more bold surprises from the Red Sox.
There have been hints that they are ready to do just that.
Even as the Marlins were preparing to conduct a massive salary dump with the Blue Jays last month, the Red Sox were negotiating with Miami about a deal that would have brought shortstop Jose Reyes and starter Josh Johnson here. There were two hangups, according to an AL source: The Marlins wanted third baseman Will Middlebrooks, whom the Red Sox still consider to be untouchable, and the Red Sox had concerns about Johnson’s health that had not been satisfied.
That all became moot once the much larger Toronto-Miami deal went through, but then last week, news that the Red Sox and Royals had at least spoken about a deal that would send Jon Lester to Kansas City in exchange for outfield prospect Wil Myers caught everyone by surprise.
Some could not even bear to talk about the trade. The idea that a pitching-hungry team could still entertain trading away its best starter tripped circuit breakers in some quarters when it should have delighted followers that the team could think many years down the road about how to blend veterans with blue-chip young players.
A shocker like a Lester-Myers type of deal may never see the light of day, and in reality, the odds favor the Red Sox making smaller-scale surprises.
So, in Nashville and after, here are a few ways the Red Sox could surprise us all.
According to an industry source, the Red Sox are shopping for help at the back end of the bullpen, and had been interested in signing Ryan Madson before the Angels inked him to a one-year, $3.5 million deal. Brian Wilson would count as a pleasant surprise.![]()
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