With the baseball season now two months old, the time for teams to determine whether to buy or sell by the July 31 trade deadline is coming increasingly into view. Yet there already has been speculation that the Red Sox have identified at least part of their direction.
Last week, USA Today reported the Sox are determined to deal veteran righthander Kenley Jansen by the deadline. Though Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow did not rule out the possibility of dealing the closer, he said a definitive claim about Jansen’s future — or that of any other player — is premature.
“I don’t actually know where that came from,” said Breslow Wednesday. “I would not say anything with certainty right now. We’ve got plenty of baseball left.”
Breslow outlined the factors that will play into how the team approaches the question of investing further in the 2024 season or turning beyond it. Among them: The Sox’ performance and probability of reaching the postseason; the performance of the rest of the AL East and the American League; and the available trade opportunities.
But after the Red Sox struggled the last two years to define their direction at the deadline, Breslow indicated that they will chart a more definitive course this time.
“I think the trade deadline is this inflection point where we have to pick a lane,” said Breslow. “I think it’s fairly straightforward what is going to drive that decision — namely, how are we performing? How many games are we winning? But secondarily, maybe what opportunities exist in trying to balance the short-term outlook and the long-term outlook?”
To date, of course, the Sox have yet to define themselves as either buyers or sellers. They’ve spent the season in the middle. Wednesday’s victory over Atlanta left them at 31-31, the 14th time this year they have been at .500. With the Twins’ loss to the Yankees Wednesday night, the Sox are 2½ games behind Minnesota for the third and final AL wild-card spot.
One week after president/CEO Sam Kennedy created a stir by suggesting the Sox had not met expectations (he later clarified that the team, because of injuries, wasn’t where officials expected it to be prior to the season), Breslow deflected a question about his view on the matter.
“We are where we are, and we can’t hide from that,” said Breslow. “To say that you exceeded expectations I think should be followed up by wondering why didn’t we do more to improve and increase the expectations from being a roughly .500 team. To say that we’ve underperformed, the thing to say is, ‘Well, who do we blame for that?’
“Where we are is we’re .500 right now. We need to be better.”
Of course, a major factor in the team’s performance has been player availability. The Sox have had 18 players make a combined 21 stints on the injured list, with 13 currently on the IL.
“We have to constantly look for ways to improve our roster,” said Breslow. “We’re still in the business of trying to win as many big league games as we possibly can. And there have been different periods of activity for us where we’ve tried to piece things together. Some of those have worked pretty well. Some of those, the jury may be still out a little bit. But we’re going to constantly look to upgrade.”
At least that is the intention for now. Where things will be in eight weeks at the trade deadline remains to be seen.
Alex Speier can be reached at alex.speier@globe.com. Follow him @alexspeier.