By Ben Carsley and Christopher Crawford
The Red Sox have a 69.2 percent chance to make the playoffs, and as of 6:00 pm EST last night, their no. 4 starter was an injured Sean O’Sullivan.
That’s why Dave Dombrowski did this, and his ability and willingness to make this deal is why the Red Sox hired Dombrowski. Ben Cherington wouldn’t have made this deal. There’s a pretty good chance Cherington would have been ill at the sight of this deal. But the Red Sox want to and can win now, and to win now you need some semblance of a starting rotation. That’s probably the no. 1 reason why Cherington is gone.
We don’t need to dive too deep to figure out why A.J. Preller did this. The Padres are bad, and he’s found a way to sell Drew Pomeranz at the absolute height of his value. In return, a system that Preller dismantled about 18 months ago gets its new centerpiece in Anderson Espinoza, baseball’s no. 24 prospect in BP’s most recent ranking. This is the type of move you dream of making in your dynasty league. Espinoza currently owns a 4.38ERA in Single-A Greenville, which may have you wondering what all the fuss is about. Said fuss comes from the fact that he’s at such a level at age 18, and that pretty much every scouting report you can find on him indicates that he has a freakish feel for pitching, an explosive fastball, and godly upside.
Read the rest at Baseball Prospectus
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