Boston Red Sox Rumors: Time for a youth movement in Boston

Boston Red Sox should essentially conduct a fire sale to clear payroll and bring in young talent by trade, and then bring up the kids for an audition.

It’s time for the Boston Red Sox to face facts, pull the plug on the 2020 season (as if they haven’t already), and get set for a new era beginning next year. With the August 31 MLB Trade Deadline approaching, now is the time conduct a fire sale of current team members.

It is to rebuild from the bottom (that’s a given seeing where they are in the standings) and start fresh. They should get going and unload payroll and marginal and even good players and restock with solid, young talent.

The 2020 season has been a uniquely awful one beginning with a world pandemic situation that is unprecedented in our lifetimes. The team hired a new director of baseball operations in the last offseason, Chaim Bloom he has been faced with a truly monumental challenge. In addition, the ownership evidently sent him a clear mandate to cut payroll and he obliged by shipping out Mookie Betts and David Price to oblige them.

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The resultant unsurprising unfolding of a truly miserable season should have been neither unexpected nor surprising.

The losses of Chris Sale and then Eduardo Rodriguez finished the job and left the Red Sox with a depleted rotation incapable of competing at all. The season proceeded as expected. But that was then this is now.

It’s time for Mr. Bloom to take the reins and remodel this team completely. An article outlined some of the players who could go. But the team should approach September 1 as the beginning of the new team and a new era.

The suggestion here is to bring up the young kids, the really good ones, and see what they can do. The Sox have a number of young players in the farm system who should get a chance to show what they can do. What is the risk? Not much.

There’s an outdated thought that bringing up a young talent too soon could break them if they fail. Sorry, that theory is balderdash. If the young guy has the grit, the steel to make it, even if he has a tough time he’ll come back next season more determined than ever to succeed. Don’t buy the foolishness that it will break their confidence. It’s rubbish.

If that player doesn’t have the moxie to make it later, it wasn’t meant to be. And maybe, just maybe a young player or two or three for Boston will produce.

Bloom has a golden opportunity to test these kids out now for a month with virtually no downside risk. So here’s the prescription, sell off what you can for good value, and on September 1, bring in a wagonload of your young players or maybe a few of those you acquire. Here are some names of who should be brought up from Boston’s system.

Boston Red Sox need to see what they have in their prospects

First, maybe the best prospect in the system, Triston Casas. He’s young, big, strong and can play both corners of the infield and he can hit. Then insert Jeter Downs into the lineup at second base (or short if Bogaerts is traded). He came in the Mookie Betts deal. He can field, has pop in his bat and he’s a top-rated young player. Give him the chance to shine, now.

Then there is Jarren Duran. Compared to Jacoby Ellsbury, he can run, play the filed, and hit, as well. Trade Jackie Bradley, Jr. bring up Duran, put him in centerfield, and see what he can do.

Next up would be Brian Mata. He’s their best young pitching prospect according to soxprospects.com. See if he can bring some future potential to a depleted starting rotation in September. These are just a few of the young players who should be brought up. Others include infielders Bobby Dalbec and C.J. Chatham and pitchers Jay Groome and Tanner Houck. There are others, as well.

Chaim Bloom should turn this disaster of a season into an opportunity. Clear payroll as much as you can and only keep the players who clearly fit into the mold of the future Boston Red Sox who the team will field hopefully in more a normal time in 2021.

Then bring up the kids, and let them play. Some may surprise and they’ll hopefully show that they are ready to plug holes in next year’s team. Some may not. So they start next season in Worcester or Portland and work their way back up if they can cut the mustard.

Most of all, forget the outmoded view that bringing up a kid too soon is a prescription for disaster. Give them a chance. The ones with the iron will rise to the challenge. If not, there is next season or maybe they should be sent along.

In all, Chaim Bloom should see opportunity without risk in this debacle of a season. Let’s see if he takes the bull by the horns and does what he needs to do.