3 Bold Red Sox Trade Deadline Predictions

Red Sox Try To Acquire Luis Robert Jr.

Boston started eight lefties for Saturday's matchup against Gerrit Cole. Eight. The only right-handed bat in the lineup was Ceddanne Rafaela, who batted ninth.

Even in the age of analytics, trotting out a lineup that lopsided is... innovative. The crazy thing? It (kind of) worked. The Red Sox tagged New York's ace for four runs in just over four innings before a bevy of left-handed relievers shut them down en route to a 14-4 loss.

The lefty overload comes without star first baseman Triston Casas, whose left-handed bat will slot into the everyday lineup when he makes his return from injury sometime in the next few weeks. While Alex Cora's righty-lefty gambit might work in the regular season, it's simply not a long-term solution to lineup creation. Boston needs to add (at least) one everyday right-handed bat.

Enter Luis Robert Jr., tabbed by many as the prize of the 2024 trade deadline. The 26-year-old outfielder is a bonafide star, with a .805 OPS alongside above-average outfield defense. He hits the ball ridiculously hard (43% hard-hit rate) and walks nearly 10% of the time. Additionally, and perhaps more importantly to Cora, he hits lefties and righties, logging a .787 OPS against right-handers and an .856 against lefties.

The catch, of course, is that Robert will cost an arm and a leg to acquire. But, if you're Red Sox CBO Craig Breslow, why not pay that price? Yes, Robert helps now, but he's also young, oozing talent, and has years of team control remaining. This is a genuine opportunity to bring a much-needed star right-handed presence to both patrol the Green Monster and hit bombs over it.

Boston has the major and minor-league talent to make a deal, and when you consider that their top-three offensive prospects are also left-handed, it starts to make quite a bit of sense to try and exchange one for a player of Robert's caliber.