Red Sox wheelin' and dealin'

[MJLiverock]

July 22: Red Sox trade Julio Lugo to the Cardinals for Chris Duncan.

July 22: Pirates trade Adam Laroche to the Red Sox for Argenis Diaz & Hunter Strickland.

July 31 (reported):

Red Sox trade Adam LaRoche to the Braves for Casey Kotchman.

July 31: Indians trade Victor Martinez to the Red Sox for Justin Masterson, Nick Hagadone, & Bryan Price.

The LaRoche experience doesn't appear to have lasted long although I don't see the advantage of going for Kotchman off the top of my head, he's a few years younger so I suppose under their control longer.

[craigharmann]

July 31 (reported): Red Sox trade Adam LaRoche to the Braves for Casey Kotchman

It's done. I don't get this one. How many first baseman/DH types do you need? Lowell's at 3rd, Youk can play over there or 1st. Papi is your DH, now Victor Martinez is going to catch and play 1st, and where does Kotchman fit?

[davego]

Guess the Red Soxs wanted to really cover their 1st/DH/C/PH bases.

[molitor fan]

Indians got a great haul on the VMart trade.....

[davego]

Indians did a pretty nice job the past few days.

[Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat]

and where does Kotchman fit?

Well, the same thing would have been true if they had kept LaRoche. I don't get this from the Braves' perspective -- there isn't much if any difference between these two guys and Kotchman is still under team control at least through the end of next season (might be two more -- fangraphs says two, cot's says year two of arbitration was this year) while LaRoche is a free agent at the end of the year who would be wise to accept arbitration.

[MessiahRp]

USA Today says Kotchman is not a FA until after 2011... and at $3.5 million he's not an overly pricey role player I suppose. Plus with Lowell's injury history they may be eyeing Youk at 3rd on a more permanent basis. Martinez I think was mostly brought in to be Tek's replacement. Though they'll want him in the lineup everyday so they can shift him to 1B and DH based on everyone else's playing time to make sure he keeps getting ABs and Tek gets some starts.

[TooLiveBrew]

Iirc Kotchman is supposed to be a next-level fielder at 1B... so if the bats are roughly equal, I guess it makes sense in that context.

 

And I agree with MessiahRp -- Lowell's lack of ability to play 'everyday' anymore is very relevant, almost as much as Youkilis's defensive versatility. I thought the same thing (Lowell needing more time off) when they added LaRoche. I read that Lowell should probably be expected to need roughly one in every 5 games/days off.