The Boston Red Sox, despite being just a couple games out of a wild card playoff spot in the American League before the Aug. 1 MLB trade deadline, decided not to make any meaningful additions to their roster.
Chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom did acquire infielder Luis Urias from the Milwaukee Brewers and three depth relievers, but no major stars were brought in to help the Red Sox leap-frog over the other teams in the standings fighting for a postseason berth.
Instead, the team thought that the players expected to return from injury would provide enough of a boost for a late-season run.
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Chris Sale, Tanner Houck and Garrett Whitlock returning to the pitching staff did not pay the kind of dividends expected. Veteran infielder Trevor Story made his season debut a week after the trade deadline and has struggled mightily at the plate. He's batting just .185 with one home run and seven RBI in 108 at-bats.
Here's a recap of the stats of players who were supposed to be reinforcements after the trade deadline.
Thinking that players who were injured would come back and play a genuine role down the stretch was always flawed. Sale, for instance, hasn't been able to stay healthy consistently for his entire Red Sox tenure.
Over the last two years, Bloom's trade deadline approach has been awful. In 2022, he tried to be both a buyer and a seller at the deadline and didn't upgrade the organization in a meaningful way.
The Red Sox' trade deadline miscues are a major reason why the team is headed for its third last-place finish in the American League East over the last four years.