One year ago, the Boston Red Sox were staring at a trade deadline with a wild-card spot in hand and a rotation that needed help. They identified Minnesota Twins right-hander Joe Ryan as their target and, according to multiple sources cited by the Boston Globe’s Alex Speier, were prepared to send the Twins the two best prospects in their system: High-A shortstop Franklin Arias and Double-A left-hander Payton Tolle.
Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey declined. Ryan had two and a half years of club control remaining, and Minnesota wasn’t moving him for prospects — even highly regarded ones.
The Red Sox settled for Dustin May and Steven Matz instead. The deadline fizzled. Boston missed on the big swing.
Twelve months later, the Red Sox are counting their blessings. Tolle has become a fixture in the Boston rotation, posting a 5-6 record with a 3.31 ERA, a 26 percent strikeout rate, and a 7 percent walk rate. Arias, whose stock has climbed into the top 10 across all of baseball, was promoted from Double-A Portland to Triple-A Worcester after Thursday’s game. Both could be foundational pieces for years — or, in Arias’s case, the most valuable trade chip on the market as the Aug. 3 deadline approaches.
Tolle knew his name was circulating last July. He took it as a compliment, given the company, but the helplessness of the situation wasn’t lost on him.
“It was a little bit of uncertainty. It was weird. It was the first time I ever had anything like that,” Tolle told Speier. “During the time, I joked — not putting these two on the same level — there were only two people that had any idea of where anybody was going, and that was God and [Red Sox chief baseball officer] Craig Breslow.”
The counterfactual cuts the other way, too. Ryan was spectacular through July last season — 2.82 ERA, 29 percent strikeout rate, 5 percent walk rate. After the Twins’ deadline teardown, his numbers sagged: 4.89 ERA, 27 percent strikeout rate, a dozen home runs allowed. But Speier notes those were inflated by a few clunkers; in most outings, Ryan still looked like a front-of-the-rotation arm.
Drop a pitcher like that into a Wild Card Series against the Yankees as a Game 2 starter, and the math changes. Maybe Boston advances. Maybe the whole offseason plays out differently with affordable, long-term control of an All-Star-caliber starter already in hand.
Speier draws the parallel to Tigers general manager Bill Lajoie, who traded a minor-league John Smoltz for Doyle Alexander in 1987. Alexander went 9-0 with a 1.53 ERA down the stretch, carried Detroit to an AL East title, and Lajoie never regretted it — even as Smoltz became a Hall of Famer in Atlanta. The 2024 Dodgers made a similar bet, acquiring reliever Michael Kopech from the White Sox for infielder Miguel Vargas. Vargas became an All-Star in Chicago. Kopech helped Los Angeles win a World Series.
The Red Sox enter this deadline at 53-49 after Friday’s 6-4 win over the Blue Jays, holding the second American League wild-card spot and sitting 6½ games behind the first-place Rays in the AL East.
“You can at least look up and see the top of the division,” interim manager Chad Tracy said. “It’s in sight.”
The question now is whether Boston swings hard again — and whether, this time, the other side says yes. The film doesn’t lie: last year’s best trade was the one nobody made.
