With a little more than a week left before the 2026 Major League Baseball trade deadline, the Boston Red Sox are firmly in the mix and, by the sound of it, ready to make noise.
Boston enters a three-game set against the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday night sitting three games above .500 and still very much alive in the American League playoff race. That has already put the Red Sox on the radar in deadline chatter. Earlier on Thursday, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon reported that Boston has interest in Los Angeles Angels shortstop Zach Neto.
Then came another name to watch. Jon Heyman of The New York Post reported that teams have called the San Francisco Giants about Matt Chapman, Willy Adames and Rafael Devers, and he specifically pointed to Chapman as a possible fit for the Red Sox.
"The Giants have received calls on all their available nine-figure veterans - Matt Chapman, Willy Adames and Rafael Devers," Heyman wrote. "But teams are reluctant to take big money considering CBA uncertainty and ownership interest in a cap.
Chapman could fit the Yankees, Phillies or Red Sox. (The Yankees don’t love the $108 million to go, though)."
Chapman is an obvious name to monitor, but the contract is the first thing that jumps off the page. He’s 33 and still has four years left on the six-year, $151 million deal that pays him a little over $25 million annually.
The production this season hasn’t helped the case. Chapman is hitting .235/.324/.368 with a .692 OPS, along with seven home runs and 42 RBIs. His glove remains elite, but Boston already has Caleb Durbin settling in at third base, and the Red Sox don’t need to take on more than $100 million over the next four years for a player carrying a .692 OPS.
That’s why Chapman feels like a tougher fit than some of the other Giants names in the rumor mill. Of the three expensive veterans drawing interest, Adames and Devers may line up more naturally with what Boston needs. Adames would address shortstop, a spot the club is reportedly targeting, while Devers would bring the kind of bat the Red Sox are missing, even if a return to Boston seems unlikely.
For now, the rumors are only beginning to build. And with the deadline still more than a week away, there should be plenty more where this came from.
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The latest buzz, though, came from a moment that had little to do with prospect polish and everything to do with emotions running hot after a home run. The confrontation with Cal Stark turned a routine minor-league at-bat into a benches-clearing scene and quickly pushed Gonzales into the kind of spotlight teams usually try to avoid, leaving the Red Sox to manage both the talent and the fallout. [Read more 🡒]
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With roughly two weeks left before the trade deadline, the Red Sox are being cast as buyers rather than sellers, and the infield is one area that still looks like it could use a jolt. Boston has been linked to help on the dirt, and analyst Jim Bowden recently pointed to a contact-oriented infielder as the kind of addition that could fit both the lineup and the defense.
The appeal is easy to see from the Red Sox side. Their offense has spent too much time in the bottom third of the league in on-base production, so a bat that puts the ball in play has obvious value, and Bowden also noted the players improved work defensively after once being viewed as a well-below-average second baseman. For a club trying to stay aggressive at the deadline, that kind of profile is the sort of fit that can be hard to ignore. [Read more 🡒]