Red Sox notes: Arenado, Casas, Bregman, Sasaki

Reports last month from John Denton of MLB.com indicated that the Red Sox, Mets, Phillies, Padres, Dodgers and Angels were six of the teams (and perhaps the only six teams) Nolan Arenado he was willing to give up his no-trade protection to join, should the Cardinals find an acceptable trade with one of these clubs. Four weeks after that initial report, Boston remains “a preferred destination” for Arenado, according to Chris Cotillo and Sean McAdam of MassLive.com. What is not known, however, is whether the Red Sox and Cardinals are close to a deal, or whether the Sox are particularly motivated to bring Arenado to Beantown.

Acquiring Arenado would eliminate a couple of big needs from Boston’s offseason shopping list. Chief baseball official Craig Breslow reiterated earlier this week that the Sox were looking to add “a right bat out of the center of the formation”, considering that the team is full of left-handed hitters. Bringing one of the best defensive third basemen of all time to Fenway Park would immediately help Boston’s subpar infield defense, and Arenado would even reunite with his good friend and former Rockies teammate Trevor’s story.

An initial hurdle, of course, is the fact that the Red Sox already have a star third baseman Raffaele Devers. While Arenado has indicated he is open to a position change under the right circumstances and Devers’ agent said bluntly in November that his client would remain at third base, it’s hard to believe Arenado would move from the hot corner in deference to a much weaker defender like Devers. If a trade were to occur, Devers would presumably become the new first baseman or DH, although this creates other conflicts with Triston Casas AND Masataka Yoshida.

Both of these players, however, have been mentioned in this winter’s trade talks, and even in some of the trade talks themselves. Casas is by far the more valuable trading asset of the two, and while Breslow said “we certainly won’t buy it,”This of course does not mean that Casas is off-limits. Indeed, Cotillo and McAdam write that “there remains a belief within the industry that the Red Sox remain open to trading Casas, potentially for young pitchers, to facilitate other roster moves.”

It could be that the Sox are looking to trade Casas before making any other moves, as their leverage in a Casas deal would be reduced if the Red Sox created a positional logjam early. Trading Casas solely as a vehicle to free up payroll space is definitely not Breslow’s preference, which is why the attempt to tie Yoshida and Casas together was still part of an attempt to reunite Luis Castello from Seattle to Boston.

Payroll is also an important aspect of any Arenado trade, as the third baseman is owed $74 million for the remaining three seasons of his contract. Between the deferrals and the $10 million covered by the Rockies, the current value of Arenado’s contract is $60 million. The Cardinals’ main incentive in trading Arenado is, of course, to move as much money as possible, and the proposed deal with the Astros that Arenado blocked would have seen Houston accept $45 million (per the Athletic’s Katie Woo and Chandler Rome) or $59 million. million dollars (according to Jeff Passan of ESPN) of the figure of 60 million dollars.

Theoretically, the Red Sox could absorb the entire contract and still remain under the $241 million luxury tax threshold, as RosterResource estimates Boston’s current tax code is just under $212 million. It’s unclear exactly how much salary capacity Breslow has been allocated this winter, as although the Sox have made overtures to several top free agents, their spending has been fairly modest to date. The Red Sox could perhaps convince the Cardinals to take on a larger chunk of Arenado’s salary (or at least closer to the $45 million figure) if better prospects were offered in return. Chaim Bloom’s involvement in this speculative trade is an interesting aspect, as the incoming president of St. Louis baseball operations has a lot of knowledge of Boston’s farm system due to his past stint as the Red Sox’ CBO.

Trading for Arenado would have a lower overall cost than signing Alex Bregmannanother top third baseman who remains on Boston’s radar. That said, it’s known that the Red Sox are still in the running for Bregman, who has some notable ties to the Sox as a manager Alex Cora (from their days together in Houston) and his longtime friend Walker Buehlerwho just signed with the Sox before Christmas. Buehler recently told Cotillo and other reporters that, even in his brief time in a Sox uniform, “I definitely made a pitch all over the place [Bregman] to come to Boston.”

Moving on to other Red Sox targets, it’s unknown if Boston is still one of the teams to consider Roki Sasaki. Earlier this week, Sasaki’s agent, Joel Wolfe, updated reporters on his client’s search for a major league team, and gave no indication that the hotshot was done with his in-person meetings with the clubs involved.

The Red Sox were not one of the seven teams known to have already spoken to Sasaki, and there has been no word on whether a meeting had been scheduled or perhaps already taken place since Wolfe’s last conference. Yesterday, WEEI.com’s Rob Bradford reported that the Sox had not “They’ve been told they’re out” of the running for Sasaki’s services, so the situation is still up in the air.