Red Sox Recaps: July and the Trade Deadline 2025
- Om Brown
- Aug 7
- 6 min read
Welcome back to Red Sox Recaps! It's been quite some time since I have covered a month of BoSox baseball in depth, and while this will be a hybrid of the month of July and a trade deadline recap, I am excited to jump back into what has been a tumultuous 2025 campaign for Boston. From the drama over Rafael Devers trade, to their 10-game winning streak, to stumbling out the gate post All-Star break for what seems like the 100th year in a row, the Red Sox have had quite the month.
Let’s break down what happened in July, as well as a disappointing trade deadline for a team right in the thick of the playoff race.
(Note: This month’s recap will only feature an overview of the month. There will be no positives or concerns. That section will be replaced with the recap of the deadline.)
Overall Record as of 7/31 (July Record): 59-51 (17-7)
AL East Standings (as of 7/31): 3rd (5 GB of 1st Place)
Month MVP: SS Trevor Story (.293 AVG, 5 HR, 19 RBI)
Month Cy Young: RHP Brayan Bello (2.79 ERA, 0.98 WHIP, 31 K)
Month Breakout Player: OF Ceddanne Rafaela (.287 AVG, 5 HR, 16 RBI)
*Note: Monthly award winners’ stats are only from the month being recapped*
July Recap:
The Sox continued their success from June into July, riding a 10-game winning streak into the All-Star break and catapulting themselves into the playoff picture. A big part of that success was Story and Rafaela. Both of them came alive offensively, aiding a lineup in desperate need of night-to-night consistency.
Story has 18 homers and 73 RBI on the season, which is 7th in the AL as of August 7th. His ability to knock in the ducks on the pond has been huge for the team. While he isn’t the same guy he was defensively out in Colorado, Story has stabilized the position and provided much needed leadership on the dirt. The way he has been hitting and running (18 SB), he's on track for his 4th career 20/20 season.
Rafaela on the other hand, just started his offensive ascension. Once June came around, his power did too. Since the start of that month he has hit 11 of his total 14 bombs, as well as 29 of his 49 RBI’s. July was a great month for his plate discipline as well, as Rafaela struck out just 13 times, the lowest of any month in his career since he has become an everyday player. Defensively, Ceddanne is 2nd in MLB in Outs-Above-Average, with 16. However, he has played 9 less games in CF than the leader, Pete Crow-Armstrong. OAA is one of the best defensive fielding metrics that we have, so it’s safe to say that Rafaela is an essential part of the lineup, especially when he hits like he did in July.
On the mound, Brayan Bello’s month of July, and frankly this whole season, has been a culmination of the last couple seasons. He has always had nasty stuff, but at times has struggled with command and having innings snowball on him. Maturity has been a big part of his development, and this summer he has put it all together. During his spectacular month of July he threw 38.2 innings, the most of his career, including his first career complete game. Bello, along with Lucas Giolito, have stabilized the rotation behind ace Garrett Crochet, which has helped propel the team to the top of the Wild Card standings.
July was by far the team’s best month, with the offense coming together and the pitching shutting down opposing bats. However, there were still rumors that the club was going to add at the trade deadline. To their credit, they did “add,” but not in the way that their comments indicated…
Trade Deadline Recap:
Acquired: LHP Steven Matz (STL) for 1B Blaze Jordan (BOS #29 Prospect)
Acquired: RHP Dustin May (LAD) for OF James Tibbs III (BOS #5 Prospect), OF Zach Erhard (BOS #27 Prospect)
I have no problem with 2/3 of the prospects traded away by the team, but dealing Tibbs made me angry. He was the Giants first rounder in 2024, acquired by the Sox in the Rafael Devers trade. Immediately trading away one of the main pieces in the return of that deal makes the trade look even more like a salary dump. There were far better options to send to LA, yet the front office decided to overpay.
Even Baseball Trade Values, which is a highly accurate trade simulator for people to use, rejects this deal.
The Red Sox did need starting pitching. Dustin May is a starting pitcher, but they could have done a lot better. However, I don’t hate the deadline for the moves that were made; it’s more so that the teams around them got much better than Boston did.
The Yankees made big moves to revamp their bullpen with stud closers in Camilo Doval and David Bednar. The Mariners got the two prized Diamondbacks sluggers, 1B Josh Naylor and 3B Eugenio Suarez, to pair with their elite rotation. The Astros brought back star Carlos Correa to play 3B. The Rangers traded for Merrill Kelly from Arizona to be their 3rd starter behind the two-headed monster of Jacob deGrom and Nathan Eovaldi.
May is at best a #4 starter on a playoff team and Matz, a former starter, is now just a one-inning reliever. Those moves simply don’t move the needle for them, and that is ok, but what the team said before the deadline before going out and laying an egg is not.
GM Craig Breslow caught a lot of heat right after the deadline ended, and for good reason, since this is what he said to defend himself;
“We were uncomfortably aggressive in trying to pursue them in the players we were trying to put into deals. Ultimately, it wasn’t from a lack of effort.”
- Craig Breslow via Chris Cotillo, Breslow Defends the Deadline
Well, Craig, that's a straight-up lie. If you were "uncomfortably aggressive,” the haul at the deadline would have been a lot more. An example of someone uncomfortably aggressive team is Padres GM, AJ Preller. Every year, he makes the boldest moves to try to get his team over the hump, and this year was no different. He packaged SS Leo De Vries, the #3 prospect in all of MLB, for All-Star closer Mason Miller from the A’s. Now keep in mind, San Diego had a whopping 3 All-Star relievers this season. Yet they still did this deal. And I love it. Preller knows what he has to do as a GM and he goes out and does it. The future doesn’t matter in the present, Preller knows that, and he's set the Padres up for October success, whereas Breslow has failed to add meaningful pieces to the team.
It's also concerning what analysts and other GM’s think of Breslow. We know that Breslow is an ineffective communicator, and it was easy to see that in the Devers debacle. I covered this in my in-depth analysis of the trade, but ESPN’s Buster Olney reported that his presence was “wooden and ineffective." Right after the deadline, more things came out about Breslow, this time from USA Today’s Bob Nightengale.
“Teams hate dealing with the Red Sox. I guess it’s just very tough to do with Breslow. When you talk to GMs around the game, they said it’s very tough to deal with the Red Sox and Craig Breslow in particular.”
- Bob Nightengale via Foul Territory, Big Craig Breslow Problem
The fact that other people in the same roles as Breslow find it hard to make deals with him is very detrimental to the Red Sox. If this is true, it shows that Breslow isn’t meant for the job. The role of the GM is to make moves with other teams, especially during the season to make your team better. If he can’t effectively communicate and get trades done, he isn’t doing his job well enough.
To finish off the trade deadline recap, I would like to show you a short interview that Ken Rosenthal, one of the most respected reporters in the game, gave. I believe this sums up the issue of the 2025 Red Sox deadline, and what could be their downfall this year.
Final Thoughts:
It wasn’t a great deadline, but the team is hot. They are firmly in the playoff picture and the squad is firing on all cylinders. It may very well be that they didn’t need much help from outside the organization. However, Boston must outlast teams like the Yankees, Rangers, Blue Jays and Mariners, teams that all made bigger moves than them. Will the passiveness of Breslow and his brass pay off, or will another weak trade deadline handicap the ceiling of this roster and bringtheir season to a disappointing end? I don’t know, but the month of August will be a big test for this ballclub.
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