Red Sox

With the trade deadline approaching, Sam Kennedy said no players are ‘untouchable’

The MLB trade deadline is August 31.

Red Sox president Sam Kennedy discussed the MLB trade deadline. Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

August 14, 2020

As the MLB trade deadline quickly approaches on August 31, Red Sox president Sam Kennedy has deemed no player “untouchable,” he said Thursday while appearing on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show.”

“You look at this team, and we still have a really young group of core players that you’d like to see with the Red Sox for a long, long time,” Kennedy said. “We’d never label anyone untouchable, just given the fact that sometimes to re-tool and restructure for the future, you do have to sometimes make difficult decisions, as you saw with the Mookie [Betts] transaction. I don’t think anybody would be untouchable as it were, but there are certainly guys who have grown up in the system that we’d like to keep with the Sox for a long, long time.”

The Sox traded Betts to the Dodgers in February. On Thursday, he hit three home runs in an 11-2 win over the Padres, tying a major-league record. Betts has now joined the ranks of Sammy Sosa and Johnny Mize as the third player ever to record three homers in six games. The Red Sox are 6-13 and ranked last in the AL East.

Kennedy is optimistic that the team could go on a postseason run, but acknowledged that their front office has also been in discussion with other clubs in regards to the deadline.

“Chaim [Bloom], Brian O’Halloran, Raquel [Ferreira], and Eddie [Romero] have been already engaged with teams,” Kennedy said. “Teams are trying to position themselves for a postseason run here. We have to get going. Look, we know we’re 6-12. It’s been an awful start. No one is proud of it. Frustrating. But, at the same time, you can run off three or four wins and all of a sudden you’re two or three games back in the American League East and anything can happen. No one is waving the white flag, but yeah, there are conversations going on given the condensed season and the fact the trade deadline is just a couple of weeks away.”