Bloom, Red Sox stay confident after low-key Deadline

SEATTLE -- Buy or sell? For the Red Sox, the debate raged on in the weeks before Tuesday’s 6 p.m. ET Trade Deadline.

In the end, they decided not to do either, essentially standing pat with a team that entered the day trailing by 2 1/2 games in the American League Wild Card standings.

Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom did make one depth move in the minutes leading up to the Deadline, adding infielder Luis Urías in a deal with the Brewers in exchange for Minor League righty Bradley Blalock. Upon announcing the deal, the Sox optioned Urías to Triple-A Worcester.

Speculation heading into the Deadline is that the Sox would fortify a pitching staff that is awaiting the returns of Chris Sale, Garrett Whitlock and Tanner Houck from the injured list. But Bloom said he didn’t find a deal that made sense.

“I think we were on the phone almost constantly today and through a lot of yesterday, just looking at all sorts of possibilities and just trying as much as we could to stay true to everything I've talked about,” said Bloom. “We really like what we're building. You've seen it now. It’s not something that we're asking people to close their eyes and dream on. You're seeing it more and more each night on the field, the core we're building, what we're building towards.”

The emergence this season of young players like Brayan Bello, Jarren Duran and Triston Casas has made Bloom feel good about where the Red Sox are headed. Those three players, in addition to Rafael Devers and Masataka Yoshida, create a group Bloom believes he can build on. And shortstop Marcelo Mayer, the No. 3 overall prospect per MLB Pipeline, could join the Sox at some point next season.

Some veterans had anticipated both publicly and privately that some external reinforcements were coming to give the 2023 Red Sox a chance to close the gap even more in the Wild Card standings.

Entering action on Tuesday, FanGraphs listed Boston’s chance to make the playoffs at 23.3 percent.

“So, understanding that we're underdogs this year right now, where we are in the playoff odds, we just tried to stay true to that,” Bloom said. “There are different things that could have meant. That could have meant going out and adding. It could have meant -- if we're able to go get a core player, and as I told you guys leading up to the Deadline -- that might result in guys leaving our club.

“But ultimately, at the end of the day, we didn't match up on any of those things. We’re ready to roll with this group. We like where the arrow is pointing and hopefully we can do some special things the rest of the way, and certainly feel very confident that we'll be able to continue building on this next year and beyond.”

Red Sox closer Kenley Jansen feels the club should use the underdog label as motivation.

“That's a motivation to me. If you want to put us as an underdog or you put that we’re not going to make the playoffs, to me, stuff like that always fueled me,” said Jansen. “I want it to fuel all these other guys in here and be hungry about it and prove anyone wrong.”

If there was resentment or deflation inside the clubhouse about the lack of additions, the players concealed it well.

“Yeah, of course, I believe that this is a playoff team,” said Devers. “Everybody knows what we needed, but it didn’t happen, so we just need to turn the page and to keep grinding and keep playing baseball and just keep winning games.”

The vibe might have been more negative in the clubhouse if the Sox had sold rumored trade chips such as James Paxton, Adam Duvall and Alex Verdugo. But the team was kept together for the stretch run. Boston also has shortstop Trevor Story due to make his return from right elbow surgery as early as Friday night.

“I’m happy we’ve got the group together,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “There were a few situations out there that I felt we were going to trade some guys or we were going to add some guys, but it didn’t happen. I feel comfortable that this group is a good baseball team. Honestly, the guy pitching on Friday [Paxton], I’m comfortable with that. We’ve got a good pitching staff, and offensively we’re one of the best in the big leagues. We’ve just got to keep playing good baseball.”