Ahead of Red Sox trade deadline, Alex Cora points to two different metrics

Red Sox players have recently made a strong case to chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom that he should buy at the Aug. 1 trade deadline. Boston has the best record in the majors (16-6) since June 30 and the best record in the American League (23-13) since June 14.

The Red Sox are just 2 ½ games behind Houston and Toronto for the third and final Wild Card spot.

Still, there’s talk about Boston’s best starting pitcher, James Paxton, potentially being on the move. Paxton was asked about trade talks after his start Saturday. As Boston Globe’s Julian McWilliams noted, the Rangers had a scout in San Francisco to watch Paxton’s start. Another rumor has the Phillies interested in outfielder Adam Duvall.

Moving Paxton in a buy-sell approach makes sense even though Boston already is down to three starting pitchers and using two openers for the time being because of injuries. Bloom might be able to acquire a top 100 prospect for him. The Mets on Saturday traded Max Scherzer to the Rangers for Luisangel Acuña, who is ranked No. 87 on Baseball America’s top 100 list. BA also had Acuña ranked the No. 2 prospect in the Rangers system.

Scherzer has three Cy Young awards and a much more extensive postseason resume than Paxton. But Paxton arguably has pitched better than Scherzer in 2023 and comes much cheaper with only about $1.6 million remaining on his $5 million average annual value.

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Manager Alex Cora was asked Wednesday about buying vs. selling and how his team has set itself up for Aug. 1. He pointed to two metrics that can be used to determine trade deadline direction.

“Something I noticed, people use playoff odds a lot,” Cora said. “Sometimes they use run differential. There is not too much talk about run differential. And today (Wednesday) I saw the run differential and we’re up there with the big ones. So it’s up to you to see if we’re sellers or buyers, whatever. I feel like we’ve got a good baseball team and we’re right in the hunt. At the same time, organizations act differently around this time.”

The Red Sox’s playoff odds are at 33.8% entering Sunday’s game, per Fangraphs. They have a 31.1% chance to clinch a wild card spot and a 2.7% chance to clinch the AL East. Fangraphs has them with a 1.6% chance to win the World Series.

Boston is ninth in the majors in run differential (+49) behind he Braves (+149), Rangers (+147), Rays (+129), Dodgers (+97), Astros (+61), Padres (+61), Cubs (+60) and Blue Jays (+54). All those teams except for the Cubs and Padres are in postseason position right now.

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Boston has a better run differential than AL East leader Baltimore (+42), AL Central leader Minnesota (+35) and the Angels who are in buy-mode after just acquiring frontline starter Lucas Giolito from the White Sox. Boston also is ahead of the Yankees (+15) in run differential.

The Giolito trade also shows the type of value Paxton might bring back in a potential trade. The White Sox acquired Edgar Quero and Ky Bush. Quero immediately became Chicago’s No. 2 prospect, per MLB Pipeline. Bush is ranked No. 6. Like Paxton, Giolito is eligible for free agency after this season.

“It should be interesting,” Cora said. “There’s so many teams that are within striking distance that they have to make decisions based on what you want to do now and obviously the future. From my end, I don’t think you’ll hear a manager saying we should just sell. That doesn’t happen. But we all understand how it works. We all understand where we’re at as an organization, talking about the managers. And obviously we have tough decisions to make.”

Bloom has discussed wanting to trade for players who will be under contract beyond this season.

“We’re gonna stay involved on every front because you never know where you find good deals. There’s always good deals that can fit, whether rentals or long-term guys,” Bloom said recently. “Generally speaking, with the way we’ve been trying to build this and also the position we’re in ... usually, when you’re in the position we’re in now and you start selling out for rentals, that often doesn’t go well. Obviously, those guys you can keep with you (controllable players), those tend to be bigger acquisitions, and in some ways, for where we are, potentially more appealing. That’s easy to say and those guys are often in really high demand. But given where we are and the way that we’re building, I do think it’s something that we’re going to be aggressive with.”