Boston Red Sox interested in trade for Matt Kemp or Andre Ethier?

After winning the 2013 World Series, the Boston Red Sox have largely stayed out of the fray this off-season. They let Jacoby Ellsbury go to the New York Yankees, stayed out of the Masahiro Tanaka sweepstakes, and have just generally been pretty quiet.

They did bring back Mike Napoli and sign A.J. Pierzynski, and Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe writes that the team will continue to explore trades to replace Ellsbury in center field, specifically with the Los Angeles Dodgers:

"I believe that at some point, one of the Dodgers outfielders will be weeded out, whether it be Matt Kemp once he’s healthy or Ethier. What people don’t realize about Ethier is that he’s not a bad center fielder, so if you felt Jackie Bradley needed more seasoning, Ethier could also play center.”"

Ethier is actually a pretty bad center fielder. In 2013 he played 645.1 innings out there and was good for a -1.8 UZR according to FanGraphs. It’s not so awful, however, that a team couldn’t get by with him out there. For example, Shin-Soo Choo and his -16.9 UZR in center field makes Ethier look like a gold glover.

Cafardo also writes that he believes the Red Sox have tried to engage the Miami Marlins in trade talks for Giancarlo Stanton, but like everybody else, were told to go away. So for now there is still only quiet coming from Boston, but there’s plenty of time for that to change.