We are less than one year removed from the Boston Red Sox celebrating a World Series championship. It seems like we were just recently praising the personality of that team, a bunch of hard workers who came together and overachieved their way to a championship.
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The face of that team, and arguably the face of the Red Sox franchise for a while now, would be second baseman Dustin Pedroia. Those good feelings might have been fleeting, however, as it appears that a rough 2014 season and continued injury concerns have some people wondering if the Red Sox will actually consider the possibility of trading Pedroia.
On that front, Rob Bradford of WEEI writes that a Pedroia trade isn’t happening, no matter how much noise there is this off-season, and that it shouldn’t happen:
"It’s time to take a step back, however, and understand this: Pedroia is part of the solution, not a portion of the pile of problems for these Red Sox.The stories suggesting the Sox should start exploring a trade involving Pedroia surfaced almost immediately after it was learned he would be missing the rest of the season due to his lingering hand issue. It was, and is, an easy narrative to throw out: dwindling numbers, continuing injury concerns, a long-term contract …Yet there were some important aspects of the equation that conveniently were left out."
For one thing, as Bradford notes, Pedroia won’t be traded because he has a full no-trade clause. But more importantly, Bradford argues that Pedroia is the heart of the team and is still a good enough player that the team needs to build around him.
It can be difficult for teams to navigate the risk of having injury-prone franchise players. Pedroia is an MVP candidate when he’s healthy, besides being one of the faces of the franchise and a guy with a long track record of success. Even with the risk of losing him to an injury each season, trading a guy like that is rarely the answer, and it doesn’t appear it will be with Pedroia either.
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