Where can the Red Sox find an ace?
BOSTON -- Only the aborted bid for the Olympics has generated as much grumbling around these parts as the lack of an ace at the front of the Red Sox rotation.
Other than Clay Buchholz, whose midseason injury felt as inevitable as backups at the Sagamore Bridge, a patchwork Boston starting rotation has underachieved across the board this season. Joe Kelly, Justin Masterson, Wade Miley and Rick Porcello all have disappointed, posting ERAs that range from 4.55 (Miley) to 6.11 (Kelly).
Acquiring a front-of-the-rotation starter to take the spotlight off Buchholz, Porcello, Miley and Eduardo Rodriguez looks like it’ll be Job No. 1 for Ben Cherington after this season ends.
It’s not as simple a task as it looks. There is no Ace Emporium with aces on display for deep-pocketed executives to purchase. Free-agent pitchers could cost upwards of $200 million in the modern baseball economy. Teams that have elite young pitching tend to want to hold onto it.
"Obviously teams aren’t giving it up unless they get something real back,” Cherington said. "That’s OK. That makes sense. We're just interested in building a team. If that requires giving something up, it requires giving something up.”
What follows is a comprehensive look at the pitchers one would consider aces -- inherently a subjective term -- across baseball, categorized by the likelihood the Red Sox might acquire them:
Not going anywhere
Gerrit Cole, Pittsburgh; Cole Hamels, Rangers; Felix Hernandez, Mariners; Clayton Kershaw, Dodgers; Dallas Keuchel, Astros; Jon Lester, Cubs: Not much needs to be said about any of these pitchers. Cole and Kuechel are two rising stars. Texas just acquired Hamels and isn’t likely to flip him. Hernandez, Kershaw and Lester all have signed enormous contracts that reflect the way their teams are building around them.
Not going to Boston, anyway
Chris Archer and Alex Cobb, Rays: Tampa Bay has shown no reluctance to trade away its young stars to restock its prospect cupboard. Such a trade was how the Rays landed Archer in the first place. But the only trade the Rays and Red Sox ever have made was a 1999 swap of Julio Santana and Will Silverthorn -- and there’s no reason they’d start dealing now.
Masahiro Tanaka, Yankees: Boston and New York have made trades of more significance lately than the Santana-Silverthorn deal, but not much more significance.
Probably not going anywhere but worth a call
Jake Arrieta, Cubs: A washout with Baltimore who has found new life in Chicago, Arrieta is in his first year of salary arbitration and will be a free agent after the 2017 season.
Madison Bumgarner, Giants: Last October’s breakout star is under team control through 2019 on a contract similar to the one Clay Buchholz is finishing with the Red Sox. It would take an enormous offer just to get the Giants to pick up the phone.
Yu Darvish, Rangers: As uncertainty envelopes the Rangers, perhaps they could be convinced to part with their ace, whose contract expires in 2017. It’d be costly.
Jose Fernandez, Marlins: On any other team, he’d be untouchable, but nobody is untouchable in Miami.
Matt Harvey, Mets: New York’s pitching coach recently told Sports Illustrated that he considers the 26-year-old Harvey the alpha dog of the team’s talented young staff -- but a team with as much pitching depth as the Mets have could be persuaded to listen.
Corey Kluber, Indians: Kluber won the American League Cy Young Award a year ago, and so he’s the least likely of Cleveland’s talented starters to be moved -- but the right offer might convince the Indians to let him go before he starts to get expensive.
Shelby Miller, Braves: Miller has been everything Atlanta could have hoped he’d be since acquiring him for Jason Heyward, a potential building block for the rebuilding Braves.
Garrett Richards, Angels: A late bloomer, Richards is in the middle of his second terrific year atop the Los Angeles rotation. He’ll be arbitration-eligible after this season, but the Angels can afford to keep him.
Chris Sale, White Sox: His ability and his contract ordinarily would put him in the untouchable category, but enough rumors have dogged him that he doesn’t seem quite off-limits.
Stephen Strasburg, Nationals: The former No. 1 overall pick is enduring the worst season of his career, and the Nationals are losing two other starters to free agency after this season.
Michael Wacha and Adam Wainwright, Cardinals: Wainwright represents an enormous health question mark. Wacha is poised to be the successor to Wainwright, the team’s next ace.
Logical trade targets
Carlos Carrasco, Indians: Cleveland has faded in the playoff race despite one of the most talented young starting rotations in the game, and it’s possible they could trade from strength to add needed help at another position -- in the outfield, perhaps.
Jacob DeGrom, Mets: It’s not that the Mets are motivated to trade DeGrom, but they have substantial starting-pitching depth and the need to improve elsewhere on their roster.
Sonny Gray, Athletics: The ultimate prize, Gray probably wouldn’t be available if he were on on any other team, but Oakland’s Billy Beane has a history of trading his stars earlier than you’d expect.
Free agents-to be
Johnny Cueto, Royals; Zack Greinke, Dodgers (if he exercises his opt-out); David Price, Blue Jays; Jeff Samardzija, White Sox; Jordan Zimmermann, Nationals: Boston has shown in recent years a reluctance to engage in the bidding for the game’s best pitchers on the free-agent market. No pitcher from this group figures to be cheap -- and at least one could fetch more than $200 million. But if the Red Sox want to acquire an ace without emptying their farm system, these are the names to watch.