Jeff Passan: Red Sox came ‘close’ to trading for Joe Ryan at deadline
"The Red Sox were willing to part with a number of high-end prospects to land right-hander Joe Ryan from the Minnesota Twins."
Twins ace Joe Ryan acknowledged this week that he thought he was packing his bags and heading to Boston at MLB’s trade deadline.
“I obviously thought I got traded for several minutes and then it was like, ‘Is this going to happen? What’s the deal?’ That was a weird mix of emotions,” Ryan told reporters, via MLB.com’s Matthew Leach. “I was with [reliever] Griffin [Jax] during that. It was just weird. Then he didn’t think he was going to get traded, and he got traded [while] I didn’t. It was weird. It was a lot. It felt like I was throwing an intense situation in a game.”
Ryan’s comments seem to be rooted in multiple social media accounts announcing his trade to the Red Sox on July 31, with both Yahoo! Sports and Fox Sports’ MLB account posting graphics that Ryan was dealt to Boston.
But beyond that gaffe online, ESPN MLB insider Jeff Passan noted on Monday that the Red Sox might have been closer than some initially thought when it came to prying the Twins right out of Minnesota.
“Boston came close,” Passan wrote on Monday. “The Red Sox were willing to part with a number of high-end prospects to land right-hander Joe Ryan from the Minnesota Twins. But that wasn’t expressed until the deadline was nearing, and the Twins were so deep in other talks to disassemble their roster, the prospect of moving Ryan had lost appeal.”
Even with the Red Sox’s top prospects in Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer now up at the big leagues, Boston still boasts one of the deepest farm systems in baseball — with players like Franklin Arias, Payton Tolle, and Jhostynxon Garcia standing as the next men up now that the “Big Three” (including Krisitan Campbell) have made it to The Show.
Boston likely would have had to part with at least two of Arias, Garcia, and Tolle to acquire an established righty like Ryan.
WEEI’s Rob Bradford confirmed that the Red Sox were willing to part with several key prospects in an effort to bring on a proven starter with term like Ryan.
“Industry source confirms Red Sox various offers for Joe Ryan included multiple Top 100 prospects (and other minor leaguers). Tolle. Garcia. Arias. Other Top 10 prospects. All on the table,” Bradford said on X. “Same level of offers made for [Miami starter Sandy] Alcantara. Main focus was on those controllable starters.”
Beyond Ryan’s potential of serving as a dominant No. 2 starter behind Garrett Crochet in Boston’s rotation, the 29-year-old righty is also under team control through the end of the 2027 season — further raising the asking price that Minnesota was likely asking for at the deadline.
Clearly, the Twins were swayed by whatever the Red Sox were offering right up to the deadline.
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