Trade grades: Does Addison Reed boost Boston's postseason odds?
— -- ? ESPN Insider will provide trade grades for every deal before Monday's 4 p.m. ET deadline.
The trade
Boston Red Sox acquire:?RHP Addison Reed
New York Mets acquire:?RHP Stephen Nogosek, RHP Gerson Bautista, RHP Jamie Callahan
Boston Red Sox: B
Boston's bullpen ranks third in the majors with a 3.03 ERA, but this trade sends the signal that Dave Dombrowski doesn't quite trust Matt Barnes or Joe Kelly as the team's primary setup guys in front of Craig Kimbrel. Plus, Kelly is currently on the DL with a hamstring strain.
Reed has a 2.57 ERA and 19 saves as the Mets closer. He is your typical fastball/slider reliever, although he doesn't throw as hard as he did when he first came up with the Chicago White Sox, averaging 92-93 mph with his fastball. The past two years, he's become a guy who throws strikes, with just 14 unintentional walks in 126.1 innings, while racking up 139 strikeouts. He also has postseason experience with the Mets, something that probably appealed to the Red Sox. The one red flag is that he's allowed six home runs in 49 innings -- with all six coming on the road. There has to be a little concern that maybe Citi Field protected him a little bit on fly balls. Still, he's a good reliever and he should take over the eighth-inning role.
New York Mets: B-plus
This is a typical kind of deal made at the deadline, but the Mets picked up three pitchers ranked in MLB.com's top 30 Red Sox prospects, about as good a return as you can expect for two months of Reed. Nogosek is the highest-rated of the three at No. 18, a sixth-round pick last year out of Oregon. He has a sinking fastball in the low 90s, plus a four-seamer that can hit 95 mph, while mixing in a slider, cutter and changeup. He has 63 strikeouts in 53 innings in Class A, although he's walked 21 and allowed seven home runs. With that repertoire, you wonder if the Mets should try him as a starter. Nothing to lose.
Callahan is a 22-year-old reliever who has reached Triple-A, has 56 K's in 42 minor league innings this season and looks like a guy who has the chance to help the Mets out of the pen in 2018. Bautista is a 22-year-old Dominican still in Class A, with a bigger fastball than the other two guys, but control issues that need to be resolved for him to move up the ladder. So this looks like a deal that will return some help for the Mets -- not huge upside, but needed bullpen depth. On the other hand, maybe they get nothing. Baseball America did a study, reviewing every July trade from 2003 to 2012 and found that fewer than 20 percent of prospects traded had productive major league careers (defined as at least two seasons on a major league roster and positive career WAR). So this could also be the last time we hear of these three guys.