Red Sox roster cut makes this NY Mets trade candidate even more realistic for Boston

Amid a season that has turned out to be disastrous for the New York Mets, president of baseball operations David Stearns and his front office now must turn their attention towards the trade deadline, where they're all but guaranteed to sell off plenty of pieces. While the asking price should be kept high for controllable pieces like Luke Weaver, the same can't be said for the team's rental pieces. Those players need to be either traded or allowed to walk for nothing.

That includes lefty Brooks Raley. The southpaw is now in his fourth consecutive season with the Mets and has more or less always delivered for them, with a 2.35 ERA in 143 career games as a member of the organization. He's been even better this year, with a 2.09 ERA in 35 1/3 innings of work. Good as he's been, however, the Mets are already trying to move him due to his status as a rental. Fortunately for the Mets, however, a new potential suitor has emerged recently: the Boston Red Sox.

The Red Sox make a lot of sense for Raley given that the top lefty in their bullpen is closer Aroldis Chapman. While Chapman has been his usual dominant self this year, him being confined to the ninth inning leaves Boston in need of another lefty to use in matchup situations. Danny Coulombe was previously in that role, but he was recently designated for assignment by the club, leaving a vacancy in the bullpen that Raley could easily slide into.

The Mets would be the perfect trade partners for the Red Sox... if Boston buys

The one potential wrinkle in this otherwise obvious trade fit is Boston's own struggles this year. Not long ago, they were looked at as surefire sellers who were likely to be competing with the Mets for buy-side suitors by dangling players like Sonny Gray and perhaps even Chapman. A recent hot streak has changed that narrative. They're 9-1 over their last ten games and now sit just two games below .500 and just half a game out of an AL Wild Card spot.

That puts them in position to at least consider buying for the time being, but with a few weeks left until the trade deadline it's not impossible things could change yet again. The Red Sox coming out of the All Star break cold is all it would take for them to not only stop being a possible trade partner for the Mets, but also wind up being some of their stiffest competition on the trade market come deadline day. Just two weeks ago, Chapman was viewed as the team's most likely trade chip.

The hectic AL playoff field and Boston's middling performance this year make it hard to know what chief baseball officer Craig Breslow and his front office will do going forward. With that being said, Breslow will be hard pressed to find a better trade partner than Stearns if he does wind up buying, especially if he's looking for a rental lefty arm to pair with Chapman near the back of the bullpen.

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