5 Most Valuable Red Sox Offseason Trade Castoffs, Ranked by WAR

Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Kyle Harrison

(Benny Sieu/Imagn Images)

It might seem like the Boston Red Sox messed up their offseason plan, and to some degree, one could argue they did. But it's surprising, in hindsight, how little trade value they gave up.

Trades were a huge piece of the Red Sox's offseason strategy. They swung an early move for Sonny Gray, upgraded their offense with Willson Contreras, and finished the offseason with the surprise six-player deal for Milwaukee Brewers infielders Caleb Durbin and Andruw Monasterio.

With one notable exception, the Red Sox really didn't wind up giving up players who would go on to start their 2026 seasons with major wins above replacement outputs. We went through every offseason transaction, and these have been the five most valuable players for their new teams, sorted by bWAR (though fWAR is almost identical in most cases to this point).

1. Kyle Harrison (1.2 bWAR)

The most obvious "blunder" of the offseason for chief baseball officer Craig Breslow was shipping out Harrison, who now owns a 2.41 ERA and 41 strikeouts in his first 33 2/3 innings as a Brewer. It was a trade hardly anyone doubted at the time, given Harrison's spot on the rotation depth chart at the start of spring training, but it's now more evidence that Milwaukee almost always knows something other teams don't about pitching.