Jon Lester’s name has been out there for a long time, but today there seems to be a consensus forming that the Red Sox will absolutely trade Jon Lester before Thursday’s trade deadline. Yahoo’s Jeff Passan says “sentiment among competing executives is unanimous” that the Red Sox will deal him. Many other reporters are echoing that sentiment.
There are a ton of teams who could use Lester, but the Pirates are being mentioned as a “dark horse.” Passan and Tim Brown of Yahoo note that the Pirates could use an ace as much as anyone -- they’re in a 3-4 team dogfight for the NL Central -- but that they have a deep farm system and that prospect outfielder Josh Bell is “at the center” of talks.
If that doesn’t work the Dodgers, Brewers, Blue Jays and Orioles are candidates. While the latter teams are in the AL East with the Sox, Boston could probably deal with that and could probably safely assume Lester would test the free agent market following the season thereby not being a pain to his old mates several times a year if dealt to Baltimore or Toronto.
