Are the Red Sox hesitant on trading outfielder Jarren Duran?

The Athletic’s Chad Jennings talks exclusively to Beyond the Monster on how the Red Sox viewed Duran

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The Red Sox believed in Jarren Duran when many wanted to give up on the young outfielder. It took two years for the 27-year-old to finally look like the highly touted prospect at the major league level.

Duran enjoyed a strong 2023 season where the left-handed hitter batted .295 with a .346 on-base percentage, .482 slugging percentage, .828 OPS, eight homers, 34 doubles, two triples, 46 runs and 40 RBIs in 102 games. He also was 24-for-26 in stolen base attempts.

His season came to an end after injuring his toe attempting to scale the wall at Yankee Stadium on Aug. 20 trying to rob a Gleyber Torres home run.

“It was a really good year,” said manager Alex Cora after it was announced Duran underwent season ending surgery. “At the end, the numbers are the numbers, right? And that’s how people evaluate players. The on-base percentage, the slugging percentage, the stolen bases, got a little better defensively....He went through the ups and downs. He was hot, he struggled, then (he bounced back). He had a really good season.”

Could the Red Sox cash in on Duran in the trade market this winter to improve their overall roster? The Athletic’s Chad Jennings joined the To the Show We Go podcast and talked about Duran’s potential value on how the Red Sox viewed the speedy outfielder.

“I think you'd have to figure out how the Red Sox think of him like when Duran was struggling, I can't remember in whatever, 15 years going back to when I discovered the Yankees, I can't remember a young player who came up, struggled, and I heard so universally people in the organization saying we still think he's gonna be good,” said Jennings.

“You don't really have a centerfield solution. Like, I would think they're super hesitant to trade him. You know, even the idea of selling high. I mean, maybe but Man that feels like you'd have to I would be real, I think they would be hesitant to dealing,” added Jennings.

Boston has stuck with Duran throughout all his struggles on and off the field. Former Red Sox chief baseball officer echoed the same sentiments about Duran earlier this spring on Beyond the Monster’s Obstructed View Red Sox Podcast.

“The fact of the matter is most players do not have this smooth ascension to the big leagues where they just show up and perform right away and never really go through these ruts,” said Bloom. “It feels like a lot of players just perform right away because those are the guys we think about. But the fact of the matter is a lot of good players, including really good players in Boston, championship players have gone through those ruts early in their careers. The question is how can we kind of help them get through that?

“I actually said this to Jarren last year, we don’t have to daydream on what [Jarren] Duran impacting Major League Baseball looks like. We did get to see that last year for a little bit. So we know what it looks like and then seeing the quality of his at-bats this spring, the approach and just how he’s carried himself, some of the work he did in the outfield last season with Will Venable and now carrying over he has a really good relationship with [Kyle Hudson] Huddy and their doing good work, there’s a lot there.”

Bloom’s complementary words on his young outfielder paints a picture of how the club views Duran and values him. That value seems to have remained within the organization even after Bloom’s departure as head of baseball ops.

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