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Red Sox refuse to rebuild, swap Lackey for more major-league talent

Greg M. Cooper / USA TODAY Sports

The concept of a complete rebuild has always been anathema to the Red Sox, as Boston's charmingly voracious fans don't really have the patience to wait for prospects to blossom while the major-league team flounders.

As such, it wasn't all that shocking when Ben Cherington shipped impending free agent Jon Lester to Oakland on Thursday for Yoenis Cespedes rather than pursue the "two elite prospects" the club was purportedly seeking for their long-tenured left-hander.

Just a few hours later, the Red Sox reinforced their unwillingness to swap major-league talent for prospect capital - a move that tacitly concedes the immediate future - by shipping 35-year-old John Lackey to the St. Louis Cardinals for beleaguered first baseman Allen Craig and right-hander Joe Kelly.

Lackey's recent success and remarkably modest salary for next season - the former All-Star has a $500,000 team option for 2015 - made him an asset the Cardinals simply couldn't resist amid frustrating parity in the National League and injuries to both Michael Wacha and Jaime Garcia.

The Red Sox, meanwhile, exploited the Cardinals' postseason ambitions by swapping Lackey - and his services for next season at a well below market rate - for more than eight combined years of control of two players who can contribute immediately at the major-league level.

Craig has floundered in 2014, hitting .237/.291/.346 (78 OPS+) with seven home runs through 97 games just a year after earning his first career All-Star berth. Craig's dubious injury history and approach problems likely depressed his market value in advance of Thursday's trade deadline, but the 30-year-old boasts a career 120 OPS+ and his $8.5-million average annual value over the next three seasons is hardly objectionable. His presence will certainly help buoy Boston's offense, the worst in the American League this season.

Kelly, meanwhile, will slide into Lackey's spot in the rotation, an opportunity to start anew after missing most of the season with a hamstring injury. Though his résumé isn't quite so extensive as Craig's, the 26-year-old will remain under club control through 2018 and won't be eligible for salary arbitration until 2016; he also routinely reaches 97 miles per hour on the radar gun and induces ground balls at an elite rate.

Though the Red Sox acquired precisely zero minor-league talent Thursday, Cherington's exploits with the deadline looming helped the Red Sox prepare for the future, just not in the way that most teams do; in Boston, the future usually means next season. When you win three World Series championships in a decade, you don't really have the patience to wait for the next one.

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