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Price: Red Sox 'can do anything' on the trade market

Jim McIsaac / Getty Images Sport / Getty

It didn't take David Price long to figure out some of the apparent advantages to playing in Boston.

The Red Sox left-hander, who joined the team last winter on a $217-million deal, has quickly come to appreciate the depth of the team's farm system. That's why president Dave Dombrowski was able to trade highly touted 18-year-old prospect Anderson Espinoza for a 27-year-old nomad in Drew Pomeranz earlier this month. In Price's mind, the combination of Dombrowski, a deep system, and money can make the team unstoppable on the trade market.

"We can do anything. We have the money to do whatever we want," Price told Scott Miller of Bleacher Report last week, before the team acquired Pomeranz, Aaron Hill, and Brad Ziegler in separate transactions. "We have the prospects to make whatever trades we want. There's not a guy in baseball that we could not trade for: (Bryce) Harper, (Mike) Trout, it doesn't matter who it is.

"We have the prospects, we have the money, and we have Dave Dombrowski, who is not afraid to go out there and make a big splash."

Price knows of what he speaks in regards to Dombrowski given their history together - the longtime executive brought him to Detroit at the 2014 deadline, dealt him to Toronto last July, then stunningly lured him to Boston with one of the largest free-agent deals ever given to a pitcher - and said Dombrowski's history of acquiring big names and building winners at any cost was part of what lured him to Fenway Park.

"Those were all the factors that went into my decision to be here," Price said, referencing how Dombrowski brought the likes of Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder, and even Ivan Rodriguez to Detroit in recent years, not to mention building the star-laden 1997 Marlins.

Given Price's understanding of the situation, it's not hard to see why the 30-year-old is already thinking about who his team should trade for next. Price wants Dombrowski to grab Sonny Gray, his good friend and fellow Vanderbilt alum, from the Oakland Athletics so they can fulfill their mutual wish and become teammates.

"(Being teammates is) something we've talked about before," Price said. "Before I signed with the Red Sox.

"I knew how they operate in Oakland. ... (And with) our minor-league system, how many prospects we had, and how young our team still is with the core group of guys we have and to be kind of logjammed at some of those positions, (I knew) that something like (a trade for Gray) could happen."

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