Dayn Perry On The Adam Jones Show: Market For Jon Lester Grows If Rays Decide To Keep David Price
Dayn Perry of CBS Sports joined Rich Keefe on The Adam Jones Show to cover the Red Sox and the rumors surrounding the team with the trade deadline just three days away.
Perry said that the Rays' recent surge might be enough to convince Tampa Bay to hang on to David Price, which in turn helps the Red Sox grow the market for Jon Lester.
"Now that it's looking like David Price might be off the market -- of course, anything can happen between now and Thursday -- in some sense I think this is smart for the Red Sox to gauge the market like this. Because you take a star name off the market and that will create demand for a star name like Lester. So it makes sense to me in that regard," Perry said.
Perry noted that the Dodgers, Cardinals and Mariners remain the three "heavy hitters" who are expected to be in on Lester, but "in any deal like this, there's always going to be a few surprises at the end, so you can't really level it down to one list at this point."
As far as a return for Lester, Perry cautioned that the veteran left-hander/impending free agent likely won't get the Red Sox a huge haul.
"It's not going to get a David Price return, just because A) Lester, although he's very good, is not David Price. And of course, if you get David Price, you get that extra year of control, whereas Lester is a pending free agent," Perry said. "Definitely, you can get a couple of name prospects and that kind of thing, maybe a younger major league-ready guy."
Keefe asked Perry about the trade markets for John Lackey and Stephen Drew, whether Matt Kemp might be able to rediscover his All-Star ability, the availability of Cliff Lee and Cole Hamels and everything else in advance of the trade deadline. Listen to the discussion below: