MLB's trade deadline is Monday at 4 p.m. and Bradley has felt like a candidate to be moved since opening night in July. He's a free agent this fall, he's almost certainly no longer a part of the team's future, and he's probably ready for a change of scenery anyway after eight seasons in Boston.
Objectively, it makes sense to deal him now for something of value before he leaves for nothing this winter, since the Red Sox probably won't make a qualifying offer in these uncertain economic times.
But the last two days have made Bradley the most important member of the Red Sox, and one of the most significant athletes in Boston. As the team's only Black player, he was regrettably left to speak for the entire organization on Wednesday following the decision to play rather than stand in solidarity with NBA players, who had wiped out a night of playoff games with a wildcat strike after yet another incident of police brutality, this time in Wisconsin....The Red Sox, meanwhile, must continue to reckon with their own dismal history, and not just because they were the last team to integrate. Since 2017 alone, they have found themselves at the center of controversies like Orioles outfielder Adam Jones hearing racist slurs in Fenway Park, a fan earning a lifetime ban for life for saying something similar during the national anthem the very next night, a divisive visit to the White House in 2019, and most players declining to kneel during a moment of unity on opening night in the wake of George Floyd's murder at the hands of a Minnesota police officer.
These things have a way of catching up to an organization.
