Red Sox have 'no traction' on Julio Teheran, Arodys Vizcaino trade

The Red Sox and Braves have talked about trades for Julio Teheran and/or Arodys Vizcaino, but there's "no traction" to any deal at the time according to Jim Bowden:

Red Sox have inquired about both Julio Teheran and Arodys Vizcaino from the Atlanta Braves. However, there is no... https://t.co/1mUiafpuAB

— Jim Bowden (@JimBowden_ESPN) June 24, 2016

Frankly, this is something we all could've guessed. The Red Sox need pitching. The Braves have pitching and are bad enough to be firmly in the selling camp for 2016. As Bowden says himself, it's something of an ideal match, and one of a very few available to the Red Sox as the trade deadline draws nearer.

Or at least that's how it seems at the surface. In the end, it all comes down to price and valuation.

Personally, I feel like the Teheran deal should just never happen. Teheran is a good pitcher, don't get me wrong. But this should be a damn near impossible trade to get done. For the Red Sox, Teheran should raise plenty of red flags as a poor fit for Fenway Park and perhaps the AL East with his fly ball tendencies and underwhelming velocity. He should also be viewed as a player more in line with his career numbers than his current 2.66 ERA, since he's basically pitching the same with a dramatically reduced BABIP and a higher strand rate.

The Braves, on the other hand, should look at Teheran as exactly what he is: a young, talented pitcher they have locked up well into the period of time where they might realistically contend again. They're not looking to sell low, and there's few teams that should value Teheran quite as low as the Red Sox, who apparently are (understandably) unwilling to part with either Andrew Benintendi or Yoan Moncada given the questionable fit.

The argument can be made that this is perhaps the time to overpay given a bad trade market and total lack of quality in the upcoming free agent market. But the reality is that the Red Sox should be looking to get back to the point where they're contending every year, and you don't do that by trading away guys like Benintendi and Moncada when you can't be confident just how much the return will carry over to Fenway Park.

Arodys Vizcaino, on the other hand, strikes out everyone, so who cares where he pitches? He'd be great with the Red Sox, and restore their bullpen to the same reputation it had before the season began even without Carson Smith. But he's also going to cost an arm and a leg. Relievers are always a strangely inflated market at the trade deadline. When you're talking about one of the game's better arms under contract for three-and-a-half more years? Forget about it. It's just too hard to make an argument for trading such potentially high-impact talents already at Double-A for any reliever. Can you imagine if the Sox had shipped off Mookie Betts or Xander Bogaerts for...well, for Craig Kimbrel in 2013? Not all top prospects work out like those two have, but the difference in the best-case outcomes for a reliever and a position player are just too vast.

All this is not to say that no trade is going to be made. Only that it's going to be very hard to find the proper middle ground, and if one does happen, I'll be awfully worried about what goes back the other way should we hear the two sides are getting close.