When longtime ESPN baseball insider Jeff Passan on Tuesday named Boston Red Sox Jarren Duran as one of the top 10 players likely to be traded this offseason, it came as little surprise. Duran’s name has come up in trade rumors, it seems, more than any Red Sox player in 2025.
The Red Sox have a surplus of outfielders. Duran appears to be the odd man out, with a pair of Gold Glovers â Ceddanne Rafaela and Wilyer Abreu â in center field and right field, and rapidly rising star Roman Anthony, who placed third in Rookie of the Year voting despite playing only 71 games, in left.
“At some point, though, the Red Sox will have to move Duran,” wrote Passan. “Keeping full-time-quality players for less than full-time roles rarely works out well.”
Passan estimated the chances that Duran actually gets traded this offseason at 50 percent, saying “his addition can instantaneously make a team better … Duran has elite bat speed and foot speed, along with a good arm, so his physical tools can lead to a return to something like his star performance from 2024.”
The ESPN insider named the 29-year-old Duran as “one of the top 35 position players in the sport.”
Trade Idea Sends Duran to KC
So, what can the Red Sox do with the fiveâyear veteran? Duran has become a fan favorite in Boston for his candor when speaking about his own mental health issues, and his willingness to interact with fans, signing autographs sometimes for two hours after games.
Baseball statistician Thomas Nestico, founder of TJ Stats, proposed a trade on Tuesday that would find Duran a new home with the Kansas City Royals, a team that won 82 games in 2025, missing the playoffs, but appears to be ready to upgrade by dealing from the team’s pitching depth to upgrade the outfield.
No Royals outfielder managed on OPS higher than .654 â except tradeâdeadline acquisition Mike Yastrzemski, who posted an .839 OPS in 156 at-bats for Kansas City â but “Yaz” is now a free agent.
Harrison, Garcia Key To Deal
Nestico wants the Red Sox to trade Duran along with lefty pitcher Kyle Harrison â acquired in the June 15 trade that sent threeâtime All-Star Rafael Devers to the San Francisco Giants â and power-hitting outfielder Jhostynxon “The Password” Garcia, currently the No. 3 prospect in the Boston system, according to MLB Pipeline.
In return, the Red Sox would obtain 27âyear-old southpaw Cole Ragans, who was limited to only 13 starts by a rotator cuff injury this year, but earned All-Star honors with a 3.14 ERA and 223 strikeouts in 183 1/3 innings the previous season.
Ragans was a firstâround draft pick of the Texas Rangers in 2016, out of North Florida Christian High School in Tallahassee.
“Duran is the obvious centerpiece of this deal,” Nestico wrote on Tuesday. “The Red Sox All-Star left fielder has accrued 10.8 fWAR over the last two seasons, good for 12th among position players in that span. His athleticism is off the charts and he packs a surprising amount of power to all fields.”
But the statistician believes that the other two players are the key pieces in the deal.
Statistician Calls Proposed Trade a ‘Blockbuster’
“Harrison is on the outs in Boston after being a key piece in the Devers trade in June. He is far down their pecking order with the ascension of Payton Tolle and Connelly Early and the return of Kutter Crawford and Patrick Sandoval. To put it simply, Harrison is expendable,” Nestico wrote.
As for Garcia, the San Fernando de Apure, Venezuela, native “would also be the only right-handed MLBâcaliber outfielder in (the Royals’) system, making him a perfect fit on their 26âman roster.”
The TJ Stats founder calls the potential trade “a blockbuster.”
“The Red Sox shore up their rotation, arguably making it the strongest in MLB, and the Royals finally land an allâstar outfielder to hopefully push their offense over the top. To hedge their bet on Duran, they land a young lefty with plenty of team control and a potential everyday outfielder with intriguing power,” Nestico wrote. “This is a super fun deal and I would love to see it manifest.”
Ragans has two years remaining on a threeâseason, $13.25 million contract, making him an affordable addition for costâconscious Boston as well.
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