Red Sox fans, have you checked your Farm System today?  Just like your wallet, you may be noticing that it is getting thinner and thinner with each passing day.  No, rising gas prices aren't contributing to the vanishing Boston Farm System but reckless trading is.

Just before the season began, your General Manager added a nice depth piece in OF Juan Lagares for IF Nick Punto and OF Peter Hissey.  I wrote that trade off as a win for the New York Mets because they were dealing an insubstantial piece (Lagares) for a stopgap middle infielder and a replacement for that insubstantial piece.  Whenever you can turn one crappy player into an average one and a crappy one, then you know you have found yourself a good deal.  Or an exploitable trading partner.  And I think other General Managers have realized that it is more or less the latter as far as the Red Sox are concerned.

Take the Miami Marlins for example.  They bolstered their farm system by adding Jackie Bradley Jr. and Kolbrin Vitek, both former first round picks not too long ago, for Double-A closer Michael Brady.  The Red Sox General Manager argued for the trading stating, "I'm in need of quality bullpen arms that are also cheap and that is exactly what I got out of this deal while giving up two players that weren't going to be regular contributors."  Yes Mr. Red Sox General Manager, you gave up two players that weren't going to be regular contributors for a bullpen arm you promptly stashed away in Single-A Salem.  If you value Michael Brady so much that you were willing to trade two of your top prospects for him, then why is he so far down on the depth chart while Andrew Miller, Michael Bowden, and Mark Melancon struggle to record outs at the Major League level?  Is it because he's not a quality bullpen arm, Mr. GM?  Or are you just not confident in your return for Kolbrin Vitek and Jackie Bradley?

(Note: The Marlins also acquired Will Middlebrooks, Ryan Lavarnway, Jose Iglesias, and Felix Doubront from the Boston Red Sox in exchange for Jose Reyes and Rob Delaney.  This was a half-way decent trade.)

The Oakland Athletics then had to step on in and trade with Boston, too.  They landed 3B Garin Cecchini, 3B David Renfroe, SS Jose Vinicio, and 2B Pedro Ciriaco from Boston for CL Michael Wuertz and 3B Eric Sogard.  Cecchini is the twenty-first best prospect in baseball according to Baseball America, and he was traded for, essentially, a former free agent and a twenty-six year old that hasn't accomplished anything in the Majors since first receiving a cup of coffee back in 2010.  It simply wasn't a good trade.  It was a top twenty-five prospect and two other prospects with decent potential, plus Pedro Ciriaco, for a reliever and another Pedro Ciriaco.  I don't know how anybody can defend this trade.  You can claim you value current talent over future talent all you want, but Eric Sogard isn't the type of player you go out to try and acquire when you are dangling a top twenty-five prospects in baseball.

This leads me to the last trade that the Red Sox have made.  They traded Sean Coyle and Blake Swihart (their number two prospect) to the Kansas City Royals for Jason Bourgeois.  Yes, that Jason Bourgeois who is hitting .290/.300/.350 on the year to replace the injured Jacobye Ellsbury.  Now, I don't care how injured Ellsbury is.  You do not trade for AAAA outfielder when you have gluttony of AAAA outfielders already in your organization.  Josh Kroeger, Jeremy Hazelbaker, Jason Repko, Juan Lagares, Darnell McDonald, and Ryan Kalish are just a few of the names that could have replaced the injured Ellsbury at center field.  Instead of being mindful of the future though, the Red Sox traded away their catcher of the future and Pedroia's likely heir for an AAAA outfielder.  Mind you, Bourgeois is playing worse than Cody Ross and called the right fielder's play "poor".  Red Sox GM, how do you describe Bourgeois's performance thus far then?  It's not even remotely close to Cody Ross's "poor" .223/.323/.455 slash.

Seriously Red Sox fans, it's time to oust this clown and make up with Theo Epstein or lure Jon Daniels away from Texas.  It's the only way to save the future of this storied club.