Inside the makeshift trade deadline headquarters above Brookline Avenue to which dozens of Red Sox front office members had relocated, a question confronted Craig Breslow in the early afternoon of Aug. 3.
With the Sox amid an unprecedented midsummer surge, the front office was determined to reinforce a group that had forgotten how to lose. Several hours before the 6 p.m. trade deadline, Breslow had a clear opportunity to do just that.
He and Orioles general manager Mike Elias — Breslow’s college teammate at Yale — had defined the contours of a deal to bring three-time All-Star Adley Rutschman to the Sox. But acquiring the catcher for 2026 and 2027 would come at considerable cost.
Any analytically driven model would characterize a deal sending three top prospects and catcher Carlos Narváez to Baltimore as lopsidedly tilted toward the Orioles. Breslow understood this. He considered whether there was a deal to be made with another team, either at a lesser prospect cost or for a player with more years of future control.
Read more from Alex Speier at BostonGlobe.com/Sports. | 
