Less Than a Day After the World Series, the Red Sox Make the Offseason's First Trade: Nate Eaton to the A's for an 18-Year-Old

The baseball offseason started Thursday, and the Red Sox were in on the first deal. Boston traded outfielder Nate Eaton to the Athletics for minor league right-handed pitcher Jareth Rayo, the team announced. MLB.com says it took less than 24 hours after the end of the World Series for the two clubs to connect on the first trade of the winter. (The Brewers won it, by the way, their first title ever, per the AP.)

Let's be real about what this is. It's a roster move, not a blockbuster. MLB.com says Eaton, who can play all three outfield spots and some third base, was part of a 40-man roster crunch in Boston. Moving him opens a spot.

Eaton's numbers, from the Red Sox release: 29 years old, 24 games for Boston this season, with six starts in left, six in center and three in right. MLB.com has his line at .160 with a .560 OPS, one homer, two doubles and six RBIs. At Triple-A Worcester he was much better: 84 games, .253 (79-for-312), 58 runs, 16 doubles, three triples, nine homers, 44 RBIs, 37 walks and 18 steals.

Run the Worcester numbers and you see why he kept getting called up. Using the release's figures, 79 hits and 37 walks over 312 at-bats works out to roughly a .330 on-base percentage before hit-by-pitches and sacrifice flies, my back-of-the-envelope math, plus 18 steals in 84 games. In Boston, in a much smaller sample, the bat didn't carry over, and the 15 starts spread across all three outfield spots tell you how he was used: as the guy who fills a hole for a day. Do the subtraction, too: 24 games and 15 starts means nine of his appearances came without a start, the kind of late-inning, spot-duty work a 26th man does on a contending roster. That's a role, and it's a role a lot of teams can fill from Triple-A, which is exactly where MLB.com expects the A's to use him.

He's a 21st-round pick of the Royals from the 2018 draft, a Virginia native, and he's hit .221 (64-for-290) with three homers and 23 RBIs across 137 career big league games for Kansas City (2022-23) and Boston, per the release.

Rayo is a lottery ticket, and the numbers say he's a raw one. He's 18, from Nicaragua, and made his professional debut this year in the Dominican Summer League: 11 games, nine starts, a 5.50 ERA (22 earned runs in 36 innings), 36 strikeouts, according to the Red Sox. MLB.com adds 20 walks. The A's signed him as an international free agent; Boston's release dates that to Oct. 2, 2025, while MLB.com says the 2024-25 signing period.

The fun front-office wrinkle: this is the A's first official move since hiring Taylor Smith as president of baseball operations, MLB.com reports, and Smith previously worked in Boston's front office under chief baseball officer Craig Breslow from 2024 to 2026. So the first guy he trades for comes from the guys he just left. Make of that what you will.

Rayo's line is what you'd expect from an 18-year-old's first pro summer: a strikeout per inning, but 20 walks in 36 innings, which is five per nine. Nobody evaluates a Dominican Summer League pitcher on ERA. The A's front office chose him once already, as an international signing, and now Boston has him.

The A's also outrighted six players to Triple-A Las Vegas the same day: right-handers Henry Baez, Joey Estes and Geoff Hartlieb, catcher Brian Serven, infielder Michael Stefanic and outfielder Johnathan Rodriguez, per MLB.com. Eaton will likely give them outfield depth at Triple-A, MLB.com says.

Dez's take: nobody's buying a jersey over this one, and that's fine. Eaton's a useful guy, a Worcester grinder with speed (18 steals) who never hit enough in the bigs, .221 career. Getting an 18-year-old arm back for a bench outfielder is a fine piece of business, in my book. The real story is what Breslow does with that open 40-man spot. A trade on Day 1 at least means the phones are on.

The Red Sox didn't say in the release what they plan to do with the open spot.

Pending: Boston's next 40-man move.