4) Trade Tommy Pham to the Atlanta Braves
The Braves lost Ronald Acuna Jr. for the season to a knee injury. While Pham is not at the level of Acuna, he is a solid veteran playing well. Plus, he will come cheap.
While Pham has been tremendous for the Sox, his trade value should be around the same as it was last year when the New York Mets got the equivalent of a lotto ticket in infielder Jeremy Rodriguez from the Arizona Diamondbacks before last year's trade deadline. Rodriguez is a 17-year-old, left-handed bat who is ranked among the Mets' top 15 prospects, but he is years away from making the majors.
Still, it cannot hurt to see if the Sox can get a high-ceiling, super-young prospect. The Braves have a few of them in their top 30. Outfielder Douglas Glod is 19 and a hard hitter. Shortstop Diego Benitez is 19 and probably has to go third. Outfielder Isiah Drake has plenty of raw power for being 18 Mario Baez is 17 and does not strike out much.
5) Demote Andrew Vaughn
There have been calls to have Vaughn get some at-bats at Triple-A Charlotte to get out of this funk. That is looking like a good idea as he continues to struggle. Vaughn appeared to be snapping out of his awful start to the season.
That was just smoke and mirrors. Nothing has been a better example of how Vaughn is costing the Sox when he hit into a double play in the first inning of yesterday's defeat to the Blue Jays. The Sox had a rally going and came away with no runs because of that double play. He literally grabbed a bat and killed a scoring chance.
Vaughn is a -0.9 fWAR player with a wRC+ of 62 and an OPS toward the very bottom of the league. Vaughn can be benched, but he still has options left to get a chance to feast on some Triple-A pitching to get right.