Boston won the Caleb Durbin trade. Milwaukee got more out of it in 2026, and starting Friday we get to watch that on national TV.
The deal, for anyone who blocked it out: on Feb. 9 the Red Sox sent lefties Kyle Harrison and Shane Drohan and infielder David Hamilton to the Brewers for third baseman Caleb Durbin, Andruw Monasterio, Anthony Seigler and future considerations (MLB transactions). The AP reported at the time that Boston also got a competitive balance round B pick in the July draft (via NBC Sports).
All three of the guys we sent out are on Milwaukee's 26-man roster, and the Brewers open the World Series on Oct. 23 at American Family Field against Tampa Bay. Yes, those Rays, who finished 98-64 and 11 games ahead of us in the East and closed out Cleveland in six on Monday night. Two of the three have played this month. Harrison has been on the roster through both rounds without throwing a postseason pitch.
Hamilton's October
Hamilton is the one that stings. He's 5-for-11 this postseason with a homer, three steals and five runs scored. The homer came in Game 4 of the NLCS at Dodger Stadium: batting ninth, two outs in the ninth, off Edwin Díaz, for a 6-4 lead. Earlier that night his single knocked out Tyler Glasnow and cut the Dodgers' lead to 4-3, and he came home with the tying run when Jake Bauers walked with the bases loaded, as the AP described it in the Globe's game story. Milwaukee finished the sweep of the two-time defending champs that night.
Good for him. He was easy to like here, and the r/redsox threads that night were cheering for him instead of reopening the trade.
His regular season, though, looked like his usual one: .245/.314/.336 in 121 games, four homers, 30 steals and 0.4 WAR. He's a fast utility man (29.4 feet per second on Savant's sprint speed board) who got hot at the right time, and nobody in Boston was building a lineup around him.
Milwaukee's case is on the mound
If you want to say we lost this trade, start with the two lefties.
Drohan had never pitched in the majors before this season, per the AP's trade story. He gave the Brewers 124 2/3 innings over 33 games, 19 of them starts, with a 4.19 ERA, and he opened NLCS Game 4: one inning and 25 pitches, with one of the Dodgers' four second-inning runs charged to him. Harrison, the lefty who came to Boston in the Rafael Devers trade, made 24 starts and went 11-5 with a 4.20 ERA and 141 strikeouts in 115 2/3 innings, with a July stop on the injured list for left forearm tightness.
That's 240 innings with ERAs around 4.20 for a team that won the pennant. Count it in WAR from MLB's stats data and 2026 goes to Milwaukee: Drohan 2.0, Harrison 1.7 and Hamilton 0.4 add up to about 4.1. Durbin's 3.1 and Seigler's 0.4, minus Monasterio's -0.6 as a position player and another -0.2 from his one trip to the mound, come to about 2.7.
It also makes Durbin part of what Boston got for Devers, one step removed. Trading Devers to San Francisco got us Harrison, and Harrison went into the Durbin deal.
Why it's still Boston's trade
Durbin is the best player in the deal, by a lot. He played 153 games, hit .248/.332/.378 with 13 homers and 20 steals (27.9 feet per second on the same sprint board), and gave Boston an everyday third baseman.
The glove is why he's a Gold Glove finalist. Savant has him at +6 outs above average, and MLB.com lists him with Brooks Lee and Nick Loftin as the three AL finalists at third, adding that he "led all AL third basemen with +13 DRS." Winners are announced Nov. 1. He did it playing through a left pinkie he hurt in June, which needed PIP joint reconstruction this month, per MLB Trade Rumors (via Yardbarker).
Then there's the calendar. Durbin "isn't eligible for arbitration until 2028 and remains under control through 2031," MLB Trade Rumors wrote in that same report. That's five more seasons of team control over a Gold Glove-level third baseman, only the first at a pre-arb salary, for two back-end starters and a utility guy. We couldn't confirm how many years Milwaukee controls Harrison, Drohan and Hamilton, so we won't guess at it. Whatever the answer, we'd make Boston's side of this trade again.
Milwaukee won the first year of the deal. Boston has 2027 through 2031 at a position it needed filled last winter.
How this goes wrong for Boston
The bat. A .710 OPS plays fine with that glove, and it isn't much more than fine. If Durbin stays that hitter and Craig Breslow spends this winter shopping for starters, those 240 innings he gave away will look a lot more expensive by next October.
Cheer for Hamilton on Friday if you want to. He's playing the Rays, so it shouldn't be hard.