Red Sox Acquire Marlon Byrd For Michael Bowden

It's very rare to see a team make a legitimate trade involving major league players so early in the season, but yesterday the Cubs and Red Sox pulled one off. The Red Sox will acquire Marlon Byrd for Michael Bowden and cash. Now I'm no expert, but this trade appears to ridiculously favor the Red Sox. They are getting a serviceable outfielder to replace Jacoby Ellsbury and are only paying $400K of his contract, plus they are only giving up a reliever who is 0-0/3.00/3 this season. Now, Byrd has gotten off to a rough start to the year at just .070/0/2-- yes, you did read that right-- he is batting .070 (3 for 43) so far this year. However, I have no doubts that he can turn it around to become, as I said earlier, a serviceable outfielder. Last season he batted .276/9/35 in 119 games and the year before was .293/12/66 in 152 games. If Byrd can do that in the month or so before Jacoby Ellsbury returns, this was a great trade, and if not... well, they didn't give up much.