Fifteen months after he was the toast of Fenway with an All-Star nod and a Home Run Derby run, Jarren Duran is now a name teams are calling about for the wrong reasons. MLB Trade Rumors dropped the report Friday: Boston is open to moving him before the deadline, and it's not because he's thriving.
The stat line explains the shift. Duran is hitting.195/.252/.337 with a.589 OPS, dead last among qualified hitters in both average and on-base percentage, and he's been even worse since June 1 -- a.167/.211/.247 stretch over 48 games. He's still got 13 homers and 54 RBIs, evidence the raw tools haven't vanished, but the strikeouts (a 29% rate) and the overall collapse have wrecked his trade stock compared to where it was a year ago.
It's not just the numbers. Duran got into it with third base coach Chad Epperson during a recent game over a baserunning call, yelling "Run!" and "Do your job!" in the dugout. He didn't dodge it afterward, telling reporters flatly, "I suck," and "Of course I'm pissed at myself." That kind of public frustration, paired with the slump, has reportedly made some league evaluators wonder whether he's worth the headache -- even with real speed-power upside still in the profile.
The business side matters here too. Duran is making $7.7 million in his first year of arbitration, with roughly $2.4 million left on that number, and Boston controls him through 2028. That's normally the kind of cost certainty a team hangs onto through a slump. Instead, the read is that if things don't turn around, he's "playing his way to a non-tender" -- which tells you how far his stock has fallen in one season.
Boston's sudden buyer posture -- riding a 15-game winning streak back into the playoff picture -- makes the timing stranger. Teams pushing for October usually don't shop useful outfielders, but a change-of-scenery move for a struggling former All-Star is a different calculus than dumping a veteran for salary relief. The Padres have been tied to Duran going back to last summer's deadline, and the Twins reportedly tried to get him last year and got turned down. The Astros, Diamondbacks, Phillies and Guardians have also been floated as clubs scouting outfield help who could kick tires.
None of that guarantees a deal actually gets done by Monday. Duran's floor as a trade chip is real -- former All-Star, controllable through 2028, cheap relative to the position -- but so is the risk any acquiring team is taking on a bat that's been unplayable for two months. Watch San Diego and Minnesota first; they've been circling longest, and how much Boston has to eat to move him will say a lot about how far his value has actually dropped.