Unless Chiang has all star potential, which I don't see, then this is a good trade. The Sox are have weathered a storm of injuries pretty well using their organizational depth (Wake, Miller, Reddick, Navarrro,..) and that is great but these prolonged stretches of having your ML starters out of commision catch up to you in the long run. If Buchholz' condition is the worst case scenario and Lester has a muscle strain or Beckett's back flares up then the Sox would desperately need starting pitching. The Sox seem to be a sure thing for the playoffs but things could change very quickly as we have seen before. Bedard is far from a sure thing and there are concerns about him in the big market spot light but If trading away an "average regular", which seems to be Chiang's optimistic cieling in the ML, is the cost of keeping the Sox in position for a run deep in the playoffs then so be it.

Everybody who follows the Sox system falls for a few prospects and values them a little higher than their skills justify but the purpose of the Sox system is to contribute to the ML club's success. Whether that be feeding the ML roster with young cost controlled talent, providing ML depth to for injuries or enabling them to make moves for major or minors pieces. The guy is having a breakout year but unless anybody really sees him being the next Shin-Soo Choo then he is a commodity that the Sox should see fit to dispose of as needed.