If the Red Sox trade Youkilis then what do they do if their young 3B with the .400 BABIP, high strikeout rate with barely any walks, and a minor league record that shows nice progression at a pretty young age but is largely unspectacular suddenly shows that he isn't a good major league hitter yet? Middlebrooks might be able to figure things out in time before reality completely hits him, he did show a good reduction in his strikeout rate in the minors this year compared to the past and is showing a really good power stroke, but if he can't overcome his flaws then the Red Sox are suddenly looking at a hole that they created themselves. How is Middlebrooks' defense? UZR, TZ, and DRS all think he has been poor so far but it's still a super small sample size.

Trading Youkilis doesn't seem likely to help the Red Sox much and is far more likely to hurt them. They don't need relievers, they don't really need the caliber of starting pitcher he could bring back, the chances of getting a better SS than Aviles in return are extremely low, and the outfield situation will probably resolve itself soon enough. Trading him is unlikely to fill any holes and would carry a high risk of opening up one where it doesn't exist right now.

With Wil Myers coming on strong in the minor leagues, I would think that Frenchy would be available. The Royals have no use for Youkilis, but if you figure out a way to get them a starter, they'd probably return the call.

Just wanted to respond to the responses to my post. I know Youk has been injured the last couple years, but even with that he's a 4+ win player. And people are saying that trading him for a black hole like Soriano, a bad player on a huge contract, is as reasonable as trading him for Hamels, who is slightly more valuable than Youkilis over the past couple years.