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“We’re considering (deals) and talking with teams on both of those fronts,” said Atkins. “There’s always an acquisition cost to be factored. Typically, you pay for control, so that would mean giving up more prospect level in that type of deal. Everything is in balance. We’re not focused on one versus the other. We’re focused on winning this year.”

“Every team would say that. You just don’t want to compromise your future in how hard you try to do that. We’ll keep both of those approaches at the forefront but we, 100 per cent, recognize the opportunity that we have in front of us with a very good team that is playing very well.

“Hopefully we’ll be peaking at a very good time. We’re going to be looking to complement the team every day when we wake up.”

Teams who were trying to gauge the market got a bit of a jolt last week when the Red Sox acquired left-handed starter Drew Pomeranz from San Diego. Boston had to surrender one of their very top young pitching prospects, Anderson Espinoza, in the deal. Espinoza, just 18, has been compared to Pedro Martinez at a similar age. He’s just 18 but has already got rave notices even though he was still in low A ball when traded.

Atkins acknowledged it was a steep price to pay but that there are very few useful starting pitchers available and a large number of teams looking to buy. In that kind of a seller’s market, supply and demand is the ruling market force.

“(The price Boston paid) is more indicative of the alternatives, or lack thereof,” said Atkins. “There just aren’t a lot of them. I’m not so sure it’s going to increase the market drastically because the market was already very high. There are more buyers than there are sellers for that position. It wasn’t surprising that that’s what it took to get something moving.”