How big would Red Sox be willing to go at trade deadline?

If you read the tea leaves coming out of Fenway Park recently, it seems that the Red Sox are now firmly entrenched in a buyer mentality at the trade deadline.

All the intel coming from reliable Red Sox and national reporters says so. Even Craig Breslow seemed to confirm that the team would look to buy in an appearance on NESN during Sunday’s 5-4 win over the Kansas City Royals, telling Red Sox play-by-play broadcaster Dave O’Brien, “We need to be thinking about opportunities for us to improve the club.”

That lukewarm declaration is the closest thing to “full throttle” in the Yale-educated general manager’s language. But now that that’s resolved, who should the Red Sox look to add at the deadline? How splashy could these moves get?

On Jones & Mego with Arcand on Tuesday, WEEI’s Rob Bradford said to expect more modest adjustments than earth-shattering bombshells at the deadline.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a big buy,” Bradford said.

“I don’t think really, necessarily, they need a huge buy. It’s always nice to get Vlad Guerrero Jr., but at this place of where they are in building this franchise, this is more like a C-tier than the Vlad Guerrero Jr. thing.”

In Bradford’s eyes, a more reasoned proposal was for the Sox to re-acquire Justin Turner as well as a fifth starter for the rotation.

“The Justin Turner thing, whenever it makes this much sense, it never happens,” Bradford said.

“But it makes all the sense in the world, right? Not only do you have the guy, you have the right-handed bat, which you need…you also have the guy in the clubhouse.”

In Turner’s short stint with the Red Sox, he had an immediate impact as a team leader, similar to that of another former Red Sox player, Kyle Schwarber.

“The impact that Schwarber had just hanging out with that team for the first two weeks was huge. I think Turner’s the same type of guy,” Bradford said.

With the team’s farm system climbing up the rankings, Christian Arcand asked why the team would be “scared” of dealing a high-tier prospect to make a more significant deadline move. Bradford pushed back on this idea, saying the Sox’ system isn’t strong enough yet.

“It’s not like the Orioles, right? They have an enormous amount of guys who can play in the major leagues and probably be stars. The Red Sox don’t have that,” Bradford said.

“I don’t think they’re in position necessarily to get rid of one of those top three guys, which, obviously, you have to to get some of these guys that you’re talking about at the deadline.”