Ben Cherington wouldn't admit that the Red Sox are open to trading Jon Lester, but he didn't rule out the idea either.

In discussing Boston's plans for the winter meetings and their need for a starting pitcher, Cherington was asked if he felt the team could improve even if it traded a starter.

"Anything is possible, but certainly it's harder to do that, to subtract somebody from the rotation," Cherington said. "We have a number of players that teams like. We're in a perhaps different situation than we have been in the past coming off the year we did. Maybe in light of that, teams not surprisingly are inquiring about things that maybe they wouldn't have in the past.

"Look, we have to be open-minded; we lost 93 games. But our primary focus is to build the best team we can for 2013 and one that doesn't in any way get in the way of a great team for a long time. That's our focus, and that will guide us for the next several weeks. But you've got to be open-minded when you have a year like this, and we're trying to build a team that will sustain a level of success over a long period of time."