SAN DIEGO — If the Red Sox have been mendacity the entire time, if they really aren’t critical about re-signing Xander Bogaerts, then they’ve put themselves in fairly the pickle.
What’s Plan B?
Through three days of motion on the Winter Meetings, the place the range is scorching and probably the most aggressive groups are making huge strikes, the Red Sox stayed quiet. Even because it pertains to Bogaerts, there hasn’t been as a lot because the lightest sniff of a rumor that they’re in competition.
They have been linked to a couple different gamers, like Jose Abreu, Zach Eflin and Tommy Kahnle, however all of them signed elsewhere.
Is Chaim Bloom getting pissed off?
“Look, I don’t think this is uncommon,” he stated. “Even when you sit back at the end of the offseason and say, ‘Man, I think we crushed this thing,’ there are still a couple of things along the way where there are what-if’s or frustrations. That happens all the time.”
The well-liked narrative is that the Sox aren’t being aggressive sufficient and aren’t providing aggressive salaries to lure one of the best free brokers to Boston.
But Bloom flipped the script. He stated it was necessary for gamers to need to play in Boston, and in the event that they don’t need to be suiting up at Fenway Park 81 occasions a yr, it’s a superb factor that these gamers are signing with different groups.
“You want the players who want to play for you and some players really crave what Boston brings,” he stated. “Others are interested in the opportunity or the financial terms are there but they want something that is different from our situation and different from the atmosphere that we have. As history has shown, you don’t want to bring players to Boston who don’t want to play in Boston.”
It’s really an important level, and we will’t neglect about David Price, who took the bag of cash and by no means appeared pleased with it.
There’s just one drawback with Bloom’s argument: is there anybody who needs to play in Boston as badly as Bogaerts, who has performed extra video games at shortstop than another participant in Red Sox historical past, has already taken one team-friendly deal to remain in Boston and is taken into account one of the well-respected gamers within the clubhouse and out of it?
Good luck discovering a man who needs to be in Boston that badly.
And proper again in circles they go, the Red Sox saying that Bogaerts is Plan A however with out something to indicate for it. And if Plan A doesn’t work out, do the Red Sox have a Plan B?
Perhaps they’re critical about signing Bogaerts and can quickly have the receipts to show it. Or, they haven’t any actual plan and are content material sitting again and ready for the proper alternatives, solely prepared to strike when it’s a transparent no-brainer, one thing they’ve accomplished often over the previous few years. Or simply perhaps they do have a secret Plan B and have been gradual to execute it or horrible at promoting it.
Regardless, it’s been a tough offseason from a public relations standpoint.
“We think we’re going to be good,” Bloom stated. “We hope it’s with Xander. We really do. If that doesn’t work out, we’re still intent on being a playoff-caliber team.”
Team president Sam Kennedy informed the Herald on Tuesday that John Henry and the whole possession group met with Bogaerts face-to-face this offseason and “he knows exactly where we stand.”
Bogaerts’ agent, Scott Boras, backed that up when he stated, “The Red Sox, they kind of have four-star ownership. These guys have proven over time that they win and they pursue winning. I think if there’s anybody, I think everyone around them understands the Sox without ‘X’ are ‘So-So.’”
Was Boras baiting possession into being extra aggressive? Or was he real in his perception that the Sox are critical contenders for Bogaerts’ providers?
Ownership has been “very involved” within the course of to re-sign Bogaerts, Kennedy informed the Herald.
“Big, big involvement,” he stated.
But right here’s the place followers may get pissed off: in terms of what the Sox realized from failed negotiations with Jon Lester and Mookie Betts, the pocket book is empty.
“It’s always painful when you lose players that have meant so much to the franchise, and we’re looking forward to, and we hope we can retain Bogey,” Kennedy stated. “But I don’t get caught up in regrets of the past or fear of the future. I don’t worry about it. I just think we have to make the right decisions and we’ll put ourselves in a good position to win. That’s what we have to do. It’s a zero-sum game. We have to win.”
Even if the Sox re-sign Bogaerts, they’ve holes up and down the roster. Bloom stated they want as many as 9 gamers this winter.
But, on the very least, re-signing Bogaerts is a transfer that alerts a wholesome group that values its gamers, respects clubhouse dynamics and believes in some type of continuity.
As Bloom stated, it’s not simply concerning the product on the sphere.
“Yeah, we’re in the entertainment business,” he stated. “If we’re not factoring that in, we’re not doing our jobs. We have incredible fans and we want them to be happy.”
Right now although, there’s no denying that the Red Sox have turn into stale. And whereas they’re proper to say that it takes greater than huge splashes to construct an important crew, a crew that lacks so many different of the important thing elements to achieve success, each on the sphere and off it, can solely go with out a huge splash for thus lengthy.
Source: www.bostonherald.com