Red Sox owner John Henry draws criticism for lackluster management of team roster

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BOSTON — The person in charge of executing contracts and transactions is usually the person in the spotlight. For the Red Sox, that person is Chaim Bloom, a man with a fair share of criticism after a few years of unimpressive decisions.

But in a not quite scathing but nonetheless pointed column for The Athletic, Ken Rosenthal directed much of that blame at the ownership group, led by John Henry.

“The Red Sox under owners John Henry, Tom Werner and Co.? They haven’t reacted to the changing market, a market in which stars get decade-long contracts,” Rosenthal wrote. “Dating back to Mookie Betts, Sox owners have been opposed to such contracts. They will have to adjust their philosophy to compete for top talent, including their own third baseman, Rafael Devers. Otherwise, they will have to trust Bloom to thread the needle, which he failed to do.”

Rosenthal noted that the Red Sox are currently 12th in cash payroll and 14th in luxury tax payroll, while “virtually every top player” in free agency has signed with teams before.

Red Sox president and CEO Sam Kennedy told Rosenthal that ownership is “always involved in the big money moves,” a notion that seems apt after Bogaerts left via free agency and after Jeter Downs was DFA, highlighting the weak comeback the Red Sox received for Mookie Betts in 2020.

Whether it was the property or Bloom who couldn’t quite decide whether to buy or sell at the 2022 trade deadline is unclear. Yet, as Rosenthal notes, the team clinging to JD Martinez and Nathan Eovaldi for a playoff run ended up keeping them above the luxury tax threshold, which will cost them draft positioning. (Martinez has since signed with the Dodgers in free agency, while Eovaldi remains a free agent.)

While blame for the confusing trade deadline can’t be properly assigned from the outside, Rosenthal said the overall state of the Red Sox falls on ownership.

“Any analysis of [Bloom’s] The shortcomings should start with the people who run the Red Sox purse strings, the people who wield the ultimate power,” Rosenthal wrote. “This is the property that hired Bloom to bring Rays-like efficiency to the Sox, the property that bears the greatest responsibility for losing Betts, a property that did not exceed $160 million for Bogaerts and is now on the clock with Devers, who enters his walking year.”

Rosenthal is not alone, of course. Dan Shaughnessy of The Boston Globe called the loss of Bogaerts “proprietary/front office malpractice”.

“The Red Sox, a team whose value has quadrupled since John Henry and his friends bought it 21 years ago, no longer compete with the Yankees, Dodgers, Cubs, Phillies or even the Padres. “, wrote Shaughnessy. “They’re charging you the highest prices in baseball to go to a game at Fenway Park, but they won’t be very talented anymore. No more splashing. Sandoval-Hanley-Rusney-Price-Sale mistakes damaged property and in 2019 a new philosophy was born: to sell the “illusion” of competition. Try to win 85 games and you may be lucky and hot in September/October. Tell the fans that you are now interested in the draft and development, like the Rays. Tell them you want to win every year. Not just a few years.

A week later, Shaughnessy wrote that Red Sox manager Alex Cora may no longer want to “support Red Sox ownership by putting payroll value and flexibility above winning.”

On 98.5’s The Sports Hub website, radio host Tony Massarotti – who also does color commentary for Red Sox games on NESN – wrote this after Bogaerts signed in San Diego: “Owners and Red Sox operators aren’t stupid, folks, but they might just think you are.

In the Boston Herald, Jason Mastrodonato pointed out that John Henry was responsible for much of the Red Sox’s current situation, while hailing the owner for making billions of dollars in a potential sale of the team after the team. forced employees to take pay cuts during COVID, reversed that decision after public pressure, then fired some employees later that year.

“Honesty, decisiveness and direct communication have not really been [ownership’s] business card,” Mastrodonato wrote.

Obviously, the Red Sox have won four World Series under this ownership group. It came after more than eight and a half decades of grief. No one has ever diminished the impact that the Henry ownership group has had on the Red Sox, the city of Boston and the New England region in general.

At the same time, all of these victories set a certain standard and a high level of expectation. The perception right now is that the property and front office aren’t anywhere near meeting that standard, and the complaints and criticism aren’t just coming from fans who want to win. They come from reporters and members of the media who share that sense of well-reasoned doubt about the Red Sox’s overall plan.

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