First, Mookie Betts. Now, Xander Bogaerts. The departure of another homegrown Boston Red Sox star is going to sting for a while.
Bogaerts signed an 11-year, $280 million contract with the San Diego Padres in free agency. The Red Sox reportedly offered their ex-shortstop $160 million over six years. That deal may have gotten the job done last March, but they lowballed Bogaerts before the season and ended up paying the price in free agency.
Tomase: Let's not kid ourselves ... Devers is next to go
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As expected, Boston's front office has taken plenty of heat for failing to retain Bogaerts. Chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom understands the frustration. After introducing newly-acquired closer Kenley Jansen on Tuesday, he addressed the elephant in the room.
"Well first of all, good for Xander. He earned every bit of that," Bloom told reporters. "Everybody here has seen it and it's just part of what free agency is about. He will always, for everybody here -- and I probably have less standing to say this than people who have been here the whole time he was -- he will be nothing but loved here forever. So that's number one.
"The rest of it, there's a lot of emotions. You can feel that you're making a sound baseball and business decision and still feel torn up by it. It's wonderful when those business decisions line up with things that are gonna make us happy and can make everybody happy. This one didn't. But we still have a responsibility to make those decisions. We know that this is going to leave a mark for everybody in this organization and everybody who loves this organization. We understand that and we've got to get back to going out there and winning."
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Team president and CEO Sam Kennedy also was in attendance and offered his first public comments on losing Bogaerts.
“It’s really, really difficult when you lose players that mean so much to you,” Kennedy said. "That’s the hardest part of the job. Do you wish you could have homegrown stars from start to finish? Of course you do, but unfortunately, that’s not the reality of this business all the time.”
While losing both Betts and Bogaerts is a blemish on the front office's résumé, Kennedy isn't interested in dwelling on the past.
“I try not to look back,” he said. “You can really harm yourself and harm your plan and harm decision-making if you get too caught up in regrets in the past or any type of fear of the future.
"I don’t engage in any of those two activities. I don’t focus on regrets of the past and I don’t worry about the things I can’t control in the future. What we’re trying to do in the moment is make the right decisions for the Boston Red Sox. That’s the job. It comes with painful, difficult decisions along the way.”
After watching Betts and Bogaerts leave, fans wonder whether Rafael Devers will mark the third homegrown star to depart Boston in the last four years. The slugging third baseman is scheduled to become an expensive free agent after the 2023 season.
“We’ll keep doing what I said we’re going to do, which is making the right decisions,” Kennedy said.
“We need to keep making the right decisions,” he repeated. “That’s the bottom line. I would put our organization and our track record against anybody else’s in baseball, period.”