It was Duck Boat Day and John Henry made a notable proclamation. He wanted to prioritize getting a contract extension done for President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowski, whose deal was expiring after the 2020 season.
Flash forward to Sept. 9 and Dombrowski's tenure with the Red Sox was done.
So, what happened?
Meeting with the media in the owners' suite at Fenway Park Friday afternoon the Sox' principal owner offered an explanation as to where the thinking might have changed when it came to keeping Dombrowski around long-term.
"What changed quickly was right after the World Series, we had preliminary talks about our way forward and it was clear to me we weren’t on the same page at that point," Henry said. "In fact, he and I talked about it that night, that Sunday evening, I think he disagreed with me about that, that we disagreed. We were even disagreeing, you might say, that we disagreed. There was a difference, I think, in how we thought we should move forward."
So, where was the disconnect?
"I don’t want to go into what the differences were," Henry added. "I’ll just stick with we had differences and he’s a great general manager. He did a great job for us. He’s been a great general manager everywhere he’s been. Just because we see things differently doesn’t mean that he’s not a great general manager. I have tremendous respect for him and I was very hopeful at the end of the World Series that we would end up working together for the long term. It didn’t turn out that way."
Red Sox chairman did note to the assembled media at the beginning of the get-together that one of the chief areas the organization hoped to improve on was depth in their farm system.
"In the end, we take responsibility for the overall direction of the club," Werner said. "One of the things that we talked about that I think is apparent is that we need to have more depth in our minor league system and more people coming up through the system that can be everyday baseball players."