The Jackie Bradley Jr. market remains a mystery. All we do know is that the Red Sox are still involved.
While it certainly seemed as though the Red Sox might be willing to head into 2021 with their current array of outfielders -- some combination Franchy Cordero, Kiké Hernandez, Alex Verdugo, Marwin Gonzalez and Hunter Renfroe - Chaim Bloom made it seem like a Bradley Jr. reunion is still in the mix.
'We continue to stay in touch and make sure we’re in touch with (Bradley Jr.'s agent) Scott (Boras) about his situation. We’re going to do that until it resolves," the Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer said Sunday morning. "Obviously as the winter has gone on we haven’t let that prevent us from making other moves when we’ve seen opportunity to add good players that fit us and that can bolster this roster but we love Jackie and we’ve stayed in touch with Scott on him throughout the entire winter."
Red Sox manager Alex Cora said Saturday that he does still keep in touch with Bradley Jr., who resides in the Fort Myers area during the offseason.
"We talk a lot, but we don’t talk baseball,” Cora said. “We don’t talk about his situation. I talk about Emerson and the baby and how they’re doing. He asks about my family, and we keep it at that. Obviously, he’s a good player. He’s a guy that can help any team at the big-league level to win ballgames. There’s more than just the manager and the player. There’s a relationship and I keep our conversations with that."
Two other teams thought to have some interest in Bradley Jr. are the Giants and Astros, with the Mets a long-shot after signing both Albert Almora and Kevin Pillar.
Bloom also noted the conversations regarding approaching extensions for players already on the roster (a category Rafael Devers and Eduardo Rodriguez might fall into) are starting to surface.
Rodriguez will be eligible for free agency after the 2021 season, with Devers still possessing two more years of arbitration-eligibility.
"We’ve talked about it internally some," Bloom said. " Obviously the winter was so unique and the lead up to spring training and even some of the uncertainty about when spring training would start has been a unique aspect to this that has caused us to focus so much of our planning on making sure we’re doing the right things here to get this set up and make sure we’re taking care of our players. We have had some conversations internally. I expect as we get into the spring, those conversations will pick up. Don’t know what it will lead to obviously. If and when they do pick up, it’s not something we’re going to speak publicly about unless there’s something to report. But this is the time when a lot of those things often happen so I would expect we’ll at least have some conversations about it with some guys."