Sam Kennedy says Red Sox ownership didn’t pressure Chaim Bloom to acquire Max Scherzer at the trade deadline. In fact, he says ownership even tried to find out where the misreport came from.
In an interview Thursday with “The Greg Hill Show,” the Red Sox president denied ownership was intervening in Bloom’s deadline strategy.
“I was interested just as an intellectual exercise to see if I could find out where that report came from, because it’s not true. It’s completely false,” Kennedy said. “We actually did look into it, and I guess there was misinformation out there, which happens. What John Henry, Tom Werner and I did was what we’ve been doing ever since we hired Chaim Bloom, and that’s encourage him and his team to keep doing exactly what they’re doing, which is working to build a sustainable operation, win at the major league level, which we’re doing, and build up our farm system. That’s the key to long-term success.”
The Red Sox were relatively quiet at the deadline, making moves to pick up injured slugger Kyle Schwarber and middling reliever Austin Davis. Meanwhile, all of their division rivals made significant acquisitions: The Yankees nabbed Anthony Rizzo and Joey Gallo; the Rays got Nelson Cruz; the Jays landed Jose Berrios. (Kennedy brought up the Yankees' 3-10 record against the Red Sox when asked about their deadline moves.)
The Nationals wound up trading Scherzer and star infielder Trae Turner to the Dodgers.
Given Boston’s inactivity, the Scherzer report from Jim Bowden has appeared dubious for days. It seems like a classic example of Red Sox ownership trying to have it both ways: stay under the luxury tax, while deflecting blame onto Bloom for not making a bigger move.
But Kennedy says there were no machiavellian calculations.
“That was unfortunate that there was a misleading report put there, but that happens from time to time, and we move beyond it,” he said.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like the players have moved beyond their lack of deadline activity. The Red Sox are 1-5 since Friday.
