On Wednesday afternoon, Boston Globe sports reporter Alex Speier hosted an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit focused on the current state of the Red Sox, 20 years after their historic 2004 World Series win.
Below are some highlights from the AMA, which has been condensed and edited for clarity. Questions are in bold from Redditors who participated.
I think I understand the approach of how the Red Sox are trying to build the next great team. But why are they doing it in this particular way? Why accept being mediocre for five years until everything lines up instead of supporting a higher floor every year via a top five payroll until they get sustainably good again?
Alex Speier: Very fair to ask about payroll. I don’t think the Red Sox, at the start of the 2020 season — when they traded Mookie Betts and David Price to the Dodgers — thought this would be a five-year process. Their hope was to have an accelerated build/rebuild that might produce sustainable contention within a few years — with the team making long-term commitments and likely increasing payroll based on how close they were to sustainable contention. The idea was that they’d be making their biggest bets at a time when they had a chance to get the most bang for the buck — i.e., prime-age talent acquired with an open title window.
Obviously, that strategy failed — at a time when Dave Dombrowski and the Phillies offered reminders that teams could indeed elevate their ceilings and floors by spending even without a mature farm system. The Sox wanted (in the words of Sam Kennedy) the build to dictate what they spent. The result has been a long period of a team stuck in the middle ... but that is now determined (at least in their public statements) to behave as if the contention window has now been reopened. It’ll be fascinating to see how that influences offseason behavior.
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Do you think that lack of experience in the CBO position (both Bloom and Breslow) has contributed to their continued poor performance? It seems like this isn’t the place for someone wet behind the ears to get their first leadership experience, why do they keep choosing CBOs who have never sat in the big chair before?
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AS: I do think there’s something to the idea that experienced heads of baseball operations can be more willing to take risks at the start of their tenures. But there are plenty of examples of first-time GMs/CBOs/POBOs excelling near the start of their rookie tenures — Theo Epstein being one obvious example, Chris Young with the Rangers being another, Andrew Friedman with the Rays, etc.
As for why they’ve gone that route ... when they hired Bloom, they made a few backchannel inquiries with established candidates holding other jobs and were turned down. Before hiring Breslow, they did reach out to experienced candidates, many (but not all) of whom declined to be interviewed. Among those who did interview, the team had the greatest belief in Breslow’s strategic vision and way of seeing the world ± thus choosing him over candidates with more experience such as Thad Levine (a longtime No. 2 for multiple front offices) and Neal Huntington.
I was surprised the team never brought in an experienced former GM to provide council for Bloom; the addition of Epstein, even at the ownership level, gives Breslow a more experienced person for exchanges of ideas.
What deal (trade or free agent signing) did you hear about in the works that never came down that you think would have drastically changed where the club is now? (I enjoy the “what ifs...” as much as the things that happen.)
AS: In the last couple of years, the team’s inability to close the deal on Zach Eflin (when they seemed like they were on the goal line of a three-year deal) or to re-sign Nate Eovaldi (with whom they had extensive talks about a two- or three-year deal) represent massive what-ifs, given that Eovaldi or Eflin instead of Corey Kluber that offseason could have transformed the first half of that year, positioned the Sox to be more aggressive at the 2023 deadline, and thus changed the calculus regarding Bloom’s future.
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Last offseason, they hoped to make a big push for [Yoshinobu] Yamamoto, but my understanding is the bidding vastly exceeded their expectations and they weren’t particularly close. But had they signed him — or, for that matter, Seth Lugo or Shota Imanaga or Jack Flaherty or some of the other starters they pursued last winter — this season could have taken a very different direction, including at the trade deadline.
Which of our top four prospects do you think has the most potential to get dealt (Anthony, Mayer, Teel, and Campbell)?
AS: I go back and forth on this question a lot. It’s hard for me to see them dealing either Roman Anthony or Kristian Campbell under any circumstances. Marcelo Mayer is close to that level but probably a half-step from that given that, if they want to make a blockbuster trade this winter, they’d need to be open to moving an elite prospect, and he’s a bit behind Anthony and Campbell in terms of his future floor given that he has yet to stay healthy for a full year. But regarding the likeliest candidate to be dealt ... because Kyle Teel doesn’t have the upside of the other three, and thus has a theoretically more replaceable skill set, I’d view him as that guy. That said, he also probably has the clearest path to contributing to the Sox in the big leagues in 2025, and the team doesn’t have other catchers anywhere close to the big leagues, so I don’t exactly see the team being eager to move him.
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Any insight on off-season targets for next season?
AS: It’s still a bit early, more in the speculation phase.
They’ve identified starters as a need, but still have yet to show their hand as to whether they’d pursue established top-of-the-rotation options (they were actively involved in Yamamoto) or if they’ll be looking for upside plays like the ones they explored last year (Lucas Giolito, Imanaga, Lugo, etc.). There are lots of enticing free agent options in both categories — Max Fried, Blake Snell, Corbin Burnes, Flaherty, to name a few — and I do expect them to at least be engaged in trade talks about top-end talent like Garrett Crochet, since their pool of young talent in the big leagues and near the big leagues can match up with just about any club.
Obviously, there will also be moves to address right-handed bats and to rebuild the bullpen. But to this point, I don’t have a great feel for the targets of those efforts.
What year do you think [the Sox] will be a playoff team that does more than have a cup of coffee in a wildcard/play-in role?
AS: Is it possible that it happens in 2025? Sure. But I think it’s more likely that once the Triple A group not only arrives in the big leagues but establishes it, then they’ll be capable of returning to heavyweight status. A realistic scenario is that 2025 represents a platform year in which the Sox are legit contenders for a postseason berth, and that their projections from 2026 through the end of the decade rank them in the upper levels of baseball.
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Going into the season, it sounded like Trevor Story was a real leader in the clubhouse and close to heart of this team. How did the clubhouse change after his early injury? Also, how much do you know about the upcoming documentary? Are you in it? Is Casas going to be a star?
AS: Story represents a very valued veteran presence, and I do think he was missed as a publicly facing figure during the early months of adversity. And I think he made a positive impact with his return on helping to keep a young group focused and moving forward even when contention became a longshot.
As for the documentary: I have no idea what the end product will look like. The Netflix crew was omnipresent in spring training and early in the season, then only sporadically present for much of the second half before returning to prominence at the very end of the year. I interviewed with them on multiple occasions but have no idea whether I’ll be in it (and imagine they’ll have much better content than anything I say!) I’m sure Triston Casas will be a fascinating figure within it both because of who he is and his willingness to engage.
I was at Game 4 of the ALCS in 2004. Has anything come close to that level of excitement or fandom? How can we get that energy back to the Red Sox or inspire the team to make decisions to ramp up and be competitive?
AS: The electricity of the 2021 postseason at Fenway was the closest thing I’ve experienced to 2003-04 since those years. But it’s not unique to Boston: The insane excitement surrounding playoff baseball in Philly and San Diego and New York this offseason suggests that great baseball incites enormous passion. I don’t think we’ll ever see something like ‘03-04 in Boston again given the unique historic and cultural circumstances necessary to build that much anticipation for a title, but I think great Red Sox teams will bring out plenty of juice.
Your second question is sort of a chicken-and-egg one, but it does feel like Red Sox officials feel like it’s on them to build a team that will inspire Fenway to be at a higher pitch.
I was wondering what interactions (if any) you had with the late Tim Wakefield, and if you wanted to speak to any of those.
AS: I was around him in the clubhouse for his final 10 seasons with the Red Sox, and talked to him fairly regularly. His joy in making an All-Star team in 2009 was pretty memorable — a sort of pinch-me moment for a guy in his 40s who was wide-eyed at being viewed as ranking among the game’s best. But the thing I loved the most was seeing Tim in the years after he’d retired and talking about our families — his joy in being a dad and having time for his kids, his delight at hearing about my son’s forming interest in baseball and how seeing a slow-motion clip of a knuckleball left a 5-year-old’s mouth agape. He was just a wonderfully down-to-earth person who is so very missed.
What do you have to say to younger Red Sox fans like myself who were too young to experience The Comeback when it happened live? What was that experience like? What was the media and fan attitude around this team during those years?
AS: The intensity of covering the team on a day-to-day basis was mindblowing. It’s hard to overstate the cultural significance of the Sox during that time, and the amount of attention that fell upon everything surrounding the team — amplified by the fact that the team had huge and mercurial personalities who’d been part of the franchise for years: Pedro, Lowe, Manny, Nomar...
Fans and media had learned to be skeptical at the idea that things would turn out for the best for the franchise, a skepticism that had been amplified by the easily accessed and universally known memories of Dent and Buckner and Boone. The extent of coverage was also mind-blowing compared to what it is now — with probably five times the number of daily beat writers around the team that currently exists. That created a fishbowl for the players, and thus turned playing for the Red Sox into not only an athletic experience but a life test.
As for The Comeback — I’d say more particularly 2003-04, it was mindblowing to see it unfold on a day-to-day, month-to-month basis. The degree of enmity between the Sox and Yankees and their fanbases was real and felt all the time.
The extent of heartbreak that followed Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS both by members of the team and fans was staggering — a funereal pall over the entire region. And so the events of 2004 occurred in dramatic and cinematic fashion that would be impossible to replicate — even as documentaries try to introduce the experience to new generations.
I just remember standing outside the Red Sox clubhouse following Game 4 of the World Series in St. Louis and thinking, “I have been doing this for three years. I will never cover anything close to this again.” And that’s proven true.
To read the full AMA click here.
Jenna Reyes can be reached at jenna.reyes@globe.com. Follow her @jennaelaney and Instagram @jennaelaney. Alex Speier can be reached at alex.speier@globe.com. Follow him @alexspeier.