FORT MYERS, Fla. — Exactly seven weeks from today, which is 24 hours after they held their first workout of 2020, the Boston Red Sox will open their regular season in Canada, facing the Toronto Blue Jays on March 26.
Oh, what a difference a year can make. At this time last spring, the Sox were basking in the limelight of a World Series championship.
This February, the Red Sox arrived at Fenway South with a vastly different collection of players, team officials and a [...]
FORT MYERS, Fla. — Exactly seven weeks from today, which is 24 hours after they held their first workout of 2020, the Boston Red Sox will open their regular season in Canada, facing the Toronto Blue Jays on March 26.
Oh, what a difference a year can make. At this time last spring, the Sox were basking in the limelight of a World Series championship.
This February, the Red Sox arrived at Fenway South with a vastly different collection of players, team officials and a new head of baseball operations — quite a new look from last year. A sign-stealing scandal and a goal to cut the payroll can mess things up.
Gone are last year’s manager, the team’s best and most popular player, a 2018 World Series hero and the general manager who assembled that terrific team.
Manager Alex Cora and the team parted ways a few weeks ago. He had been one of the spymasters for the 2017 Houston Astros, for which he was the bench coach. The Sox remained manager-less until the eve of Wednesday’s first workout of pitchers and catchers.
That’s when the worst-kept secret of the New England winter was officially revealed. Ron Roenicke, Cora’s bench coach, was given the reins — with conditions. His title currently is interim manager because the probe into possible illegal sign-stealing by the 2018 Red Sox is still being investigated.
Not often are a former Most Valuable Player and Cy Young Award winner both shipped off in the same trade. That’s what happened Monday when Mookie Betts and David Price were sent to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a reworked trade that landed the Red Sox a pair of top-notch prospects — outfielder Alex Verdugo and infielder Jeter Downs, who immediately became Boston’s No. 1 prospect.
The architect of that deal was Chaim Bloom, the new head of baseball operations, who replaced the fired Dave Dombrowski.
On Wednesday, Roenicke got to address the whole ordeal to a throng of local, national and New England media.
"I don’t think it’s fair to put it on any one player to make up for Mookie’s production offensively," Roenicke said. "And it doesn’t have to be Verdugo, either. If [Andrew Benintendi] picks up his production from last year. If [Jackie Bradley Jr.] is better this year. I think the combination of everybody — [Xander Bogaerts] had a fantastic year, [Rafael Devers] had a fantastic year — it’s hard to ask them to do any more than what they did but the combination of everyone just doing a little bit more will help us. You cannot replace Mookie Betts. He’s one of the best players I’ve seen, but other guys can pick up their game and we can still put it all together."
With all the changes and uncertainty surrounding the team, veteran Red Sox players expressed excitement over the upcoming season.
"The expectations are always the same," catcher Christian Vazquez said. "The mental part, we need to stay focused, continue to work hard and keep winning."
The choice of Roenicke to replace Cora was a good one, according to Vazquez and relief pitcher Heath Hembree. Cora was extremely well-liked in the clubhouse, and so is Roenicke.
"We love [Roenicke]; he’s been here the last few years," Hembree said. "We’ve gotten to know him really well the last couple of years. He was with us when we are at the top of the game [in 2018] and he was with us when we weren’t at our best last year. He has a really good sense about the club. He understands the pulse of the team. We’re excited to move forward with him.
" I know we’re missing some key pieces from the last couple of years. But the situation is what it is and we’re excited to have him at the helm."
Roenicke said the Red Sox could use the "opener" strategy employed by new general manager Chaim Bloom with the Rays the last two years if a fifth starter doesn’t emerge. But he also added he had plenty of faith in the pitchers in camp vying for that fifth starter role. Those options include Ryan Weber and Hector Velazquez, but there are no current plans to move young fireballing lefty Darwinzon Hernandez into the rotation.
"I think the opener is a possibility when you don't have your five guys that you really like," Roenicke said. "Obviously, Chaim is very familiar with it, and in talking to him about it, it wasn't like, 'This is what we want to do.' It's more like, what's the best personnel we have and what's the best way we can get these guys to perform at the level where we hope they can be. And we may use the opener, but [Bloom] is also OK if we find that fifth guy. So, we just need to see where we are at the end of camp and go from there."
Editor’s note: Bob Rathgeber is a retired editor and reporter for The News-Press in Fort Myers, Fla.. who describes himself as a "baseballholic." He reported on a variety of events and subjects during his 30 years at the newspaper, including six years of spring training, three Olympics, national political conventions and many feature stories about people, places and things in Southwest Florida. Bob also spent nine years working in the Cincinnati Reds’ front office during the Big Red Machine era.