The Boston Globe is among the properties controlled by John Henry in his vast business empire, but he committed an act of journalistic malpractice Monday morning in Fort Myers.
The Red Sox principal owner was guilty of burying the lede. Henry waited until the final paragraph of a two-page prepared statement before cutting to the root cause of the trade that sent Mookie Betts to the Dodgers.
"We felt we could not sit on our hands and lose him next offseason without getting [...]
The Boston Globe is among the properties controlled by John Henry in his vast business empire, but he committed an act of journalistic malpractice Monday morning in Fort Myers.
The Red Sox principal owner was guilty of burying the lede. Henry waited until the final paragraph of a two-page prepared statement before cutting to the root cause of the trade that sent Mookie Betts to the Dodgers.
“We felt we could not sit on our hands and lose him next offseason without getting value in return to help us on our path forward,” Henry said.
So, there it is. One of the richest franchises in baseball opted to travel the path often pursued by its cash-strapped peers. No extension for Betts prior to reaching free agency – similar to those signed last offseason by Chris Sale and Xander Bogaerts – led to the departure of a generational talent.
David Price also made his exit to Los Angeles. Alex Verdugo, Jeter Downs and Connor Wong came to Boston. And that leaves Henry, despite his four championships and ending the seemingly interminable 86-year wait for a World Series title, as one of the least popular people currently walking the Back Bay.
Saving the real Betts rationale for last wasn’t the only misstep made by Henry as he faced the assembled media at JetBlue Park. Let’s take a look at a few other questionable passages from his first official remarks of the spring.
-- ‘Before Tom, Sam or I ever dreamed of owning a major league baseball club, we were baseball fans, like you.’
Henry is part of a triumvirate that oversees the Red Sox along with club chairman Tom Werner and president Sam Kennedy. They often seek a common voice on such important organizational matters.
The verb tense used here was interesting – ‘were baseball fans.’ As in, not currently. And yes, running a franchise requires a different thought process.
But any festering disconnect between Henry and those who inhabit Fenway Park’s bleachers throughout the summer should come as no surprise based on this seemingly unconscious slip of the tongue. It’s one more small fracture in a relationship that is being stretched to its breaking point.
-- ‘My heart would have broken if Stan the Man had ever been traded – for any reason.’
Henry grew up on a soybean farm in Illinois and was part of a generation of kids who listened to baseball on the radio. The Cardinals were broadcast on the mighty KMOX, an AM station whose reach extended throughout the Midwest. It wasn’t uncommon for folks in Canada and Mexico to pick up the signal on a clear night.
That made several St. Louis players among the most popular of their era, and Stan Musial was one of them. The Man is one of the great hitters in baseball history and a one-club icon, playing only with the Cardinals from 1940-63. Betts no longer has the chance to be such a player in Boston, and it was ultimately Henry who had final say.
-- ‘Some of you no doubt felt the same way in 2004 when we traded Nomar, who like Mookie was a hugely popular, homegrown player.’
This is an apples and oranges comparison at best. Nomar Garciaparra was 30 years old entering the 2004 season and had posted a sub-.900 OPS in each of his three previous campaigns. The shortstop underwent wrist surgery that cost him all but 21 games of the 2001 season and had also battled issues with his Achilles tendon.
Betts is just 27. Only Mike Trout has been more valuable since 2016 in terms of FanGraphs wins above replacement. This is a premier player in baseball squarely in his prime, not one who was already showing signs of decline.
-- ‘Over the last two decades in winning four titles, along the way we lost not only Nomar, but Pedro and Jacoby and Jon and Manny among others.’
Again, Henry used popular Red Sox names in an attempt to obscure the truth. Garciaparra (30), Pedro Martinez (33) and Manny Ramirez (36) were all on the wrong side of 30 when they played their respective final games in Boston. They can’t possibly be considered in the same category as Betts.
Jacoby Ellsbury enjoyed one truly superb season in 2011, blasting 32 home runs and stealing 39 bases while posting a .928 OPS. But various injuries limited him to 18 games in 2010 and 74 games in 2012 – signing him to the seven-year deal he inked with the Yankees prior to 2014 was always going to carry more risk than retaining Betts.
Jon Lester isn’t even really all that comparable. The Red Sox made a disastrous early effort to retain him, tabling an insulting opening offer that soured the negotiations for good. And really, Lester hasn’t performed like a Hall of Famer in five years with the Cubs – two Cy Young Award top-10 finishes, two National League All-Star selections and a 3.54 earned-run average.
Lester’s postseason performance in 2016 helped Chicago snap a 108-year championship drought of its own, but you could argue David Price did just as much for Boston during its own run to the 2018 crown. Neither pitcher has been worth the combined $372 million they’ll take home over 13 years – that’s the premium often paid for starters on the open market. Betts was negotiating in a different bracket as a position player.
bkoch@providencejournal.com
On Twitter: @BillKoch25