Any committed Boston Red Sox fan has heard the joke about their favorite team being the offseason “interest kings.”
For the last several seasons, especially prior to last winter, the Red Sox were the ultimate punchline, because they’d reportedly show interest or be “in” on free agents galore, but never cross the finish line. This offseason, that narrative has picked back up, because Boston has yet to sign a major league free agent.
The narrative ignores the fact that the Red Sox have added roughly $56 million to the payroll in trades, of course, but let’s press on.
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Red Sox have to show interest, says Cora
Red Sox manager Alex Cora recently discussed his team’s free agency pursuits on the “Baseball Isn’t Boring” podcast, and kicked things off by telling the fans not to take every rumor they read as gospel, which should be a given, coming from someone whose job is to sift through those rumors and point out what matters.
“Everybody has a source. Everybody, it’s amazing,” Cora joked. “You cannot believe everything that is out there, that’s the reality of it.”
Cora then essentially told host Rob Bradford that the Red Sox are just doing their job whenever a new report drops about a target they’ve shown interest in.
“It’s the whole thing about, ‘they show interest.’ Well, we’d better!” Cora said. “It doesn’t mean that’s the No. 1 option, but you never know what can happen, you know, one month into the offseason, two months into the offseason.
“Then, you come to February, a guy is out there, and you haven’t even talked to him, you know? Imagine that, you know, ‘Hey Rob, you’re out there, let me talk to you!’ And you’re like, ‘Forget that.'”
The Red Sox are in an unenviable position, because with the amount of media outlets that cover the team and the accordingly large numbers of eyeballs on those outlets, it’s bound to get around almost instantly whenever they do show some sort of interest in big-name players. Plus, they’re naturally going to be in on some of the most expensive players that medium and small-market teams won’t try for.
Is there some truth to the Red Sox being wishy-washy about who they actually wind up making serious pushes for? Absolutely, but for the most part, they deserve some leniency for simply doing their jobs and checking in on potential impact players.
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