The Friday, October 23, 2020

* The Boston Globe

Red Sox interview Cubs’ , Pirates' for job

Alex Speier

The Red Sox managerial search is officially underway.

According to major league sources, the Red Sox have interviewed Cubs third base Will Venable and Pirates bench coach Don Kelly for their managerial vacancy.

Venable, 37, spent parts of nine seasons in the big leagues as an with the Padres, Rangers, and Dodgers from 2008-16 before joining the Cubs in late 2017. Initially hired as a special assistant to Cubs president Theo Epstein, Venable instead ended up coaching first base in 2018 and 2019 before being elevated to third base coach in 2020.

Venable, the son of former big leaguer Max Venable, was a two-sport athlete at Princeton (basketball and baseball) before embarking on his pro baseball career. Those who have worked with him suggest that he adeptly blends traditional baseball sensibilities and old-school feel with modern analytical perspectives.

He also connects easily with players, in part because of his calm demeanor and because he remains mindful from his own career — in which he was a .249/.315/.404 hitter — of the game’s difficulty. He is inexperienced as a manager but considered a tremendous baseball mind who will eventually land in that spot.

“He should be managing someday, if not now,” said one major league source.

Kelly, 40, spent parts of nine years in the big leagues with the Pirates, Tigers, and Marlins between 2007- 16, playing all nine positions in his career. He joined the Astros as first base coach in 2019 before moving to the Pirates as bench coach in 2020.

While many have assumed that a return of as Red Sox manager is a likely outcome of the search to replace , major league sources expect the Red Sox to conduct a thorough search with a number of candidates.

Cora is currently on MLB’s restricted list while serving a yearlong suspension for his role in the Astros' sign-stealing practices in 2017; his suspension will conclude at the end of the , at which time he will be free to interview with teams.

Beyond Cora, the Sox are expected to consider a number of up-and-coming candidates who haven’t managed. MLB Network’s Jon Heyman suggested that they could have interest in Dodgers first base coach , a former Red Sox minor league instructor. It is believed that the Red Sox will wait until Los Angeles concludes its postseason before contacting the Dodgers should they desire an interview with Lombard.

A look back at Chaim Bloom’s unimaginable first year with the Red Sox on the anniversary of his hiring

Peter Abraham

The Red Sox introduced Chaim Bloom as their chief baseball officer last Oct. 28 at Fenway Park. Reviewing video of the press conference that day feels like peering into a time capsule from another era.

The 36-year-old Bloom shook hands with team owners John Henry and Tom Werner before he sat down in the front of a room crowded with reporters, photographers, and team staffers.

No one was wearing a facemask, and a buffet lunch was served. The world was still two months away from something called the coronavirus being discovered in China.

In the 12 months since, the Red Sox:

▪ Parted ways with manager Alex Cora after named him as a prominent figure in the cheating scandal involving the 2017 .

▪ Traded All-Stars and to the , in part to reduce payroll. Betts went on to lead the Dodgers to the World Series.

▪ Lost ace lefthander to Tommy John elbow surgery.

▪ Lost No. 2 starter Eduardo Rodriguez for the season because of a heart ailment related to his having contracted coronavirus.

▪ Played a pandemic-shorted 60-game season without fans being allowed into the park.

▪ Had a game postponed when their players joined other teams in protesting police brutality against Black citizens.

▪ Traded , , and , three other members of their 2018 championship team.

▪ Finished 24-36, their worst season by winning percentage since 1965.

▪ Saw the ratings on NESN, the team-owned regional sports network, plunge 58 percent from 2019.

▪ Laid off 10 percent of their employees because of revenue losses.

▪ Fired Cora’s replacement, Ron Roenicke, after 59 games. Two of his coaches also were fired.

It was wholly embarrassing. During a press conference to wrap up the season, team president Sam Kennedy was reduced to saying that the Sox winning five of their last seven games was a “significant positive takeaway.”

That statement was followed by a question about whether the Sox had lost their relevance in the Boston sports market.

The legitimacy of the question spoke to how quickly the Sox had fallen of favor only two years after winning the World Series.

Bloom was asked if he ever could have imagined the challenges he would encounter when he first took the job.

“No. Could anybody?” he said, laughing ruefully at the idea.

The only thing that did go well for Bloom was that he was able to successfully move his wife and two children from Florida to a new home in the Boston area amid the pandemic.

Beyond that, there was a series of seismic events no young executive could have been prepared for.

“The two things most without precedent for me were obviously the circumstances of January and Alex’s departure and then, of course, the pandemic,” Bloom said.

“When you’re trying to get used to a new organization, so much of that first year was going to be about building relationships, and it’s hard to do that the same way when you can’t be around people, when you can’t hang out and get what you get out of those spaces in between the things that are on a schedule.”

Bloom did have some successes. The trade with the Dodgers returned a foundational player in outfielder . He had an .844 OPS and played with a flair that resonated with many of the same fans who were bitterly disappointed in losing Betts.

The Sox took advantage of a trade market lacking in sellers to land four legitimate prospects in righthanders and Jacob Wallace, infielder Hudson Potts, and outfielder Jeisson Rosario.

The Sox also obtained , a 27-year-old righthander who had fallen out of favor with the Phillies. He started two games in the final week of the season and allowed two earned runs over 10 while striking out 13.

“From my view, Chaim got more value back for the players he traded than you would have expected,” a rival executive said. “They hired him to make moves like that. People were surprised they got Seabold and Wallace.”

The Sox also took positive steps in developing several prospects at their training site in Pawtucket, particularly 24-year-old righthander . He made three strong starts for the major league team in the final two weeks.

“I do feel we made progress with some players who can be a big part of the future,” Bloom said.

There were plenty of misses among the free agents, waiver claims, and other castoffs Bloom added to the roster during what was essentially a season-long tryout camp.

The Sox had a 5.59 , the worst in franchise history. Maybe it was just as well the seats were empty.

Through it all, Bloom maintained a sense of perspective about his first year with the Sox.

“Look, on a scale of things that have been issues with this pandemic, that does not rank very highly,” he said. “There are much, much bigger problems, both for the Red Sox and for the world because of this pandemic.”

* The Boston Herald

Red Sox begin interviewing candidates for manager opening, per report

Jason Mastrodonato

The Red Sox have begun their search for their next manager.

According to Jon Heyman of MLB Network, the Sox have started to interview candidates, including Cubs third base coach Will Venable and Pirates bench coach Don Kelly, a pair of former players who only recently transitioned to the dugout. Each Venable and Kelly last saw big league action in 2016.

The trend of hiring young, freshly-retired players to become managers and bench coaches has surged throughout MLB, in large part because of the success of Alex Cora, who led the Red Sox to a historic season and World Series title in 2018, his first year as a manager after retiring after the 2011 season.

Red Sox general manager Brian O’Halloran declined to comment on the team’s search.

Cora is considered the heavy favorite to get his job back once his one-year suspension is lifted by MLB following the completion of the World Series. He’ll have paid his price for the sign-stealing scandal with the 2017 Houston Astros and was never found to be directly guilty of breaking any rules with the 2018 Red Sox, a team that was also penalized for illegal sign-stealing.

He’s a favorite of the ownership group, the players and the majority of the fanbase, which showered him with praise throughout 2018 and ‘19, even when the team fell out of playoff contention.

Venable is a Princeton University alum who had a nine-year career, mostly with the Padres, as a utility outfielder who .249 with a .719 OPS. He was originally hired as a special assistant in the Cubs’ front office in 2017, the year he stopped playing, and spent two years as ’s first-base coach before new manager David Ross moved him into the third-base-coach role.

Kelly, who was drafted from Point Park University in , was a utility man with the Tigers for most of his nine-year career in which he hit .265 with a .698 OPS. He spent one year as the Astros’ first-base coach under A.J. Hinch in 2019 before joining the Pirates as first-year manager ’s bench coach in 2020.

Jackie Bradley Jr. befuddled as Red Sox come up empty in Gold Glove Awards

Jason Mastrodonato

For the first time in at least a decade, the Red Sox did not have a finalist.

Rawlings announced the finalists for its annual defensive awards on Thursday, and the Red Sox were notably absent across the board.

Not even former Gold Glove winner Jackie Bradley Jr. was considered a top-three defensive in his own league based on the award, which is voted on by the players and coaches, with 25% of the considerations coming from the SABR Defensive Index.

Bradley was notably frustrated by his omission, responding to a writer on who noted that his seven “outs above average” statistic tied with White Sox center fielder , a Gold Glove finalist, for most among all big league center fielders.

“I just don’t understand, and I have yet to have anyone from any analytics department explain to me how they “calculate” the “numbers” or better yet how can you physically improve on them as a player,” Bradley said on Twitter.

The 30-year-old Bradley won his first and only Gold Glove in 2018. He’s often noted that playing in the unusual confines of center field at Fenway Park seems to have a negative impact on his defensive statistics.

All year, the Red Sox was notably missing the presence of Mookie Betts, who has won the Gold Glove in right field four straight years and was again named a finalist during his first year with the Dodgers. was a solid defender during his time in Boston, but was traded mid-season, as was former Gold Glove Mitch Moreland.

Xander Bogaerts and were not named finalists, nor was Christian Vazquez.

The Red Sox have previously had at least one Gold Glove finalist every year that Rawlings has been announcing finalists.

But they were undoubtedly worse on defense in 2020. They ranked 20th in MLB with minus-2 , meaning they allowed two more runs than the average team due to their poor defense.

Ironically, they led the majors with 18 outfield assists, including seven from newcomer Alex Verdugo and three from Bradley.

* MassLive.com

Boston Red Sox manager candidates: Will Venable, Don Kelly interviewed for job; George Lombard on list along with ‘favorite’ Alex Cora (report)

Chris Cotillo

The Red Sox have interviewed Cubs third base coach Will Venable for their open managerial position, according to MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. Heyman adds that Dodgers first base coach George Lombard and Pirates bench coach Don Kelly are also “thought to be” on the team’s list of prospective candidates and that former Sox manager Alex Cora is viewed as the favorite.

Kelly has also already interviewed, according to Alex Speier of the Boston Globe.

Venable, 37, is the first known candidate to be interviewed to replace Ron Roenicke, who was let go on Sept. 27. The California native and Princeton alum played nine big-league seasons with the Padres, Rangers and Dodgers and has worked for the Cubs as a special assistant and later a coach since 2017.

Venable was not part of the process for the Red Sox when they replaced Cora with Roenicke shortly before , but he does have some experience as a managerial candidate. The former outfielder interviewed with the Astros, Cubs and Giants last winter but was passed over in all three instances.

Lombard, 45, is still working because his Dodgers are in the middle of the World Series, so it’s unlikely that he has interviewed at this point. He has been floated as a potential candidate at least partially because he has experience in the Sox' organization, having worked as a minor-league hitting coach and roving instructor for the club from 2010 to 2015.

Kelly, 40, interviewed for the Tigers' opening earlier this month but is reportedly not seen as a favorite to land that job.

As Heyman points out, it still appears Cora -- who was let go and suspended one year for his role in the Astros' sign-stealing scandal in 2017 -- is the most logical candidate to take over for Roenicke. The Red Sox can’t speak with Cora about the opening until after the conclusion of the World Series, when his suspension expires.

Other potential candidates include Rays bench coach , Phillies front-office executive Sam Fuld, Athletics quality control coach Mark Kotsay and Diamondbacks bench coach Luis Urueta.

Jackie Bradley Jr. Gold Glove snub? Red Sox free agent frustrated as metrics deny him CF finalist spot

Matt Vautour

Jackie Bradley won’t win a Gold Glove this year.

The finalists for Major League Baseball’s annual defensive excellence honors were announced Thursday and free-agent centerfielder whose Red Sox career has largely been defined by his excellence in the field wasn’t among the players selected.

Finalists are determined by the SABR Defensive Index or SDI (a rare acronym within an acronym). The three players with the top SDI rating - in this case, Minnesota’s Oakland’s Ramon Laureano and Chicago’s Luis Robert - were chosen as finalists.

The Society for American Baseball Research defines SDI as:

“A measure of the number of runs saved by a player’s defensive performance over the course of a season, compared to the average defensive player at that position. The SDI combines measures from five (5) different defensive data sources and includes factors that rate the defenders arm strength and accuracy, range and his sure-handedness, along with the number of “excellent” and “poor” fielding plays he makes. ...A positive SDI number indicates that a player was above average compared to other players at his position this season. Conversely, a negative SDI number means the player performed below the league average at this position this season.”

Bradley expressed his frustration Twitter, putting voice to a common complaint among players, the inconsistency of defensive metrics:

“I just don’t understand, and I have yet to have anyone from any analytics department explain to me how they “calculate” the “numbers” or better yet how can you physically improve on them as a player...”

That included a retweet of a post from .com’s Sam Dykstra that showed another metric that had Bradley as the best defensive centerfielder in the American League:

“Jackie Bradley Jr. tied with Luis Robert with 7 Outs Above Average, highest among all MLB center fielders. Snubbed.”

No Red Sox players were finalists.

In Bradley’s case, the frustration likely stems from more than simply ego. Bradley is a free agent in a market that will be financially depressed by the damage done to team’s budgets by the COVID-19 pandemic. Bradley had one All-Star appearance, one Gold Glove and an ALCS MVP honor. Adding that second Gold Glove would have been a nice additional asset as he tries to coax a big contract out of somebody.

* RedSox.com

Red Sox begin managerial interviews for '21

Ian Browne

BOSTON -- Three weeks after announcing that Ron Roenicke won’t be returning as manager for 2021, the Red Sox have started the interview process in search of his successor.

Two candidates who have been interviewed for the position, sources confirmed, are Pirates bench coach Don Kelly and Cubs third-base coach Will Venable.

MLB Network contributor Jon Heyman was first to report that Venable was interviewed, while Alex Speier of The Boston Globe reported the Kelly interview.

Kelly, 40, joined the Pirates as bench coach in 2020. Prior to that, he was the first-base coach for the Astros. He was also recently interviewed for the Tigers’ managerial vacancy. As a player, Kelly was the definition of versatile, playing all nine positions during a career that started in 2007 and ended in ’16, and included stints with the Pirates, Tigers and Marlins.

Venable has been around the game his entire life. His father Max spent 12 years playing in the Major Leagues. Will enjoyed a nine-year MLB career of his own with the Padres, Rangers and Dodgers that ended in 2016.

The 37-year-old was on the Cubs’ Major League staff for the last three years and was a special assistant to president of baseball operations Theo Epstein prior to that. He has a strong reputation for relationship- building and the ability to tie together old-school and new-school philosophies.

Last winter, Venable interviewed for several open managerial posts around the league, including the Cubs, Giants and Astros.

By next week, when the World Series comes to an end, the Red Sox will at last be able to make their intentions clear on if they have interest in bringing Alex Cora back as manager.

Cora guided Boston to a franchise-record 108 wins in 2018 and an 84-win season in ’19 before a mutual parting of ways due to his involvement in the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal from 2017, at which time he was Houston’s bench coach.

In April, after Cora was cleared of any wrongdoing in a sign-stealing investigation of the 2018 Red Sox, he was suspended by MLB for the 2020 season.

Cora earned high marks during his short stint with the Red Sox for his communication skills with the front office and the clubhouse, as well as for his effectiveness as an in-game manager and his willingness to work closely with the analytics department.

* ESPN.com

World Series 2020: Why did the Boston Red Sox trade away Mookie Betts?

David Schoenfield

Exciting news, Boston Red Sox fans! Your team announced a big upcoming makeover earlier this week. That's right ... a plan to redevelop various sites around Fenway Park into apartments, offices, retail space and maybe even a hotel. A boutique hotel, most likely. Something unique, not your generic Marriott or Holiday Inn, perhaps a five-star hotel that offers everything.

This news came on the eve of Game 1 of the World Series, when Mookie Betts proceeded to do it all in the Dodgers' victory to open the series, including his mad dash around the bases -- stealing second and third and then beating the throw home on an infield chopper. He later homered and, not that anybody is going to feel any sympathy for Red Sox fans, you can only imagine the pain they felt seeing Betts do all this for another team. Indeed, after a Betts single in the eighth , Joe Buck spoke for Red Sox Nation when he said, "Red Sox fans are watching this going, 'Hello, why did we trade this guy? How can they not afford Mookie Betts?'"

Betts was the popular face of a successful franchise, the 2018 American League MVP who had scored 264 runs over the 2018 and 2019 seasons and appeared on his way to joining , and David Ortiz on the Red Sox's Mount Rushmore. All they had to do was sign him to a long-term deal. Considering the deep pockets of the Red Sox, that certainly seemed plausible, even as the 2019 season ended with Betts unsigned beyond 2020 and ready to head into free agency.

In the end, we know what happened: In February, just before the start of spring training, the Red Sox traded Betts and David Price to the Dodgers for outfielder Alex Verdugo and prospects Jeter Downs and .

"This trade is a very hard one to make," chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said at the time. "But our mission, our charge as a department, is to compete consistently, year in and year out, and to put ourselves in a position to win as many championships as we can. We can only accomplish that goal with a talent base at all levels of the organization that is deep, broad and sustainable."

Bloom, hired away from the Rays after the Red Sox fired Dave Dombrowski in early September of 2019, inherited a team that had gone 84-78 in 2019 but one that had a large payroll, a lack of depth on the major league roster and a farm system regarded as one of the weakest in the majors. Even after the trade, ESPN's Kiley McDaniel ranked Boston's system 27th. Dombrowski had fulfilled his mission: Win a World Series by spending money and trading prospects. But it was time for a change and a new outlook. Bloom would be tasked with rebuilding the organization from the bottom up -- even if it meant trading one of the top players in the game, one who had reportedly turned down a $300 million offer from the Red Sox and seemed determined to test free agency.

Buster Olney summed up Boston's situation at the time:

“Mookie Betts understands his importance to the union and wanted to get to free agency, as did, to push the free agent $ ceiling for the union brethren. That is his right. Leaving Red Sox with a choice: deal him, or get almost nothing for him if he walked away.”

- Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) February 5, 2020

Eight-plus months later, of course, the Dodgers have been declared "winners" in the trade. They are chasing that elusive World Series title, Betts has starred not only in the regular season but in the playoffs and, the relish on the Dodger dog, they signed him to a 12-year, $365 million extension in July. Meanwhile, the Red Sox had their worst winning percentage since 1965. Pull out the handkerchiefs.

It's easy to bash a team with the rich resources of the Red Sox, but this may still end up as win-win deal -- or, if you factor in the Twins, who were in the original three-team deal that had to be reworked, a win-win- win. The desire to declare the Red Sox losers after one year feels premature. Consider again what the Red Sox faced in February. They had concluded they weren't going to sign Betts before he reached free agency, and history tells us that once a player reaches free agency he almost always leaves.

What we said when Mookie went to L.A.

Eight months after the blockbuster that sent Mookie Betts from Boston to L.A., look back at our initial impression of the deal.

In the past five offseasons, including 2019-20, 18 free agents signed contracts of $100-plus million. Only three of those players re-signed with their current team, and two of those three, and Yoenis Cespedes, had opted out of existing contracts (so there was no chance to re-sign them until they opted out). Only Chris Davis re-signed, and the Orioles drastically overpaid at the time.

"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," owner John Henry said in February.

The Red Sox were already paying through at least 2025, Chris Sale through 2024, Price, J.D. Martinez and through 2022, and even through 2021. Price, at $32 million per season, had the highest average salary but was coming off a 4.28 ERA and had missed significant time with injuries in both 2017 and 2019. Without a strong supporting cast and with the health risks with Price and Sale, the Red Sox decided contention in 2020 wasn't a sure thing and they had to get younger and deeper and replenish the organizational depth. It helped, of course, that trading Betts and Price allowed them to get under the luxury tax threshold, which resets their penalty rates for upcoming seasons, a big financial incentive.

The original trade sent Betts and Price to the Dodgers, with the Red Sox picking up about half of Price's remaining $96 million, the Dodgers sending to the Twins and Verdugo to the Red Sox, and Twins reliever prospect also going to the Red Sox. When concerns arose over Graterol's medical reports, the Dodgers and Red Sox reworked their side of the deal, with L.A. sending Downs and Wong to Boston. The Dodgers, looking to pare some payroll with about $43 million in new salary coming on board with Betts and Price, then worked a separate deal with the Twins, Maeda for Graterol (with secondary players on both sides).

Then COVID-19 hit. Betts signed his extension during spring training 2.0. "I know the Dodgers are going to be good for a long time," Betts said upon signing. "I love being here, everything about being here. The people here made me feel so comfortable. Everybody's amazing. This organization is a well-oiled machine. I love it."

He does love playing for the Dodgers. He certainly looks good in that classic Dodgers uniform. In the wake of COVID-19, however, with teams facing huge economic losses, the free-agent market was suddenly a big unknown. The Dodgers may have been bidding against themselves. Given the unusual circumstances that arose, it seems a little unfair to criticize the Red Sox just because the Dodgers were able to sign Betts.

Still, the Dodgers have Betts and will have him for a long, long time. Maybe he'll eventually supplant Don Sutton or or whoever is on the Los Angeles Dodgers' hypothetical Mount Rushmore. They have the hard-throwing Graterol, who throws 100 and might be the team's future , although he'll have to start missing more bats. Price opted out of the 2020 season but will return in 2021 to add even more depth to a rotation that had the second-lowest ERA in the shortened season. They are happy.

Maeda went 6-1 with a 2.70 ERA for Minnesota and is signed through 2023. The Twins have made the playoffs the past two seasons and will be a strong candidate to get back next season. They are happy.

The Red Sox? Time will tell. Verdugo was very good in 53 games, hitting .308/.367/.478. His defensive metrics were very good and he could take over in center field in 2021. Is he Mookie Betts? No, of course not, but in 598 plate appearances over the past two seasons -- about a full season's worth - he's been worth 5.2 WAR. That's an All-Star-level player if he performs like that. He's under team control for four more seasons. They will be especially happy if Downs, the better of the two prospects, develops as hoped. He hit .276/.362/.526 with 24 home runs and 24 steals in the minors in 2019, reaching -A, and projects as the team's of the future. Kiley ranked him as the No. 50 prospect back in March.

No. 50. A number Red Sox fans remember all too well.

* WEEI.com

Red Sox reportedly have interviewed Cubs coach Will Venable for manager job

Rob Bradford

The Red Sox' search for a new manager seems to finally be gaining some momentum.

After parting ways with Ron Roenicke on the last day of the regular season, appears as though the team is starting the process of interviewing managerial candidates.

The soon-to-be 38-year-old was the third base coach for the Cubs in 2020 after serving as the team's first base coach in 2018 and 2019. Prior to his on-field duties Venable had been a special assistant to team president Theo Epstein in 2017.

Venable played. both basketball and baseball at Princeton prior to a career that included nine years in the major leagues. An outfielder, he last played in 2016.

As for Cora, he is not allowed to talk with the Red Sox about the opening until after the completion of the World Series (which is when his one-year suspension runs out). For more on Cora's candidacy, click here.

Jackie Bradley Jr. reacts to not being a Gold Glove finalist

Scott McLaughlin

You could make a case for Jackie Bradley Jr. to win a Gold Glove Award pretty much every year. You certainly expect to at least see the Red Sox center fielder as a finalist.

Bradley has actually won the award just once, though, in 2018. This year, he is surprisingly not even one of the three finalists for the American League center field spot.

Bradley was beat out by Minnesota's Byron Buxton, Oakland's Ramon Laureano and Chicago's Luis Robert.

Bradley reacted on Twitter by quote-tweeting a tweet from MiLB.com's Sam Dykstra that pointed out that Bradley tied with Robert for the MLB lead among center fielders in Outs About Average.

"I just don't understand, and I have yet to have anyone from any analytics department explain to me how they 'calculate' the 'numbers' or better yet how can you physically improve on them as a player," Bradley tweeted.

While the message may seem a little odd given that the initial tweet supports the notion that Bradley should've been a finalist, it's possible Bradley is referring to another defensive metric that was used to determine the finalists.

Due to the compressed schedule this season, the Gold Glove qualifications were amended to rely solely on the SABR Defensive Index. Apparently Bradley didn't grade out as well there, although we won't know for sure until the final ratings are released when the Gold Glove winners are announced on Nov. 3.

No other Red Sox were among the Gold Glove finalists this year, either.

* NBC Sports Boston

Sorry, Sox fans: Trading Betts remains the right move

John Tomase

On one level, the decision by the Red Sox to trade homegrown MVP Mookie Betts will always be gross. They're baseball royalty, and yet his departure felt inevitable.

"I think everyone knows we don't think they're going to be able to afford Mookie," DH J.D. Martinez correctly noted the day the 2019 season ended.

Equally unsurprising is that Betts has thrived in Los Angeles while leading the Dodgers to a World Series in his debut in blue. Each of his considerable tools has been on display this October, from breathtaking robbery, to daring feats on the bases, to relentless at-bats. He has even thrown in an opposite field homer for good measure.

Betts' success has led to predictable caterwauling that the Red Sox blew it, say hello to the 21st century , and John Henry should just sell the team and be exiled to Liverpool.

That's partly true. The Red Sox didn't necessarily trade Betts because they believed it was the right move. They otherwise wouldn't have offered him over $300 million. They did it because they knew he didn't want to be here, which he proved by signing the first offer the Dodgers put in front of him rather than reaching free agency, which had always been his stated goal. The 12-year, $365 million contract means he will retire a Dodger in much the same way that is remembered primarily as a Yankee, despite rising to prominence over seven years with the Mariners.

The Red Sox will just have to live with that, but here's the thing -- they made the right move, and not even Betts hoisting a World Series trophy next week will change that.

Thanks to roster mismanagement well beyond Betts' control, the Red Sox found themselves precariously positioned as he entered his prime. An aging, injury-prone pitching staff had effectively closed the team's immediate championship window. A barren farm system precluded the arrival of internal reinforcements. And a top-heavy payroll had skewed the roster in ways with no obvious solutions beyond a massive cash infusion that was, as a practical matter, completely unfeasible.

Were the Red Sox really supposed to give Gerrit Cole $300 million after committing over $400 million to David Price, Chris Sale, and Nathan Eovaldi? They decided to ride or die with their rotation, and it turns out they could leave their saddles at home.

Betts, for all his greatness, did not fit their window. He just turned 28 and will be in his 30s before the Red Sox vie for titles again. Were the team a contender, the calculus might've been different. But for a club that might not spend until 2022 or contend until 2024, paying Betts $35 million a year in the hopes that his decline wouldn't be too steep simply qualified as bad business.

It bears repeating that players Betts' size (5-9, 180) simply aren't built to last. delivered his last great season at age 32. made his final All-Star team at 27. Andrew McCutchen's last great season came five years ago at age 28. We all know Dustin Pedroia's story.

The one exception is Hall of Famer , but he was built more like Charles Barkley than Betts' Isiah Thomas.

So why pay Betts to excel during non-contending years, only to begin his decline just as the club begins its ascent? Building some regression into the back of a contract is one thing, but swallowing it for six or seven years is just foolish.

Nobody wants to hear this because we're supposed to pretend the Red Sox boast a limitless payroll, but taking $48 million of Price's money off the books is not insignificant, either, even if it feels distasteful to use a former MVP to facilitate a salary dump.

And the arrival of exciting young outfielder Alex Verdugo at least partly mitigated Betts' absence. Had Betts still been here, how many more games do the Red Sox win? Maybe 26 or 27 instead of 24? The only place that gets them is lower in the draft.

Did Sox offer Betts what he wanted & he still passed? The Dodgers and Yankees have proven that there's a time and place to spend aggressively, and it's not at the start of a rebuild.

The Dodgers did not boast a single nine-figure contract until signing Betts to his extension. They instead built a monster farm system and made shrewd signings like and , striking for Betts when it became clear he was the missing link.

The same goes for the Yankees, who largely sat out the high end of free agency until inking Cole to a record deal last winter to address a thin pitching staff. They instead focused their attention on under-the- radar standouts like DJ LeMahieu and , signing one to a reasonable deal in free agency and acquiring the other from the Cardinals for .

So don't despair if Betts adds a second World Series ring to his collection. Had he remained in Boston, his season would've ended three weeks ago, and even if the Red Sox had managed to re-sign him, they'd still be miles from contention, with no obvious path forward.

Report: Sox eyeing these manager options, but Cora viewed as favorite

The Boston Red Sox' manager search continues in earnest.

The Red Sox have interviewed third base coach Will Venable for their manager vacancy, MLB Network's Jon Heyman reported Thursday.

Los Angeles Dodgers first base coach George Lombard and bench coach Don Kelly also are "thought to be" on Boston's list of candidates, per Heyman.

Venable, who turns 38 next week, would be the youngest manager in Major League Baseball if the Red Sox hired him. The former outfielder played eight of his nine MLB seasons with the and joined the Cubs' coaching staff in 2018, two years after his final MLB season in 2016.

The Red Sox apparently are eyeing a young candidate to succeed 64-year-old Ron Roenicke, who took over in 2020 after Alex Cora parted ways with the team due to his suspension stemming from the 2017 Houston Astros' cheating scandal.

Lombard and Kelly are 45 and 40 years old, respectively, and both are former MLB players.

Boston may just be doing its due diligence before bringing Cora back, though: Heyman reported the ex-Red Sox manager "has been viewed as the favorite" to take his old job back and has "support of owners, players and fans."

Teams can't announce managerial hires until the conclusion of the World Series, which is also when Cora's suspension ends. But we may not have to wait much longer to hear the news.

JBJ voices frustration with Gold Glove finalist snub

Despite being one of the best defensive center fielders in baseball throughout his career, Jackie Bradley Jr. only has one Gold Glove to his name.

Not only was Bradley snubbed again in 2020, he wasn't even named a Gold Glove finalist. Byron Buxton (Twins), Ramon Laureano (Athletics) and Luis Robert (White Sox) earned the center field nominations in the American League.

After the nominees were announced, JBJ took to Twitter to express his confusion with the selection process.

I just don't understand, and I have yet to have anyone from any analytics department explain to me how they "calculate" the "numbers" or better yet how can you physically improve on them as a player," he wrote.

He has a fair gripe. The 30-year-old made Red Sox games watchable this season with several highlight-reel catches, such as the ones below.

Bradley is set to be an unrestricted free agent this offseason.

* BostonSportsJournal.com

Red Sox shut out on Gold Glove finalists

Sean McAdam

Over the course of the 2020 season, Red Sox Jackie Bradley Jr. and Alex Verdugo, as measured by a number of analytics, profiled among the best defenders in the game.

But curiously, neither Bradley nor Verdugo — nor, any other Red Sox players — were among the finalists as Rawlings unveiled the nominees for 2020 Gold Glove awards. This will mark the first time since 2015 that no Red Sox players will be awarded Gold Gloves. Prior to that, 2012 was the last season in which no Red Sox players were honored.

Mookie Betts won the Gold Glove for right field from 2016-2019, while Bradley won in center in 2018 while won at second in 2018.

The American League center field finalists were Minnesota’s Byron Buxton, Oakland’s Ramon Laureano and Chicago’s Luis Robert.

Traditionally, voting has been handled by league managers and coaches, with 25 percent of the vote influenced by defensive data provided by the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR).

This year, due to the shortened 60-game season and the fact that, with the unorthodox schedule, managers didn’t see 10 teams in their own league, the voting was compiled solely on SDI (the SABR Defensive Index). The SDI utilizes ”MLB’s Statcast, Sports Information Solutions Data and STATS data, as well as traditional statistics with advanced analysis.”

Bradley’s exclusion is made all the more strange by the fact that he led all major league outfielders — not just center fielders — with seven outs above average and also recorded six “four-star outs” — that is, the most difficult plays — more than any other outfielder. He also didn’t make a single error in 123 chances.

Verdugo’s issue may have been that he split time between left field (18 starts, 167.1 innings) and right field (30 starts, 246.2 innings), while Rawlings stated that players “for award consideration…infielders/outfielders must have completed at least 265 defensive innings. Each player qualifies at the position he has played at most (SDI is only for play at qualified positions).”

Technically, without votes from managers and coaches, it would seem that Verdugo didn’t qualify at either left or right field, even though, despite starting just 18 games in left, he finished second among all MLB left fielders in Defensive Runs Saved (eight) as compiled by Sports Info Solutions.

No other Red Sox position players — with the possible exception of Christian Vazquez — would have been in the running for Gold Gloves. Xander Bogaerts did not supply much range at short, while Rafael Devers led all of baseball in errors (14).

Meanwhile, the team rotated a handful of players at both first and second base.

Winners will be announced on Nov. 3.

* The Athletic

Chaim Bloom is one year into his Red Sox tenure. It’s too early for judgments

Chad Jennings

Chaim Bloom inherited a roster that already had done its job, and Bloom’s job was to build the next roster. That’s the only logical lens through which to view his first year as Red Sox chief baseball officer.

It is tempting, of course, to pass judgment here and now — to see Mookie Betts dazzling in the World Series after the worst Red Sox season in a half century and declare Bloom’s early tenure a disaster. That’s not necessarily an inaccurate assessment, but it’s an incomplete one.

When Bloom was hired a year ago Sunday, it was not to get the most out of this team this year. Dave Dombrowski could have done that. Bloom was hired to look ahead, to think differently, and to build something without the extreme peaks and valleys of the past decade and a half. He was hired to do something that was never going to look good in the short term.

Since 2007, through three championships and four last-place finishes, the Red Sox have had four heads of baseball operations and soon will hire their sixth manager. Yet, whenever such turnover came up in conversation this summer, the response from various Red Sox sources was always some version of the same thing: Bloom was not hired for a quick fix. Ownership will give him time to see it through.

How else to explain the Betts trade?

Even in the chaos of this season, that February deal with the Dodgers remains the defining moment of Bloom’s first year, and its significance only intensified five months later when Betts agreed to a 12-year, $365-million extension to stay in Los Angeles.

Could the Red Sox have signed Betts to the same contract? Hard to know for sure, but maybe. Probably. The contract certainly was not a hometown discount, and the Red Sox never offered it. They chose instead to trade Betts in his final year of guaranteed control, collect three young players, dump salary, jettison David Price, and gain financial flexibility. All good things, and all at the cost of a homegrown, generational talent at his peak.

The merits of a such a decision will be argued for the next decade — on one side: a team with financial might like the Red Sox should never lose a franchise player because of money; on the other: expecting any player to be worth $27 million at age 39 is foolhardy at best — but there is no debating whether trading Betts was the act of a first-year executive trying to put his best team on the field. It was not. Even Bloom admitted as much. He made his team weaker in the short term, believing it would lead to something better down the line. The Red Sox will have to live with that reality for the time being, knowing that what Bloom is building, whether it’s a triumph or a folly, is not nearly finished.

Already, Bloom has turned over more than half of the 40-man roster, much of it in search of the pitching depth the team lacked last fall and still lacked this summer. Chris Sale’s elbow surgery and Eduardo Rodriguez’s heart condition were beyond the team’s control, but the impact of those health issues was made worse by the thin alternatives in place.

Little surprise, then, that when Bloom began truly to dismantle the Red Sox roster this summer, he started with a trade for a pair of young starting . After he dealt Brandon Workman and Heath Hembree to the Phillies for Nick Pivetta and Connor Seabold, Bloom made three more trade deadline deals, each of them involving a player he’d acquired last winter. When the Red Sox protect their most advanced prospects from the Rule 5 draft next month, they’ll likely add six players to their 40-man roster, and four of them will have been acquired in the past year. That’s an encouraging sign for a farm system that had grown thin in the upper levels, and it further points to Bloom’s emphasis on future possibility over current certainty.

Bloom’s decision to sign Martín Pérez instead of bringing back last winter paid immediate dividends. His smaller additions of , Phillips Valdez and Jonathan Araúz might have further enhanced the Red Sox young depth. Alex Verdugo, the key return in the Betts trade, looked every bit like a long-term solution in right field. Those seem to be positive additions, but again, time will tell.

“I think the key for us,” Bloom said at the end of the regular season, “is we’ve got a mindset of being as active as we can, creating as many options as we can, and then following through on the ones that we think are beneficial to the organization. It’s hard to know where that will lead.”

Bloom is marching intentionally into that unknown, believing there is a better Red Sox team out there somewhere. He’s cut payroll, added to the farm system, and made no long-term commitments in his first year on the job. He soon will face key decisions about the futures of Rodriguez, , Rafael Devers and . He will be expected to win sooner rather than later.

Each of his three predecessors won a title and did it their own way. Whether Bloom’s way is going to work was never going to be determined in his first year. That judgment is still to come.