00:00Hey Craig, how you doing?
00:02Hey, I'm hanging in there. How are you doing?
00:04Great. Alex Cora, you just heard Alex Cora say that there was not much of an expectation
00:09outside of the building that the Red Sox would be playing meaningful games this time of year.
00:17So I guess I would ask if that's kind of the outlook of the organization,
00:20which is that this team did better than expected.
00:24Well, you know, I think ultimately we have to measure the success of our season and wins and
00:32losses and whether or not we met our goal of getting to the postseason, giving ourselves a
00:36chance to play for the World Series. And we didn't do that. So, you know, I think while we can look
00:42at some individual performances that were really positive and overall I think the health of the
00:49organization is in a really good place, I think we have to all agree that the season was disappointing
00:53and that we didn't reach ultimately what we set out to do.
00:56Craig, how difficult is your job right now when you're coming off a season that's ending like
01:00this and you've got free agents like Nick Pavetta, Tyler O'Neal, Kenley Jensen, to name a few, that
01:06are headed for the open market. How hard is it for you to be able to keep big names like that
01:10on your roster when you guys didn't go out and do what you had hoped for?
01:17Yeah, you know, I think all of those guys contributed to some of the, you know,
01:21success that we did have in spurts. Obviously, like I said, not enough in total, but I think if
01:28you were to talk to those guys, every one of them would speak positively about their experience here
01:32in Boston. Every one of them contributed and, you know, we'll have conversations with those guys and
01:37understand whether or not there's a fit here. They've earned the right to reach free agency
01:42if that's the path that they want to go and we have to look to put together the best team we
01:45possibly can heading into 2025. Craig, you told Greg that the team didn't reach its goal of winning
01:51World Series. Did you think this roster was capable of winning a World Series?
01:57You know, I think there were a number of times during the season where, you know, we were playing
02:03really good baseball. We were pitching well. We were scoring a bunch of runs that, you know, sure
02:07that the defense at times let us down, but we were playing with, you know, teams that I think the,
02:14you know, the baseball world viewed as World Series contenders. So, you know, kind of by
02:20measures of being able to, you know, play with the Yankees and play with the Phillies and play
02:24with the Guardians, like, yeah, I think we were capable of that. Obviously, you need to get in
02:29to be able to do that and we didn't. And I think over the course of 152 games, we saw, you know,
02:35or, you know, at this point 159 or 158, like you, we saw some of our deficiencies. We definitely
02:43have some holes that we need to address, but I think we also saw the core of a really exciting
02:48team. Off-season wise and free agents that require writing a big check to get and looking
02:54at priorities. What do you think are from your perspective right now, the two big priorities
03:00for you positionally for this team off-season wise? Yeah, I think we need to figure out how
03:07to balance out our lineup. Obviously, it's left-handed heavy and a number of our young
03:13players who will be impacting the big league club here shortly are also left-handed. And so,
03:19you know, I think we need to figure out how we balance that out and don't leave ourselves so
03:24susceptible to left-handed pitching. And then, you know, we can never have enough starting
03:29pitching. We can never have enough quality starting pitching. So I think looking at
03:33starting pitching is the other area of focus for us. Craig, when you look at regardless of what
03:38sport is, the teams that generally are successful is because ownership is willing to spend a lot of
03:44money. Is ownership invested, and this is three years in a row that their Red Sox are not going
03:50to make the postseason. Are they invested financially in this organization when it comes
03:57to going out and spending the money that we saw them in years past? Because I think that's a big
04:02knock on them now is that, you know, they're not spending the type of money. Have they told
04:08you that they want things to change? They want this team to get back in the hunt, and they are
04:13willing to open up the checkbook to bring in elite talent that can help get the Red Sox back to
04:19championship contending? Yeah, the commitment from ownership to get the Red Sox, you know,
04:26to get us where we need to go is there, is strong. You know, it's up to me, up to the rest of
04:33the front office to, you know, figure out what opportunities we need to pursue. But, you know,
04:39I don't have any questions about ownership's willingness to do what we need to do to put
04:44the Red Sox back where we belong. Craig, what happens in the final two months of the season
04:50with these Red Sox teams the last three years? Have you done any internal work on why you,
04:56every year with Alex Kora of late, it's been 10 to 15 games over 500 at the trade deadline or
05:02All-Star break, and then just the completely opposite effect after the All-Star break. Why
05:08does this keep happening? Yeah, we're, you know, we're looking at a bunch of different explanations
05:15for that. You know, I think one thing it seems is that it's not luck, right? You know, in that
05:23when this has happened time after time, we have to start to think that, you know, there's something
05:27that we can do or something that we're not doing. And so, you know, we're looking at, you know,
05:32monitoring workload and understanding whether or not we're asking more of guys than, you know,
05:36they're equipped to handle. And if that means that we need to change off-season conditioning
05:41or in-season workloads, you know, I think one thing that we can point to is just overall
05:45organizational depth, you know, in that when some of our key relievers went down, you know,
05:52we had a handful of guys who were able to step up. We also, you know, at times had a pretty
05:56significant drop-off in talent in terms of who was ready to come up and contribute. And so,
06:04you know, I think overall improving the organizational depth, especially on the
06:07pitching side, is something that we can point to as, you know, one way that we can overcome
06:13some of the struggles that we've had in the second half. Last one from me. You played the game.
06:17You're a student of the game. You work in the game. Is this Shohei Otani season the best ever
06:24by a Major League Baseball player? It is really, really impressive. You know, I think the one
06:32thing that does stand out is I saw something the other, you know, a couple days ago about how,
06:36you know, this season relative to Barry Bonds would have been like somewhere between I think
06:40the 12th and 15th best season of Bonds, which maybe adds a little bit of perspective to this,
06:46but certainly like in, you know, in today's game, it's as impressive as anything I've seen.
06:52All right. Well, thanks for taking the time this season and we will,
06:57we will, I'm sure, get the opportunity to do this with you again next year. So,
07:01look forward to that and look forward to you writing some big checks as soon as possible.
07:08Thank you. I appreciate it.
07:11We're at the buzzer here. I just have one quick question, Craig. You guys have said that when
07:16the team's core is at a certain point and is worthy of an investment, you will invest into
07:22the roster. Has the team and the farm system reached a point where this offseason you feel
07:28comfortable in saying that this is a team that you will invest in free agency for?
07:33Yeah, I think, I think you can see that the cornerstones, you know, have emerged over the
07:38course of this season and the significant steps forward that some of the guys in the upper levels
07:43of the minor leagues have made, I think, do, you know, merit the ability to say,
07:49hey, this is a really good team. This is a team that we need to supplement. We need to add to it
07:53because we have a chance to do exactly what we're hoping to accomplish, which is compete for World
07:57Series championships year after year. You know, and I think there's a lot of excitement around
08:03these young guys. There's a lot of excitement around what we think we're capable of doing and,
08:07you know, we absolutely need to improve the product we're putting on the field.
08:10All right, Craig Renslow, thank you very much.
08:14All right. Thank you. Take care.
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