How important was getting an Anthony deal done for this Red Sox fanbase? Red Sox President and CEO Sam Kennedy joins!

WEEI-FM / WEEI

How important was getting an Anthony deal done for this Red Sox fanbase? Red Sox President and CEO Sam Kennedy joins! Could Bregman extension be next?

Transcript

00:00of and it is sam kennedy the president of the boston red sox who joins us this morning hey sam

00:05morning guys well you just heard the audio uh that not a lot of guys other than me that were in

00:12on this roman anthony thing early but uh when everybody was whining and complaining uh trade

00:18deadline time i said hold on uh and wait a second and you got this deal done and hi sam i'm sure

00:26you're excited uh uh and i i'm wondering how long had this been going on for a while how long were

00:32you guys talking about this well we've had a it is an exciting thing for the franchise we've had a

00:40desire to have a long-term deal with roman uh for a while we actually had some initial conversations

00:48back at the winter meetings uh in dallas um and then those conversations continued through spring

00:54training um and i i think the the conversations were very positive i think you heard from roman

01:00yesterday he wanted to get up here experience what he thought to be true which is this is the

01:07the best environment in baseball the best fans um an incredible ballpark so on and so forth and so

01:15um once he uh had a feeling that that this was going to be the place for him long term and we sort of

01:22got that vibe from him uh we quickly just the other day thought it would be um the right time to to put an

01:29offer on the table and things came together quickly just given how close we were back in the offseason

01:34and we're really glad it worked out and want to congratulate him and his family it's uh incredibly

01:39exciting sam i thought it was important uh your emphasis to fans about how you guys want them to

01:46fall be able to fall in love with your stars that it was okay to fall in love with your star players

01:50uh because looking at the past whether it was mookie or even kyle schwarber or zander uh when when when

01:57people buy their jerseys and you know the next season they're gone fans are upset was that an

02:02emphasis for you guys behind closed doors talking in meetings to make sure that the the people that

02:07the fans love you guys are able to lock up for the long term it is it's such an important part of um

02:14of red sox nation and and what we're trying to build here i mean i uh greg and i are old sorry

02:21greg to bring you into this but you know we we grew up you know in falling in love with dwight

02:26evans and jim rice and freddie lynn and rick burleson and carlton fisk and you know when when guys

02:33moved on you know just from as a as a fan you you it hurts because these are the guys that you you really

02:40grow up rooting for and then if they move on to other teams it's it's really hard and we've had

02:45um ups and downs over two and a half decades of of keeping homegrown stars um and you know when you

02:53lose them it does hurt and so uh we wanted to send a message and and remind everyone that you know the

03:00goal is to draft well develop our players well um and then do everything in our power to extend

03:06the players who as you heard from roman who want to be here number one and i think that's something

03:11that we need to do a better job of going forward uh and you learn look we've made a lot of mistakes

03:17in the past we you want guys who want to be here this place isn't for everybody um but you heard

03:24roman's passion about this place and and the fan base and the ballpark and and that's what we're

03:29looking for uh when we do these uh long-term deals sam you've been in the negotiating room with

03:35many of these guys and you talk about homegrown how much does it help on the second go-round

03:41second contract when you've shown them love on that first deal like you've done with roman anthony

03:48you know christian campbell sadan raffaella how much does that help you getting the deal done on the

03:54second one i think it helps a lot i mean once you um experience fenway and hopefully the sort of

04:02family-like culture that we try to establish and and being player-centric and and helping

04:09our players on the field and importantly off the field and helping their families

04:14um is really important it really mattered i think about extensions and discussions that we had

04:20uh with david ortiz and tim wakefield um guys that you know dustin pedroia for example he was he was

04:27probably the the most um stark reminder we extended him mid-season um and you know he he was very uh

04:36clear like roman was yesterday i mean roman reminded me of that pedroia press conference all those years

04:41ago where he said listen there may have been other opportunities but this is where i want to be and

04:46that matters in boston so it's it's really important to do everything we can to to show our players um

04:55the support and that it's the organization but it's also the fan base i mean the energy the vibe and the

05:02ballpark the last couple weeks has just been extraordinary and and that's a credit to our fans it's just been

05:07great we were just talking about alex bregman is it the organization's desire to get something done with him

05:13long term i mean listen you know i said this jay he has been um just everything we thought he would

05:23be and more he's obviously been injured and he's coming back from that he's performed well on the

05:29field off the field he's been extraordinary and like all these things you know we we don't talk about

05:35um contract situations uh publicly uh but he has just been he's been amazing he's been a leader

05:43he's been incredible in such a short period of time sam what's been the difference this year from

05:49where you sit in that there had been a bit of a swoon following an active deadlines in years past

05:54whereas this year you know up until last night you'd won seven in a row well i think um chris we've we've

06:02played just better at fenway park i mean we we have to build rosters uh and teams that are designed to

06:10take advantage of the unique nature of fenway you know it's geometry but also the the energy and the

06:18and the pressure that comes with with playing a fenway and when you have players that um are built

06:24for fenway from a baseball perspective and mentally are built for fenway park from a pressure and

06:30wanting to be in an environment where baseball matters more than anything else i mean you know i've

06:36heard you talk about this chris that there's just like nothing like october baseball and and the desire

06:42to get to october and play in that environment is something that our players feel and and and know that

06:50that's the goal um we've and alice cora and john henry and i were talking about this yesterday before

06:57the game but our defense has just improved there's been a much much cleaner um approach and and it really

07:05has helped we have not played great defense uh over the last several years and and that's something

07:10that's really helped so it's a it's a number of factors um but we have to we got to keep it going

07:15because we're you know we're still four games back in the division um we got i think we've got 46 games

07:22left it's going to be a sprint every single one of these games like a playoff game because

07:26we we don't want that wild card i mean we want to try to win the division we got a couple more cracks

07:31at toronto um but we've got a really tough trip here now with san diego and houston so we just got

07:37to keep playing clean games um and and do the right things and hopefully we can get back in this

07:43divisional hunt here yeah sam one thing i think we can agree on is that i would be awful as a president

07:48of a baseball team because i have no patience um but one thing i just would if you could take us

07:56into that july 31st day where you see what you just described the teams in a good position

08:03the the teams around you i know you wouldn't say this but appear to be ripe for the taking whether

08:08it's injuries on the yankees or the blue jays whatever how do you balance pursuing october

08:14baseball which is the best of any of the sports that we have in this town uh when it comes to

08:19enjoyment and the city being taken over by the red sox how do you balance your urgent desire to

08:25return to that with what you need to do in terms of how you've rebuilt the system

08:29yeah i mean it was really fascinating to watch craig sort of throw caution to the wind i mean he was

08:37he was all in um incredibly aggressive in packaging in um just about everybody and everything

08:46in that farm system um there was a a real thought that we were going to get deals done one deal two

08:53deals done for a controllable starter we fell short of that we obviously um did get the the a couple

09:00deals done to reinforce the bullpen and the rotation with dustin coming over but it was um

09:06there was not a lot of long-term thinking uh going on uh at the deadline and and we were um we were

09:14aggressive but as ted does i always quote justin pedroia but there's no there's no prize for trying

09:21he always says we try at the why you know like this is about results and when when we didn't get um

09:27the controllable sort of targeted starter starters that we were engaged with um you know we did feel

09:35a sense of frustration but we quickly picked ourselves up off the mat and we moved on because

09:40we knew there were other discussions going on and things that we needed to uh to focus on were you

09:45disappointed that craig couldn't get a deal done for joe ryan well we were just disappointed that that

09:52um that certain controllable starters didn't move um you know at the end of the day there's nothing you

09:57can do when a team uh isn't going to move uh a player that's their prerogative um and and you know

10:04i'll just i'll leave it at that but yeah you you put it put in a ton of work for several weeks and

10:10and by the way this this happened um last year uh with in the garrett crochet situation um really glad

10:18things changed in down in dallas and glad in texas we were able to extend him and announce that extension

10:24opening day so um maybe that's a foreshadowing for more aggressive moves as we go forward here we'll

10:32we'll see but um yeah it's when you have a a plan and you aggressively pursue it and you feel like

10:38you do everything in your power to to get there and it doesn't happen yeah it's frustrating and

10:44patience chris wears thin for all of us but that said you know we have a a really great team that

10:51we're excited about and we came out of the the trade deadline um over the weekend against houston and

10:58won that series swept that series won the series against kansas city now we got to go

11:02we got to go win a series in san diego it's going to be a it's going to be a raucous environment out

11:06there so sam at the end of the day was it just that teams were not willing to part ways or was

11:12the price too high for you guys that they wanted more than what you were willing to give up no it was

11:18it was um teams weren't willing to part ways sam how important and has this message been told to

11:27giolito and bayo especially after the trade deadline that they have to continue to pitch

11:38the way that they've been pitching is that message been told to them about their importance especially

11:44the second half and hopefully into the postseason run yeah this this group wiggy is awesome i mean they

11:52are tight um you can you know you don't you don't have to take my word for it you can just see

11:59the the the the love and and support for each other from this group whether it's trevor story and

12:06alex bregman or roldis chapman whitlock i was talking to the other day about how tight these guys are

12:12um it's been great to see the young guys coming along i mean lucas lucas has been unbelievable um and we

12:19need him to be that guy and have every confidence that he will and bayo as well so um it's a it's

12:26a really tight group and they're on a mission and that's that's all we can ask for and and you know

12:32look they've they've stepped up and and that's really important we we have to play great baseball

12:37in august um it doesn't feel like we've done that in a while and we're off to a good start here but

12:43it's very early we got to keep it going sam wiggy wants one of those turbulence shirts uh in the

12:49the double double xl if you could we've we've all been on a lot of bad flights but man it sounds

12:56like i i was thankfully i wasn't on that one um it sounds like it was brutal um and you know i just

13:03love the fact that our assistant general manager raquel ferreira i called her i'm like hey how bad

13:08was it she's like i was asleep alex corp was asleep so i guess it just depends on how you view the world

13:15but thankfully they get out there safely and uh uh it's just a reminder of um you know how

13:23how how fragile life can be when you're at 30 000 feet bumping around up there but everyone's okay

13:28well congratulations on getting roman anthony locked down for eight years and we appreciate

13:33you taking the time and we will talk to you again soon thanks guys talk soon all right that is sam kennedy

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