00:00Joining us to give us a little bit of his take on the post-mortem that you heard this week
00:06at Fenway Park.
00:07Our good buddy Rob Bradford brought to you by McFarland Energy, the region's most dependable provider of home heating, oil
00:13delivery, as well as expert HVAC services at McFarlandEnergy.com.
00:18Rob Bradford, how is it going, my friend?
00:21You know, I take it back.
00:22I take it back.
00:23I thought science suggested that you could put an ace of spades behind anything and it would jack you up.
00:29Mia Culpa, because that was like the ultimate push-pull.
00:34Nobody won in that one.
00:36That was a tough nut to crack right there at that press conference.
00:38I didn't know that was coming, and I'm sorry if I cackled.
00:42No, I was laughing too.
00:44It was great.
00:45Excellent job, Spence.
00:47We'll never know.
00:48It's like a test.
00:49You know, what can we put the ace of spades behind that actually we don't get fired up for?
00:54And I'm going to be honest with you.
00:55If anything, we were playing for the tie right there.
00:57Maybe we'll put it behind the entire Ken and Curtis show one weekend.
01:00Just have it play the entire two hours.
01:02Sure.
01:02Why the hell not?
01:03Just pop on Motorhead's Greatest Hits.
01:04All right.
01:05So, I mean, I don't even know where to start.
01:07Let's just, your first takeaway from the big three going up there and just, I mean, I don't even want
01:15to put words in your mouth.
01:16What did you think of the three of them talking about this season?
01:18It was an hour where we didn't get any, we didn't move the needle at all.
01:23I mean, really, there was nothing that you felt like, okay, this is advancing the conversation.
01:29This is going to sort of define what they learned, define where they're going.
01:35No, I mean, I don't think there's any of that.
01:38And you have, sure, you have injury updates, fine.
01:42But even those injury updates, it was Roman Anthony, no surgery.
01:45We're just going to have to play this out.
01:46And we are okay with how we went with that all the way through the postseason.
01:53But we just feel like rest is going to be okay.
01:56Yeah, maybe Caleb Durbin might have surgery.
01:59And then we obviously had Chad Tracy jump in and definitively say, this was my decision.
02:06Well, okay, we knew that was going to happen.
02:09I mean, we said this all along, guys, when it came to that decision in the postseason.
02:14It was, they were always going to say, it's absolutely the manager's decision as the front
02:19office isn't making the decisions.
02:21This isn't driving the bus.
02:23But I think it's, it's a little bit of this, a little bit of that in the sense that we
02:27all
02:28know that, yeah, they feed him a lot of information.
02:30They give him a lot of information.
02:32And ultimately he's the one walking out of the dugout.
02:35But is how much of it is, is it, is it really, really suggested at the end of the day?
02:42Is it really suggested that he put in Eric Miller right there?
02:46And I don't think that anything that they said yesterday surprised me at all.
02:50And I know this is just a long winded way of me just saying, no, they were just sort
02:53of spin the wheels.
02:54And I didn't, I wasn't satisfied with, okay, we understand that we got boat raced 18 to
03:02two in the playoffs when that's all that matters.
03:05And this is what we're going to do.
03:07And this is what we learned.
03:08And I never got that sense yesterday.
03:10Let me ask you this.
03:11How does it happen?
03:12Like if you, if you could give your best guess, like how does the decision to bring in Eric
03:19Miller twice happen?
03:21I know there's a theory that Ted had, and I thought it was a good one because to be quite
03:25honest, I can't think of anything else that makes sense.
03:27And that was that it felt like Craig Breslow brought him out the second time, or at least
03:32he was behind bringing him out a second time to justify his trade, to show you that he
03:38was right for trading for him outside of that.
03:42Like what, how do you think that all goes down that decision?
03:45No, I, I, again, I, I like you all personally and respect your opinion, but that wasn't why
03:50that happened.
03:51Um, what, how they view it is, as they said that he had, Eric Miller had a good outing,
03:58one good outing right before the post season.
04:00And then another thing they threw in yesterday was he had a good side session.
04:05And that's what I thought all along that they said, we think he fixed it not only because
04:10he had this one good outing, but because of what we saw in that side session.
04:15Now I would say this is that that's not enough for me.
04:18And particularly when you were talking about the two biggest outs of the entire season,
04:23I think Eric Miller had a great run.
04:26Eric Miller can be a really good pitcher, but at that point in time, he hadn't done enough.
04:31He hadn't shown enough to say, absolutely.
04:33You're the guy to bring in that situation.
04:35And, but I think that they were convinced enough in their head that he was the guy because
04:41of matchups.
04:41And I think my biggest takeaway was that, and again, this isn't Breslow coming down or
04:46calling down.
04:47I do believe that they go through this and Chad Tracy, I guess it's ultimately his decision.
04:53But my problem is, is that I think that they put too much stock in the one outing and then
04:59put too much stock in what they saw from the machines or the side session or whatever it
05:05was to, to say, Hey, okay, he's ready to go.
05:08He's the guy that we saw in August.
05:10He wasn't ready to be the guy in August, particularly when you don't know how that
05:14picture is going to be in the bright lights of a post-season game.
05:18So Bradford used the word that I used as well, satisfying.
05:20It was not very satisfying.
05:22However, to spin it positive, just one positive thing.
05:25He did say they met with Wilson Contreras for two hours.
05:28Okay.
05:29Wouldn't give us a nugget of what was in there.
05:31I don't know if any of your sources have told you anything that was said, but do you think
05:34Wilson, because obviously he complained after the game, he's a veteran.
05:38Anything that he says, do you think it will have an impact of change or what could it
05:42lead to positively in the off season?
05:45I think they're going to do what they're going to do.
05:47That was another thing that was very unsatisfying about that is that, yeah, you know, they can
05:52say, Oh, well, you know, it was, it was blown out of proportion because we talked to him
05:57for two hours and he seems okay.
05:59Well, you know, I've seen players, you know, backtrack a little bit when they get in front of
06:04the guys, I don't know what happened in that meeting and the same thing with Sonny Gray.
06:07We're on good terms with Sonny Gray.
06:09All I know is this, this is what they should take to heart, which is yeah, emotions are
06:14running high after the game.
06:15There's no question about it, but you had the two players who were defined as the leader
06:20of that team, the absolute leader of that team who were voicing displeasure with the
06:27organization, which by the way, it wasn't just them.
06:30And they were speaking for other people in that room that they were, they were, they
06:34were after that game had things to say and feelings that they wanted out there that weren't
06:39just solely because of exactly what happened.
06:42It was obviously had bubbled up to that point.
06:46So I like a lot of things, the truth maybe lies somewhere in the middle, but if they don't
06:50take it stock of the fact that that you ended the season with the two leaders, the two voices,
06:56the two spokespeople of your team saying what you, they did, then you aren't doing anybody
07:03any justice.
07:04You have to actually take a look in the mirror.
07:07And that's another thing, guys, I don't feel like they did enough.
07:09And I asked the question at the press conference when, when they said, Hey, we had a, we beat
07:14these teams and so forth and so on.
07:16I'm like, okay, that's all well and good, but you got beat 18 to two.
07:20What lessons did you learn?
07:22How much?
07:22I'm sorry.
07:23Go ahead.
07:23No, and the lessons that they said they learned were we got to hit the fastball better in
07:27the game move fast.
07:29So, I mean, I, my, my lesson is we, we really had to take stock of what that clubhouse was
07:36like after that game.
07:37And no matter what Wilson Contreras said two days later, or how you felt your relationship
07:42with Sunday gray two days later, really look at why they were saying what they did when
07:47they did.
07:47Okay.
07:48Do you think that those games and how the, uh, Chad Tracy and, and Breslow reacted scared
07:55away?
07:56Sonny gray from coming back.
07:57And do you think that potentially there might be enough of a problem in the locker room with
08:03Wilson Contreras being against them that he might get traded?
08:07No, I don't think so.
08:09I don't think so.
08:09In either case.
08:11I mean, Sonny gray, we don't know what he's going to do.
08:13He's going to retire.
08:14I do think, and I believe him when they said this, there had been enough of a relationship
08:18built up over that time.
08:21Yeah.
08:21Is he upset at the end?
08:22Because this was his best year of his career, his moment, his time to go through this playoff
08:28run feeling better than he had ever.
08:30Like, of course, like he should hold it against them that he was taken out.
08:33But I don't think at the end of the day, especially when he get money involved, that we're going
08:37to be like, Oh no, I'm not coming back to boss.
08:39I don't believe that.
08:40And with Wilson Contreras, you know, I I'll come back to it.
08:44I think that that probably he cooled off a little bit.
08:47He did say, Hey, you know, in a nicer word way, Hey, we, I think we need more veteran
08:52guys, or maybe we can tweak this or tweak that.
08:55It wouldn't probably their conversation probably wasn't as pointed.
08:58It wasn't in front of his locker, but in both cases, I wouldn't be shocked.
09:02If they're back for next year.
09:05At one point that Bradford, they said scouts have not been diminished in the organization.
09:09Is that a flat lie?
09:11Well, yeah, because you fired a lot of them, right?
09:15I mean, so how can they say that?
09:17How can you say that?
09:18Here's the weird thing about that is that like, I believe this is a, this is a constant
09:23theme in baseball, right?
09:24It's like, Oh no, we believe in scouting.
09:26We believe in scouting, but you, you don't believe as much as you used to in scouting.
09:30And when he says it was weird that people were saying, we fired all these scouts and
09:36then we send six scouts out to scout.
09:38Yeah.
09:39Well, those are the scouts you have left.
09:41I mean, like I get, it's not like you don't have any scouts, but you have fewer scouts.
09:46So there's, there's, there's no doubt.
09:50There's no defense of them, of how much they value scouts compared to how much they used
09:56to value scouts, whatever, 10 years, whatever it was when Dombrowski was here.
10:00There's no doubt about it.
10:01Whether it's the way they advance games, whether it's, whether it's a pro scouting, whether it's
10:07amateur scouting, whatever it is, there is no doubt that they are more reliant on video
10:12than ever before.
10:13Now what they're citing is the post-season and anybody who goes to any media dining room
10:19with Ken knows.
10:20Oh, Yankee stadium, elite dining.
10:22Mind I just throw that in.
10:23Oh my goodness.
10:24That's a tidal wave of food.
10:25Wow.
10:25It is a cornucopia.
10:27And you know who's eating that food?
10:28A crap load of scouts because, because, because every organization, no matter how analytically
10:35driven you are at this time of year, sends a crap load of scouts out, including the Red Sox.
10:40But all you need to know is that they have fewer scouts to pick from than they did before.
