What is John Henry talking about with "false narrative" surrounding Red Sox?
BOSTON -- For the past several years, Red Sox principal owner John Henry has largely avoided on-camera interviews. Perhaps it was his "17 percent body fat" and "the fans are still mad about that?" performance in February 2016 that ultimately led to that decision. Perhaps it was something else.
Whatever it may have been, if you want an on-the-record comment from John Henry these days, you're going to have to get it via email.
That's what Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic did this week, as all players report to Fort Myers for spring training. Unfortunately for Henry, though, his messaging even through email lacked clarity and direction.
It really just makes you wonder what the man is talking about.
McCaffrey asked Henry about the booing from fans at the Red Sox "Winter Weekend" event a few weeks ago in Springfield. The question was simple: Do you see that as a sign of frustration from fans, and will that change anything you do as owner of the team?
The answer was a convoluted entanglement of misdirection and obfuscation.
"There is a false narrative surrounding the club," Henry told McCaffrey. "It really took hold in 2022. There were even false reports of booing at Fenway Park during the Winter Classic. I think those factors and losing Xander [Bogaerts] to San Diego were the biggest factors. Those are the fans you would believe are the least likely to try to shout us down, but it happened. Did anyone report the standing ovation at the end?"
To start, Henry's referring to multiple events in a short span. The standing ovation referenced would seemingly be from the Springfield event, not the Winter Classic. That's also an event that aired on NESN after all of the booing of Henry had been scrubbed from the broadcast. Who's creating false narratives there?
As for the fans "least likely to try to shout us down," those would be the attendees of the winter weekend festivities, with each attendee paying $95 to attend that town hall meeting on the Friday night. Henry's acknowledgment of that dissension from his most devoted fans shows that he is so close to getting it. But his jump to the standing ovation at the end reveals he's still miles away.
Henry's second-most offensive answer was a short one. When asked what the Red Sox could have done differently to keep Xander Bogaerts, Henry replied, "We could have offered 12 years!"
It's an answer that's disingenuous and downright insulting at worst.
While Bogaerts did eventually land an absurd 11-year, $280 million deal in free agency, the fact of the matter is that the Red Sox let him get to free agency. Had the team made a real effort to sign Bogaerts prior to the start of last season, then they would have kept the face of their franchise in Boston for the remainder of his prime. Instead, they didn't even try to do that, sending Bogaerts the message that his time in Boston was up, even before taking one at-bat in the 2022 season.
After lowballing and then trading away Jon Lester eight years earlier, Henry and the Red Sox followed the same script with Bogaerts. The misjudgment and mishandling of Lester in the winter of 2013-14 remains a stain on this ownership's tenure, and it really marks the line of demarcation when many fans started to think differently of Henry and the ownership group. Henry and the team followed that same approach with Bogaerts, just three years after trading away a generational talent in Mookie Betts. And the best Henry can offer is a flippant comment about not offering 12 years.
That's just not going to land well.
Finally, No. 3 on the list of facepalm moments came when McCaffrey asked Henry if the Red Sox are still on the same level as the big spenders in MLB like the Dodgers, Padres, Mets and Yankees. Henry responded much the same way he and Sam Kennedy did when similar questions were posed at the winter weekend event.
He went ahead and rested on his laurels.
"If you add the championships together of those four clubs I'm not sure they would match our total over the last 20 years," Henry replied. "They have all had down years or periods and we had a disappointing 2022 after a strong 2021. Again, I think there is a narrative at work that doesn't match up well with the facts. However, if you are asking if we are going to now move to $300 million payrolls the answer is no."
Everyone is well aware that the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 and 2007, then again in 2013, then again in 2018. After 86 years without a championship, this ownership certainly worked to deliver an unimaginable run of success to fans.
But that part isn't in question and never has been. What is in question is whether the Red Sox are built to compete anymore. Because the teardown since that last title has been apparent, and there's little reason to believe the minor acquisitions made this winter will dramatically change the fortunes of a team that has finished in last place twice in the last three years.
(That run to the ALCS in 2021 was fun, but it was also a bit of an aberration. The Astros outscored the Red Sox 22-1 in the final 20 innings of the 2021 ALCS. The Red Sox weren't as "close" to making the World Series as Henry and Kennedy want to believe.)
In any event, if Henry wants to clear up the false narratives, it's simple enough to deal in facts.
Last year, the Red Sox were bad. They finished in last place. Five games behind ... the Baltimore Orioles, eight games behind the Rays, 14 games behind the Blue Jays, and 21 games behind the Yankees.
In 2021, the Red Sox were pretty good. Not as good as Henry and Kennedy have tried making them out to be this winter, but pretty good. Second place in the division, buyers at the deadline, winners of the Wild Card Game over the Yankees and the ALDS over the Rays. Good season. Not a great season. But a good season.
In 2020, they were the fourth-worst team in all of baseball.
In 2019, they were bad. Nineteen-games-out-of-first-place bad. Nine games out of the playoffs bad.
That's the reality for the Red Sox. Since winning the World Series, they've had one playoff appearance in four years, and the outlook for year five doesn't look great.
Fans have also seen Betts, Andrew Benintendi and Jackie Bradley Jr. traded away in the years that followed, with Bogaerts, J.D. Martinez and Nathan Eovaldi departing as free agents this offseason. Rafael Devers remains signed for the long term, but the page has clearly been turned on the 2018 championship season. Which means it's time for members of ownership to stop leaning on the 2018 season as a defense mechanism when the realities of the present are brought to their attention.
The return package negotiated by Chaim Bloom for Betts was woeful, the Trevor Story-replacing-Xander Bogaerts plan was doomed from its onset, and the reliance on Chris Sale to carry the rotation even after he showed signs of breaking down in 2018 proved to be as poor a strategy as most everyone imagined it would be when the team gave him that five-year deal. Even the purported smart deals -- like flipping Hunter Renfroe for Jackie Bradley Jr. and prospects -- ended up backfiring.
The issue hasn't been the Red Sox being "cheap." The issue has been the Red Sox having no plan, no guiding principles, and thus, no real hope for sustained success in the present and future. Fans can see this, and many made a real effort to let ownership know where the current frustration level sits. Apparently, though, Henry has opted to just not hear it.
In a way, this email interview was just the written version of the dismissive face and gesture Henry made on stage when asked during that town hall if the Red Sox are still a top priority for him. A forced laugh, a shrug, a fake check of the watch, but no real answer.
Henry may be able to tune out the boos in real life and have the jeering edited out of a TV broadcast of an event that was supposed to be celebratory. Those are the perks of being the boss. But ultimately, if the Red Sox start this season with a sub-.500 record through April while charging some of the highest ticket prices in baseball, Henry will soon have to grapple with the reality that the fans aren't happy. Thus far, all he's made clear is that he's not at all interested in hearing about that just yet.
