Red Sox
“We like the group of arms that are coming back and felt like we had a chance to improve our club by doing that.”
The writing was on the wall for months that Alex Verdugo was going to don another jersey in 2024.
Even with the talented outfielder under contract with Boston next season, Verdugo found himself in Alex Cora’s doghouse in 2023 due to several disciplinary issues.
Cora put Verdugo on the pine in early June for a lack of hustle and benched him again in early August for allegedly showing up to the ballpark late.
After sitting Verdugo in August, Cora offered up one of his harshest postgame press conferences as a Red Sox manager.
“I’m very disappointed,” Cora said, per Peter Abraham of The Boston Globe. “This is probably one of my worst days here in this organization. Today we took a step back. I feel responsible because I’m the leader of this team. … “Today we took a step back as a team. We have to make sure everybody’s available every single day here for us to get to wherever we’re going to go and that wasn’t the case.”
Given Verdugo’s history of butting heads with Cora, was Tuesday’s trade to the Yankees a direct result of the outfielder’s disciplinary issues?
Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow told MassLive’s Christopher Smith that the motivation behind Tuesday’s deal centered around Boston’s roster, rather than Verdugo’s own actions.
“It didn’t [factor in] given that what we were looking to do is kind of understand how we could make our team better,” Breslow told Smith. “Of course, I wasn’t here for any of those things. But in terms of those being a consideration, they weren’t. We like the group of arms that are coming back and felt like we had a chance to improve our club by doing that. And … spreading out some of those at-bats across some of the young guys we have.”
Even though it remains to be seen how much big-league upside Boston has in newly acquired pitchers Richard Fitts, Greg Weissert, and Nicholas Judice, the Red Sox also were in the midst of a roster crunch this winter in terms of their outfield.
Boston still has outfielders Masataka Yoshida, Jarren Duran, Rob Refsnyder, Wilyer Abreu and Ceddanne Rafaela on its 40-man roster. Blue-chip prospect Roman Anthony is also a viable candidate to earn MLB reps in 2024 after advancing all the way to Double-A Portland in September.
“One thing we have is really a dynamic, athletic group of outfielders,” Breslow told Smith. “So I think as how we’re currently constructed, getting those at-bats in the outfield spread across Duran, Rafaela, Abreu and then obviously Yoshida.”
Speaking on Wednesday morning, Cora didn’t offer much on his terse relationship with Verdugo.
“Obviously Alex is a complete player,” Cora said of Verdugo during an interview with MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM. “We know he’s a good defender, a good hitter, probably he fits Yankee Stadium. … “You cannot worry about the opposition, right? It’s about what is going to make you better as an organization.”
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