Ken Rosenthal on Big Papi's Devers take, Ohtani’s remarkable return Breslow/Kennedy Sox presser

00:00:00
Speaker 1: They didn't smear Devers, they didn't really go after him. They kind of just explained that they didn't think it was the healthiest of situations. Oh what a week.

00:00:16
Speaker 2: Let's hit the inside Scoop with FT senior insider Ken Rosenthal. First off, I encourage everyone to check out Fair Territory, the fresh episode from Monday to get Ken's thoughts on the Rothfield Ever situation. But part two here, Ken, is what you wrote about after that show. So let's start there and go over your article, which includes comments from David Ortiz. What did he say and what stood out to you.

00:00:38
Speaker 1: The essence of what he said was that Raphaeld Devers, he got paid and he has to do what his bosses say. That's kind of what the essence was, and he explained the greater length it wasn't quite that simple. That ego comes into play in situations like this, and he's been through himself, and he didn't believe the Red Sox were blameless and keep mind or Tease works for the Red Sox. He's a special assistant to the Fenway Sports Group. But what he said was that obviously the situation got to a point where it had to end. The way it did, and he just kind of pointed out that you need to be the word to use, was mature enough to deal with these kinds of things. And he also mentioned that he was a dh and he played first base, and he did whatever the team asked, and he learned to get through the difficult times. He said. It wasn't always flowers and roses with the Red Sox during his fourteen years there, but for the most part he did endure. And obviously he ended up finishing his career with the team and of course now working for the team in what has been described as a forever capacity. So Ortez was not ripping devors, but what he was saying was, you've got to have a different approach if you want to kind of stay in one place. And it didn't happen that way.

00:02:00
Speaker 3: Ken, I listen, I played with David from a ball all the way up, played with them on the Twins, played with them on the Red Sox.

00:02:05
Speaker 4: Was there for a.

00:02:06
Speaker 3: Lot of ups and downs of his He works for the Red Sox. That's it, that's the story.

00:02:12
Speaker 1: He listen.

00:02:13
Speaker 3: You know something's going on. David loves the Dominican Republic. When he takes shots at a Dominican guy over the Red Sox. Listen, he knows where his butt bread is buttered, as the saying goes, so listen. I appreciate he tried to walk the line. But at the end of the day, David Ortiz and I love you, David, but you're gonna sign with the Red Sox. There's a lot of things the Red Sox have done for David Ortiz, not on the baseball field, which is why he's an employee there for life. As he says, and I get it, he's a franchise icon. He's done all these things. He's in all the Hall of Fame. He you know, he hit home runs, he gave the speech in twenty thirteen for after the bombing. But the least surprising thing of this is that he sided with the Red Sox.

00:02:52
Speaker 1: I mean he has to, all right, AJ. In the first paragraph of the story, actually the first sentence of the story, I mention that he works for the Red Sox. The whole thing has to be colored with that information. I knew that. That said, he's still a David Ortiz, he's still a Hall of Famer. And as he pointed out, I don't just work for the Red Sox. I played for the Red Sox for fourteen years, and if you're saying his opinion is invalid, I would challenge that.

00:03:20
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm not saying that Ken, I'm not saying he has to be actor good.

00:03:24
Speaker 4: No, I'm not saying it's invalid at all.

00:03:26
Speaker 3: I'm just saying that, like when we I know you wrote the article, but I want people out there that didn't read the article that say, like, listen, I love David. David's a good friend of mine. I've known him for twenty five years. But you have to start and finish with he works for the Red Sox. He's still being paid by the Red Sox, and someone that didn't toe the line with another organization was let go.

00:03:48
Speaker 4: I get it.

00:03:50
Speaker 1: I started the article that way. I believe I said that when I came on today. Obviously everything he said has to be colored by the fact that he works for the Red Sox. But the other thing about this is his opinion is one that a lot of people share. How can this three hundred million dollar player not be with the program, not do with the team? Asked Now, as I've written elsewhere, I don't share that opinion entirely. Yes, Dever's made mistakes here. Yes, he should have acted, perhaps in a different way. This all started when they failed to include him in the communication when they were going after Bregman. That's how it all started. And they turned a kid who was not a kid anymore. He's twenty eight, but they turned a player who they've known since he was sixteen, who has always had a reputation as kind of a sweet guy into somewhat of a sour puss. And that is on them and this whole situation that they determined they had to rectify because of course he was going to pollute the minds of their young players. That's on them too. They initiated this with their actions, with their lack of communication, and that is one thing that ortiz it knowledge that there was a lack of communication here quite obviously. I mean, it doesn't take a genius to figure that out. But to me, this is as much, if not more, on the Red Sox than it is Ralphael Devers.

00:05:13
Speaker 2: Hey Ken, just to double down on that with Poppy, do you feel like he was critical enough about the communication process. I mean I saw the quotes I know he mentioned like oh it kind of was like, oh it wasn't smooth sailing in the beginning, I would have I don't know. I want to hear more from him, Like if he was in that exact scenario, prime of your career, DA show up to camp, they say, throw your glove away, we don't want you playing defense anymore, which is not that is there?

00:05:40
Speaker 1: Right?

00:05:40
Speaker 2: That's okay? I mean, hey, for me, Ken, we talked about this in the off season. I'm like, I want Bregman and I want Devers out of third base. He was potentially the worst third baseman defensively in the league. And I don't think Raffie's stupid. So if you do make that decision and you tell him that and you say throw your glove away, which is essentially what they said, I feel like Poppy had a pretty big ego. He would have been I'm pretty pissed.

00:06:02
Speaker 1: Well, he did say, as I mentioned before, that he was in sort of the same situation. It was largely a DH but when they asked them to play first base, he did so. I didn't ask him if you were Ralphield Devers in the exact same situation, how would you have reacted. I did not ask that question. But when he answered the other question that way. I think we had our answer, and I think he answered other questions in other ways. And the quotes are in the article where you can see he would not have reacted the way Devers did. Now that's his right and absolutely if he had been in that situation. It's always easy for us on the outside, including David Ortiz in this particular case, to have a particular opinion, but when you're living it, it's different. And again, no one is suggesting here that Devers is above reproach that what he did was just great. It wasn't great, but there were reasons he acted the way he did. And this is a team or tease did make this point to me. I don't know if it made the article or not. They should have known he would react the way he did. This is a kid that they know forever. He was signed at sixteen. So again, if you're an organization and your value communication, as all organizations say, they do, well, practice what you preach, live it, and don't just talk about it. And that was the failure of the Red Sox here.

00:07:27
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00:07:47
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00:08:00
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00:08:06
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00:08:07
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00:08:59
Speaker 1: None of it really surprised me. They were talking constantly about alignment, that they didn't have alignment with the player. Yeah, obviously we can see that, and that's the new, I guess front office buzzword of the day, alignment. And it did impress me that Craig Breslow, the chief baseball officer, said maybe there were some things he should have been done differently when he looks at it humbly, yes, and that was good to hear. They didn't smear Devers, they didn't really go after him. They kind of just explained that they didn't think it was the healthiest of situations. I gave my opinion about this whole idea of polluting young players' minds. I don't necessarily buy that. I guess, yes, you'd want him out of the clubhouse to not have that kind of person in there, a guy who's disgruntled. But you know what, if he was so disgruntled, how was he leading the American League as a DH and being the hitter he has always been. The players didn't seem particularly upset with him. He's done a remarkable job of adapting to that role. He's gotten no credit for that. This guy became a DH and after a really awful start, all of a sudden was back to himself again, as if it was nothing. And Ortiz I remember talking to him about this. This was just a private conversation sometime back, and he said, Hey, they're asking him DH. It's not so easy. Well he did that. So this idea that this guy was just somehow toxic to them, I just don't buy that. He did what they asked. He didn't do everything they asked. And as I mentioned before, playing first bach, which I believe he will do for the Giants because it's going to be a different line of communication. Playing first base learning that position in the middle of a season. When your guy like Deffers, who's not particularly athletic, you're risking embarrassment, You're risking hurting the team. You're risking a lot of different things. And as I wrote way back when in May, all the fans and all the people who were clamoring for him to play first base for the Red Sox would have been the ours people to jump him when of course he would have had perhaps difficulty. So again I'm not forgiving devors. He should have been more of a team guy. Yes, but there are reasons why a player or anyone gets from point A to point B. The Red Sox were responsible for getting him from point A to point B, and if they didn't like the contract, they shouldn't have given it to him in the first place. They knew the player. Then this idea, he's not a leader and he should do more in the community. You've seen some of that talk in the last twenty four hours. You knew the guy, you gave him the three hundred million. He wasn't going to change with three hundred million. He wasn't going to become suddenly this face of the franchise. That's not him, the Red Sox knew it.

00:11:45
Speaker 4: Sam Kennedy said something that stuck out to me. He said, well, name one major league organization with more championships and banners in the last twenty four years. Is that was that kind of a shot at everybody that was questioning them and questioning their motives? And is that even fair? That's like saying that's like saying a football team goes into play a team, it's like, haven't beaten this team in fifty three years. It's like, well, nobody's been on the same team. Is that a fair statement by Sam Kennedy to.

00:12:18
Speaker 1: Say, yes, it's fair. It's fair because this ownership has led the team to four World Series titles when they hadn't won one since nineteen eighteen. However, that does not exonerate them forever. This is a business in which you have to succeed year after year after year. That's the goal. They have not succeeded in some time. They had a great year in twenty one, but really since their last World Series title in eighteen, that's it. So when you have last place finishes, when you have disappointments, when you have poorly executed trades, as the Monkey Betts trade was when you have a series of missteps, Well, it can't just keep saying we won four titles. That's not what Sam Kennedy was doing. But he was just pointing out we've been a successful ownership, no argument, but they haven't been successful in recent years. It's like the Yankees. Do the Yankees walk around saying we've got the twenty eight championships? No, they know they haven't won one since two thousand and nine, and they are hell bent on winning another, at least many of the people there are. So I understand his sentiment. It's certainly an accurate sentiment, but at the same time, it doesn't necessarily excuse what has happened in recent years. I can.

00:13:31
Speaker 2: Let's finish with a couple of minutes on Otani thoughts on his return. It finally happened, and it happened much sooner than most of us anticipated, because it was like, oh, wait, he's gonna maybe be back for the also break, maybe this week, boom Monday night.

00:13:46
Speaker 1: Yeah. His point was that throwing simulated games before playing that night was kind of exhausting him, so why not do it in a real game? Fair point and good call. I thought he looked good. The command wasn't there quite obviously, and he talked about after the game how he was missing glove side. He was his arm was moving a little too quickly. That'll all come. The fact that he reached one hundred, that's really impressive. The fact that he had two hits in the game, that's really impressive. It was fun to watch him as a two way guy again, even though it was a brief appearance, and I expect he will only get better as time goes on. He's going to build up, his command will sharpen, and everything knock on Wood will be back to what it was pre surgery and.

00:14:32
Speaker 3: Ken. It was just nice to see him back out on the mound. Whether the results were secondary, it doesn't matter, but it was nice to see him out there doing what he does. The Dodgers definitely need the boost, especially on the pitching side, so so good for him.

00:14:45
Speaker 2: Two knocks took it takes.

00:14:48
Speaker 3: You know, as we said, we hate o'tis all the fans in the comments that we ha whatever, I don't, I don't really I does, I don't, I don't care Scotts Scott. It hurts his ego smaller when bat people write bad comments, and I want to ask you about something else. Last night, the Nats lost their ninth in a row. Dave Martinez. They got rid of some coaches. He's now, he's already coming out preemptive strike right like, it's not the coaches fall. The coaches work really hard. How hot is his seat right now? Is he going to be next in line for managerial firing? And I hate to see anybody fire. Dave Martinez is a good guy. He's won a World Series. He knows what he's doing. But it's the cyclical life of a baseball manager.

00:15:33
Speaker 1: I don't know that his seat is so hot. Their ownership doesn't seem to be terribly involved or terribly interested in shaking up the status quo. That's just the reality with the Nationals. However, since winning the World Series in twenty nineteen, they have the second most losses in the major leagues. Not a lot of people realize that second most only to the Rockies. Now, there are a ton of reasons for that that go well beyond the manager. They've had failures in player development and scouting, amateur internet national all kinds of issues. They made a great trade for Juan Soto, no question, Mike Rizzo did that, but they have not supported that with excelling in those other areas. So will Dave M. Martinez take the fall for all this? I tend to doubt it, simply because of the way they operate. But as we've seen before, enough losing can change in organization's direction, and nine in a row is not good here. So who knows where they'll go at this. But what I wrote about a couple of weeks ago in the Nationals fans I read some comments aj they didn't like the timing of this article. In fact, Mike Rizzo went on the radio in Washington and said, hey, we're playing better. Well, I don't know why Ken wrote this at this particular time. Well guess what I wrote it because this is an ongoing thing. And yeah, they had one, I don't know seven out of ten at the time. I guess I should have waited till now to satisfy everyone's timing question. But here we are, and the issues that I wrote about are the issues. And it's not an e fix. And if you want to defend Rizzo and defend Dave, even the ownership has not given them the financial support in really many areas that they need. But at the same time, you've got a draft better, you've got to develop better. They've done a little bit better job the last couple of years. They had some turnover and change some people around, but the failures of the team right now are a reflection of the issues that they've had over the last decade or so in those areas.

00:17:27
Speaker 2: How dare you get ahead of a story that was looming?

00:17:31
Speaker 3: Ken new? See this is why Ken doesn't make predictions. He predicted they were going to go on a nine game losing streak, and then that way David Martinez article would work. See this is why Ken doesn't like to give predictions, because when he's right, it's really bad for people like he's too right.

00:17:47
Speaker 1: I wouldn't exactly put it that way, but whatever you want to say, man like the.

00:17:54
Speaker 3: Just don't write anything about me Ken, because I don't want to be hit by a bus walking on the street today.

00:17:57
Speaker 2: Okay, great, I have no answer to that, as does Ken.

00:18:03
Speaker 1: Ken.

00:18:03
Speaker 2: Thank you congratulate this week. Thanks guys, all right, that's Ken Rosenthal fair territory. I encourage everyone to check out a lot from Ken as he unpacks the Rockeyelle Devers situation.