Dombro expects Price to return to starting grid
No matter who is the next manager of the Red Sox, he’s going to have to smooth things out with David Price, who is expected to be a key member of the starting rotation next year.
When Price last spoke after four shutout relief innings in Game 3 of the American League Division Series, he made it clear he wanted to be in the rotation instead of the bullpen. He will likely avoid surgery on his torn pitching elbow and should return as a starting pitcher in 2018.
“I think so,” Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said yesterday, after announcing that John Farrell was fired. “I hope so. That’s what the doctors tell us at this point. You can see he threw the ball extremely well.
“After what happened this year, you always sit on the edge of your seat when things like that happen. But he has seen the top specialists in the country and they told us if he got back to this point, he should be fine for next year. So that’s what our anticipation is, that he will be part of our starting rotation next year and be ready to go.”
Price threw 57 pitches in relief on Sunday, the most he’d thrown since the last time he started a game, which was on July 22. He said Sunday he was capable of throwing 80 pitches.
“I can do this as a starter, too,” he said.
Next year is his third of a seven-year, $217 million deal. He can choose to opt out of the deal after 2018.
Second opinion
Dustin Pedroia seemed fairly certain he’d need to get his injured left knee looked at in the offseason when he last spoke about it after the Red Sox’ Game 4 loss on Monday.
Yesterday, he was visiting a specialist in New York.
“He’ll come back to Boston and see another specialist that was seen earlier in the year,” Dombrowski said. “Then we’ll have to decide what’s going to take place at that point.”
Pedroia, 34, is owed $56 million over the next four seasons. He finished the year with a .293 average and a .760 OPS in 105 games. He was 2-for-16 in the postseason.
He had an injury-riddled 2015 season, playing in only 93 games, but bounced back last year when he appeared in 154 games.
The Red Sox believe his knee issue is one he’ll have to contend with for the rest of his career.
“We want to make sure that most importantly his knee is as good as it can be going forward,” Dombrowski said. “I don’t know what that’s going to (mean) at this point until he sees the doctors and gets those recommendations.”
Mookie Betts, Mitch Moreland, Xander Bogaerts, Hanley Ramirez and other Red Sox players dealt with injuries toward the end of the year, but Dombrowski wasn’t sure who would need surgery in the offseason.
“Because there are some other people being checked out by doctors and we’ll wait to hear what the recommendations are,” Dombrowski said. “There may be some people, but the season just ended so we all need to follow up with doctors.”
Bats needed
Farrell may be the scapegoat for the Red Sox’ postseason failures, but Dombrowski admitted he needs to do a better job of putting an offense together.
“You know, it’s easy to say, ‘We need to score more runs,’” he said. “I didn’t supply the players that would give us enough runs. I think we do need that. That’s part of our offseason goal.
“Now, when you say that, people say, ‘OK, sure. Well, where does that player play?’ ”
Dombrowski identified first base and designated hitter as the two positions he could upgrade.
“And Hanley’s one of the guys that we look for to have a bigger year for us from an offensive perspective,” he said. “But really, some of that is going to come from an internal perspective, and then you can look to add somebody from outside to help you somewhere. But we need to score more runs.”
The Red Sox were sure they had enough offense until the very end.
“I’m surprised with the players that we had that we didn’t score more runs,” Dombrowski said. “I knew we didn’t have David (Ortiz). But if you said he was basically replaced by Mitch Moreland — and we didn’t look to replace him one on one with Mitch Moreland — Mitch Moreland did fine for us. Hit over 20 home runs, knocked in basically 80 runs, which is what we would’ve hoped he would do.
“So, some guys didn’t have as good a season from an offensive perspective. Some of those guys need to do better again.”
Waiting game
Hitting coach Chili Davis, pitching coach Carl Willis and third base coach/infield instructor Brian Butterfield, among others on the coaching staff, are awaiting their fates.
Dombrowski said he would allow his new manager to pick his own coaches, but said he’d have no problem recommending that all of the current coaches stay in their roles.
If any of them want to interview with other teams for openings around the league, the Sox will allow it.
“I know they’re signed, but I wouldn’t want to stand in their way of getting a job somewhere else if that opportunity came up,” Dombrowski said. “Some of them could come back, but again, I’m going to wait until we get a manager and I won’t stand in their way of interviewing elsewhere.”