Not everyone looking at Sox job
Dave Dombrowski said on Wednesday that he had a list of potential managers he was targeting to be the next Red Sox skipper.
But he also knew of people who have specifically told him they wouldn’t want the job.
“I’ve had really quality managers that I know and I respect that have said they wouldn’t want to manage in Boston,” Dombrowski, the Red Sox president of baseball operations, said during his press conference after firing John Farrell.
Yesterday, there were no signs of interviews getting underway.
One potential candidate, former Red Sox catcher and two-time World Series winner David Ross, hadn’t yet heard anything from the Sox, the Herald learned, while another popular candidate, Alex Cora, was busy with his duties as bench coach for the Houston Astros.
With the American League Championship Series starting tonight, Major League Baseball would surely prefer the Red Sox avoid making any major announcements to distract from the games. So they’re likely to take their time with this.
“You would ideally like to name somebody as quickly as possible, but not speed up the process so you don’t make a wise decision,” Dombrowski said.
The names with the most buzz around the baseball world? Brad Ausmus, Ron Gardenhire and Cora.
Ausmus is the former Detroit Tigers manager who Dombrowski hired prior to the 2014 season, then walked away from in the middle of 2015 when he joined the Sox front office. Ausmus went 314-322 in Detroit before he was let go.
Hall of Fame reporter Peter Gammons published a piece yesterday that praised Ausmus, noting, “One of the Red Sox executives who was in on the interviews after the 2012 season called Ausmus’ interview the best he’d ever seen.”
In that same story, David Price considered the 48-year-old Ausmus the best manager he’s ever had.
Gardenhire, who spent 13 years managing the Minnesota Twins but won only six postseason games before he was fired in 2014, is currently the bench coach for Torey Lovullo in Arizona.
The St. Paul Pioneer Press reported yesterday that Gardenhire is one of the “final three” for the job.
Cora spent parts of four years playing for the Red Sox from 2005 through 2008. One of his teammates, Kevin Youkilis, posted on Twitter that he hoped Cora or DeMarlo Hale, the former Sox coach who is now the bench coach for the Toronto Blue Jays, would get the job.
Cora, 41, is the youngest of the three most popular candidates, but given that Farrell looked visibly tired and worn down by the end of the season to the point where he had stopped defending his decisions with the same passion he once displayed, youth shouldn’t be considered a detriment.
Qualifying number
The new qualifying offer for the 2018 season will be $17.4 million, according to MLB Trade Rumors. It’s a slight increase from $17.2 million last year.
The Red Sox don’t have any strong candidates for a qualifying offer. The two free agents they’ll lose that would qualify for such an offer, Mitch Moreland and Chris Young, are not expected to fetch nearly that much money.
But the Sox could be suitors of free agents who receive the offer from other teams, who have until five days after the World Series to issue the offer. Players get 10 days to decide.
This will be the first offseason with the new rules, in which the Red Sox would forfeit their second-highest draft pick and $500,000 of international bonus money if they sign a player who turns down the qualifying offer. This is one reason the Sox were so intent on staying under the luxury tax threshold this year. Had they gone over, they would have forfeited their second-highest and fifth-highest draft picks, as well as $1 million of international bonus pool money.
Scott has surgery
The Sox could be in the market for a left-hander this offseason, depending how they value free agent Fernando Abad and returner Robby Scott.
Scott, who had a 3.79 ERA in 352⁄3 innings this season, underwent a left elbow arthroscopy and debridement on Wednesday at Mass General. The team announced the surgery just one day after Dombrowski told reporters he was not aware of any players needing surgery.
Scott is expected to be ready for spring training.