Kenley Jansen: Red Sox front office ‘smart enough to know’ what team needs at deadline
"It’s obvious what we need."
Red Sox closer Kenley Jansen is not one to necessarily keep his opinions to himself, especially when it comes to Boston’s chances of contending for a playoff spot.
The veteran was clearly irked last summer when Chaim Bloom and the Red Sox’ top brass largely stood pat at the trade deadline — with Boston eventually fizzling out in August and September en route to another lost season.
“We needed help. I knew it,” Jansen said on the “Baseball Isn’t Boring” podcast last September about the 2023 Red Sox “That’s the mindset we came in with. I won’t speak for [Justin Turner], but we knew to keep it close, and we were close. We were 1/2 game out and we were playing great. … We do have a great team and if we would have had a couple of starters [at the deadline], we wouldn’t be talking about this right now. We would be playing in a Wild Card game right now.”
Fast-forward to this season, and the overachieving 2024 Red Sox find themselves in a familiar conundrum — with Craig Breslow and Boston’s management still undecided on what path to take before the July 30 trade deadline.
Granted, the case is there for the Red Sox to become buyers this summer — with Boston now 10 games over .500 and 1.5 games ahead of the Royals for the third and final Wild-Card spot in the American League.
But even though the writing seems to be on the wall that Boston should try to add to this roster, Jansen stressed that he doesn’t need to insert himself into the conversations currently being conducted by Breslow and the rest of Boston’s management team.
“Would I go to the front office? No. The reason why is because I get paid to close ballgames. … I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes,” Jansen told WEEI’s Rob Bradford on the latest episode of “Baseball Isn’t Boring”. I think they are smart enough to know what we really need. It’s obvious what we need. It’s obvious we need a right-handed bat. It’s obvious we need a starter or two. And we’ll compete against anybody.”
Breslow acknowledged on Tuesday in an interview on MassLive’s “Fenway Rundown” podcast that a right-handed bat and starting pitching would be the two primary areas of need for Boston if the team does add over the next few weeks.
Still, Breslow added that the Red Sox will not look to make trades that only present short-term rewards for a team looking to become a sustainable contender.
“Are we at the end of a window, or just the beginning of a window, that can dictate how you tend to behave,” Breslow said. “All of those things go into this decision. The last piece that is often overlooked is the opportunities, until you have the talks, you don’t know what opportunities are available to upgrade your team, or opportunities to get something that you simply can’t walk past.”
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