Francona: The Red Sox Years (45 page)

Epstein had a plan. He was going to make a trade for Adrian Gonzalez, a hitter he’d coveted since 2000 when Gonzalez was a San Diego high school senior and Epstein was a 26-year-old assistant director of baseball operations with the Padres. Caving to the pressure of his bosses, Epstein was willing to trade coveted prospects in order to win immediately. He knew he would be allowed to spend freely. He would be allowed to compete for Crawford and Jayson Werth, considered the best position players on the market. He could even lavish $12 million on a setup reliever (Bobby Jenks). He was going to make the moves that would satisfy the focus groups and the talk shows.

Francona was not at the NESN war-room meeting and did not know that Epstein was charged with the task of making the Red Sox more interesting. He did not involve himself with ancillary issues. He barely noticed when John Henry ponied up $480 million to buy the Liverpool soccer team. He was not listening to the radio when Werner went on WEEI, the Sox flagship station, and said, “I’m concerned about perception. . . . I think we are going to sign a significant free agent. . . . We’ve got our eyes on a couple of people.”

The manager was back at Massachusetts General Hospital for another knee replacement, this time the left knee. Boston’s non-playoff status gave Francona the opportunity to plan his surgery for mid- October. Because of the manager’s history and meds, it was a complex process. He had to wean himself off his blood-thinning medication and regulate his blood levels, which required a week of presurgical hospitalization. Like all patients dealing with anesthesia and pain medication, Francona came out of the surgical process with a gap in his awareness of everyday events. It had happened in 2006 when Epstein resigned, and it happened in 2010 when Theo was planning to build the super team.

“I missed a lot of stuff again,” said the manager. “Maybe that was good.”

The surgery and the urgency of the off-season coincided with a difficult time in Francona’s personal life. By the time he checked into Mass General for surgery, he’d moved out of his Chestnut Hill home. His marriage of almost 30 years to Jacque Lang—the pretty girl from math class at Arizona and the wonderful mother of his four adult children—was dissolving. Too much devotion to baseball, too many nights on the road, maybe too many nights on that Pesky couch in his office, had taken a toll. Nick had graduated from Penn and was a lieutenant in the US Marines. Alyssa had graduated from North Carolina and was working at Boston College, living in her own apartment. Leah was getting married to Marine Michael Rice, one of Nick’s best friends. Jamie was a star volleyballer at Brookline High, on her way to a coveted spot in the US Naval Academy class of 2016. Their dad was making more money than he’d ever dreamed he’d make—and had hopes for another two years if he got his contract extended through 2013—but Terry and Jacque had reached the difficult crossroads of a long, happy marriage. The manager of the Red Sox left his Chestnut Hill home and moved into the Brookline Courtyard Marriott Hotel near Coolidge Corner, where he would live throughout the 2011 season.

By late November, he’d rebounded from the knee replacement and joined Epstein for a recruiting road trip to Houston and Chicago a week before the annual baseball meetings at the Walt Disney World Dolphin Hotel in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, near Orlando. The Sox GM and manager first went to Houston to meet with Crawford. At Epstein’s request, Allard Baird, the Sox vice president in charge of professional scouting, had followed Crawford extensively in the second half of the 2010 season and contributed detailed observations to a 50-page report that included extensive statistical analysis and a comprehensive background check. It was widely believed that the Angels had the inside track with Crawford, but Epstein wanted to measure the outfielder’s interest in Boston and thought Francona would make a good recruiter. On November 30, Epstein and Francona met with Crawford and his agents, Greg Genske and Brian Peters, in the agents’ offices near Rice University. Francona had managed Crawford on a Team USA unit that toured Taiwan in 2001 and, like everyone else, was impressed with Crawford’s speed, athleticism, and sincerity. Crawford had run wild on the Red Sox during Francona’s tenure in the Boston dugout. The meeting went well.

“Theo and I did some of our best work on those trips,” said the manager. “Theo didn’t want us to be the team that they used for leverage. The meeting was very informal, but Carl did a great job of presenting himself. I didn’t see Boston as a deterrent for him. When we walked away from that one, Theo asked me what I thought, and I said I thought it went great.”

Leaving Houston, Epstein and Francona received a message from Scott Boras indicating that Werth, a Boras client, would be available for a meeting at a hotel near O’Hare Airport in Chicago. The Sox bosses arrived several hours earlier than the free agent outfielder and found an old-fashioned steakhouse bar near the O’Hare Hilton.

“We had a great time at the bar,” said the manager. “I think that might have been when Theo made the offer to Mariano Rivera. We got about ten deep, and then Werth showed up and we had an even better time. We knew we couldn’t match the money he was going to get. [Less than a week after the meeting, Werth signed with the Washington Nationals for $126 million over seven years.] Later in the winter I got the nicest note from Jayson. He said he would have loved playing for us, but he couldn’t turn down that money.”

After the free agent meetings, Francona went to Fort Myers for the weekend while Epstein returned to Boston. On Friday, December 3, Adrian Gonzalez and his agent, John Boggs, flew to Boston on Henry’s private jet. The Sox put them up at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel on Boylston Street.

Epstein needed to accomplish three things: he needed to work out a deal with San Diego GM Jed Hoyer; he needed to make sure Gonzalez was healthy (Gonzalez had undergone shoulder surgery after the 2010 season); and he needed to work out a contract extension with Gonzalez.

Dealing with Hoyer was probably the easiest part. This was the Jed Hoyer who “ate his ass off” the night Francona first interviewed for the Red Sox job back in November of 2003. Hoyer needed to move his best player because San Diego could not afford Gonzalez after his “walk” year in 2011. Hoyer knew who the best Sox prospects were because he’d been part of the Boston operation. He knew Theo didn’t like parting with top prospects, but the pressure in Boston was great. Epstein was ready to deal, and Hoyer had the experienced hitter Boston coveted.

With Gonzalez in town, the Sox scheduled a series of physicals and an MRI. The slugger passed every test. On Sunday, December 5, the Sox met with Gonzalez at Fenway to discuss the contract extension. Talks broke down early in the afternoon, and Gonzalez returned to the Mandarin. Talks resumed Sunday evening, and late that night the ball club released a bulletin stating that it would have a “major announcement Monday at 11 AM.”

On Monday, December 6, with Francona and most of the Boston baseball media gathered at the winter meetings in Florida, Epstein—still in Boston—announced that the Sox had acquired the 28-year-old Gonzalez for prospects Casey Kelly (pitcher), Anthony Rizzo (first baseman), Reymond Fuentes (outfielder), and a player to be named (outfielder Eric Patterson). The key to the deal was the ability of the Sox to work out a seven-year, $154 million contract extension for Gonzalez, an extension that, in order to save millions in luxury taxes, would not be announced until after opening day of 2011.

It was the grandest Red Sox player acquisition since Dan Duquette signed free agent outfielder Manny Ramirez to an eight-year, $160 million deal in December 2000. The press conference to make the announcement was held at Fenway on Tuesday, December 7.

Epstein wasn’t done. Still in contact with Crawford’s agents, he flew to Florida, where Francona waited.

“It was exciting for us,” said the manager. “Youk was on board with moving from first base to third, and Gonzalez gave us a legitimate bat in the middle of the lineup. It was a good way to start the meetings.”

Two nights later, Epstein closed in on a deal for Crawford. He had to work quickly because the Angels were bidding for Crawford and the Yankees and Rangers were at a make-or-break point with lefty Cliff Lee. The Sox feared that the loser of the Lee sweeps would set its sights on Crawford.

“There were about ten of us in a suite at the Dolphin, and there was a lot of discussion about Carl,” said Francona. “Theo was on the phone in another room, and he came out and said, ‘We can do this. This is what it’s going to take.’”

What it was going to take was $142 million over seven years. Werth’s deal with the Nationals had set the bar.

Late at night in Florida, Epstein called Henry and Werner, who were in England overseeing the new Liverpool soccer acquisition. The GM had to wake his owners after 3:00
AM
(Liverpool time) to get permission to make the deal.

“I was in bed,” remembered Werner. “I thought there was no deal and that Crawford was going to the Angels. Theo said we had a very limited amount of time to make a decision and he felt very strongly about it. I asked him if Larry and John were supportive, and I said that I was if they were.”

When he was reached in Liverpool, Henry granted permission (though he would later say he was never in favor of the deal). Crawford’s contract package was one of the ten largest in baseball history.

“That ended the meetings on a high note for all of us,” said Francona. “I was ecstatic. Carl had always killed us. It was a lot of money, and it made us heavily left-handed, but I thought this guy would put us over the edge to be a team that was athletic. With him and Ellsbury together, holy shit. All that speed was what we had been fighting, and now we were going to be that team.”

The Sox outbid the Angels by $34 million in the Crawford deal. Henry had committed $296 million to two new ballplayers. Tickets for the 2011 Red Sox season went on sale Saturday, December 11, the day Crawford was introduced to the Boston media at Fenway Park.

Ten days later, Epstein was back at it, signing veteran White Sox closer Bobby Jenks to a two-year, $12 million contract. It was a curious acquisition. The Sox already had Jonathan Papelbon and a potential emerging closer in Daniel Bard. Jenks had been a World Series–winning closer in 2005, but his skills had waned, he had health issues, and there were whispers of personal problems.

We Won’t Rest Until Order Is Restored.

“It was my fault,” said Epstein. “I fucked up by giving in to that. There was always a tension between the scouting and development approach and what I call ‘The Monster.’ ‘The Monster,’ especially after we won the first time, was that we had to be bigger, better. There had to be more, more, more. We had to push revenues. It became a bit of a distasteful, self-congratulatory tone to some of the things we were doing as a franchise. It’s hard to take winning and translate that into a day-to-day modus operandi for the club. There was always an inherent tension between what we were good at, what we wanted to do—the long-term approach—and this Monster. Talk about the arc of the decade. I think our group was really good at fighting that Monster and being true to our approach in the early and middle years, then toward the end—and I blame myself for this—we sort of gave in to it. Seeing the reaction we had when I mentioned the ‘horror’ of seeing young players develop, seeing the impact it might have had on revenues, and having some discussions with the business people. There came a point where we were almost too big and I lost my willingness to cling to that patience and the approach I thought made us good. I thought we gave in and tried to take the shortcut, and I don’t think there are any shortcuts in baseball. We tried to take a shortcut by throwing money at some problems, and the irony is that that led to even more problems.”

No one foresaw any problems when the Red Sox looked ahead to 2011. There was only more emphasis on revenue streams that would match the inflated payroll and expectations.

In this spirit, Lucchino called on his manager for an unusual errand in the winter of 2010–2011. Henry and Lucchino wanted to move the right-field bullpens closer to home plate. It was a radical idea, given that Fenway’s outfield dimensions had been untouched since the bullpens were installed for the 1940 season. Tom Yawkey had built the bullpens after Ted Williams’s rookie season of 1939. The owner wanted to boost the Splendid Splinter’s home run total, and the new bullpens were immediately dubbed “Williamsburg.” Oddly, Williams’s home run total dropped from 31 to 23 in the first year after the bullpens were built.

The notion of moving the bullpens closer to home plate was something Henry had contemplated for several years. During Sox home games in 2010, the owner asked guests what they thought of the idea and how they thought it would be received. The official reason for changing the configuration was alleged complaints from bullpen occupants who held that the bullpens were not wide enough to support double-barrel action without endangering everyone in the pen. The unofficial reason was that the Sox owners wanted to reconstruct the right-field area and cram a few more seats into Fenway Park.

Changing anything inside Fenway was complex. The Sox had successfully petitioned to have their ballpark declared a designated landmark, a distinction that earned the owners tax credits but required them to get permission when they wanted to make renovations. In January 2011, at the request of Lucchino, Francona appeared before the Massachusetts Historical Commission to explain why the bullpens should be wider in the interest of player safety. The manager agreed that the bullpens were too small and was interested in making them bigger to accommodate and protect his players.

“I went there and made the case that someone was going to get hurt, but this lady on the commission was having none of it,” Francona recalled. “She was having a bad day to begin with and didn’t care who I was. As I was telling her, I could tell she wasn’t buying it. She said, ‘Do you expect me to believe that this is why you’re doing this when you’re adding 400 seats?’ She laughed us out of the room.”