Report: Red Sox GM opening viewed as undesirable
By Matt McCarthy, 985TheSportsHub.com
From the outside looking in, being the general manager of the Boston Red Sox would seem to be one of the most desirable jobs in all of baseball.
But apparently those in the game might feel differently.
In a column headlined “Why nobody might want to be Boston’s GM,” ESPN’s Buster Olney detailed the negative perception of the Red Sox around baseball. According to Olney, many view the Red Sox as a dysfunctional organization with a bad culture.
The decisions to remove Ben Cherington from power in 2015 and to fire Dave Dombrowski are scaring prospective general managers away, according to Olney. Both Cherington and Dombrowski won World Series titles and were gone within two years.
“These decisions loosely frame the industry perception of the Red Sox as a chaotic company, a miserable place to work,” Olney wrote. “Boston owner John Henry needs to understand this, because it is why some of the people he’d probably love to consider as possible replacements for Dombrowski privately dismiss the idea out of hand.”
In an interview with 670 The Score in Chicago, MLB Network’s Jon Heyman said that two of the most likely external candidates for the job are former Red Sox employees: Cubs GM Jed Hoyer and Diamondback executive Amiel Sawdaye.
“I think Hoyer is probably the more likely one for Boston at this point. That would be my guess,” Heyman said.
Hoyer, a longtime confidant of Theo Epstein, served as co-GM with Cherington in the winter of 2005 during Epstein’s 10-week hiatus. He also served as the general manager of the San Diego Padres before joining Epstein in Chicago in 2016.
You can hear Matt McCarthy on 98.5 The Sports Hub’s own Hardcore Baseball podcast and on various 98.5 The Sports Hub programs. Follow him on Twitter @MattMcCarthy985.
