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Zolak & Bertrand

Marc Bertrand: “One of the darkest days” of our Red Sox lifetime

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The Red Sox celebrated their Winter Weekend in Springfield on Friday and Saturday. Some members of ownership, namely Tom Werner and Sam Kennedy were there to face the music. And instead of offering up an explanation that fans would want to hear, many, like our own Marc Bertrand, were left shocked by what they heard from the Red Sox brass:

 

 

“One of the darkest days in the Red Sox organization”

 

“What happened was Sam Kennedy confirmed the Red Sox payroll in 2024 will be lower than what it was in 2023, Tom Werner said the Red Sox are a cornerstone of Fenway Sports Group, and that they will not be selling the team. And when asked and pressed why fans should be okay with this direction, why fans should pay some of the highest ticket prices in baseball., Tom Warner said that the team is selling the “Fenway experience”. That is what the team told people this weekend. They said it out loud. They said that they are selling the “Fenway experience”. They’re selling tourists on seeing the ballpark and paying the prices to go to the games. That’s what they’re doing now, they are now fully admitting it. They’re reducing their payroll again. The salary floors go up, the Red Sox payroll goes down, the ticket prices go up, and they admit that they are selling you on a trip to the ballpark. That has to qualify as one of the darkest days in the Red Sox organization in my lifetime.

“They they cut the payroll. They they’re not spending. They’re reducing their spending. And they may not be done cutting that payroll. There could be more moves to come on that front to continue to make it lower. I mean, Sam Kennedy to me is really the the biggest problem that I see this weekend in that Sam Kennedy went so far as to say that anyone who suggests the Red Sox are not as passionate about winning is a liar. He used the word liar. Sam Kennedy is now gaslighting us. And it’s disgusting because Sam Kennedy’s from here, right? Sam Kennedy is from Brookline. Hometown boy has worked for the Red Sox for two decades. Has a very important position with the team. And now he’s going on the attack on his fan base and on the people that can see with their own two eyes what the hell is playing out with that franchise. He’s going on the attack. That’s gross. Tom Werner I expect that from some corporate guy who doesn’t truly give a damn about the Boston Red Sox. He doesn’t have the Red Sox in his blood. Sam Kennedy does. And so that’s where things have gotten really remarkable. What dark times for that franchise.”

 

Tom Morgan is the executive producer of the award-winning Zolak & Bertrand show. He got his start in radio as the midday intern in 2010 before joining the show full-time in 2014. A graduate of Northeastern University, Tom has been a lifelong sports fan with a passion for Boston sports that continues to drive him to this day. A native of Cohasset, MA, he enjoys spending time with family, his three brothers and his nephews and nieces. He is a coffee enthusiast who is fluent in the language of Seinfeld quotes. Tom writes about all New England sports from Patriots football to Boston Celtics and Boston Bruins.

Milliken: Kyle Boddy joins Red Sox pitching development makeover

If there’s been one clear message sent by the Red Sox in the last few months, it’s been that the organization’s pitching pipeline needed a makeover that would erase almost two decades of shortcomings. That started with the hiring of new CBO Craig Breslow, who was the face of the Cubs overhaul in pitching development over the last few seasons. Since being brought aboard, he has wasted no time beefing up the pitching infrastructure, with the likes of Andrew Bailey, Justin Willard, and now the founder of Driveline, Kyle Boddy, joining the mix.

Boddy, who will be serving as a Special Advisor to Breslow for the upcoming season, will be assisting in Research & Development on the pitching side of things. He’s become a titan in that space since Driveline was founded in 2007, bringing a data-driven approach to every aspect of training pitchers and hitters. Over 1,000 professional baseball players have put their faith in Boddy’s work, ranging from the likes of Clayton Kershaw, to Tyler Glasnow, and even some current Red Sox players like Nick Pivetta, Kenley Jansen, and John Schreiber.

For many baseball traditionalists, there was some serious hesitation to Boddy’s voice and methods gaining traction in the sport, since he lacked the classic player or coaching background. His first couple of careers weren’t even in sports, as he worked as a professional gambler and then at Microsoft as a software developer. There was no history of a blogger creating his own biomechanics lab and trying to reinvent the way pitchers evolved.

On Driveline’s website, they explain that their training comes through “state-of-the-art motion capture assessments, physical therapy evaluations, and specialized assessment-retest based pitching, hitting and high performance coaching. We also provide software, hardware and physical good solutions for both in-person and remote training as well as deploy a variety of certifications and educational materials distilling proprietary internal research to the general industry.”

  • Tyler Milliken ⚾️ on Twitter: "Here's a deep dive into Kyle Boddy and how @DrivelineBB came to be.Breslow. Bailey. Willard. Boddy. All in one offseason.Red Sox have added other @DrivelineBB guys in recent years. So this continues down that trend. pic.twitter.com/c0Wi0IBFxS / Twitter"

    Here's a deep dive into Kyle Boddy and how @DrivelineBB came to be.Breslow. Bailey. Willard. Boddy. All in one offseason.Red Sox have added other @DrivelineBB guys in recent years. So this continues down that trend. pic.twitter.com/c0Wi0IBFxS

    It’s clearly been a major success, as Boddy has left his mark on the sport in a big way while doing consultant work for a number of clubs and other professional sports leagues. He even took a full-time role with the Reds in October of 2019 as the director of pitching initiatives and pitching coordinator, with the goal of overhauling their minor league pitching development. There were other teams chasing him at the time, and while Boddy ended up leaving the organization after 2021 when his contract expired, it takes a quick look at the Reds rotation of promising young starters to see his impact.

    During Boddy’s time with Reds, their minor-league arms went from the 6th-worst xERA to the 6th-best out of 30 organizations in just two years time. That played a big part in their farm system skyrocketing from 28 to 8 in Baseball America’s rankings. Not to mention, 2020 was a tough hurdle for everyone in baseball, but especially for Boddy who was trying to get his feet wet in a brand new position.

    Boddy had an opportunity to remain with the Reds, but with Dick Williams resigning a year earlier, Derek Johnson being promoted to director of pitching, and Nick Krall now running the show, there was a significant shakeup in the leadership structure. Despite taking less money and fewer guaranteed years to join the Reds, Boddy cited in a reddit post that both sides no longer shared the same vision. That paved the way for Boddy to be back on the market, which has led to plenty of offers from different front offices, but none that fit quite like the Red Sox (per his LinkedIn page).

  • Kyle Boddy on Twitter: "I've joined the Boston Red Sox in an advisory capacity to Craig Breslow.For 2+ years I've had opportunities to get back into MLB in a front office but none seemed like the right fit.This one is.Onward and upwards. pic.twitter.com/qD1uuWDhfs / Twitter"

    I've joined the Boston Red Sox in an advisory capacity to Craig Breslow.For 2+ years I've had opportunities to get back into MLB in a front office but none seemed like the right fit.This one is.Onward and upwards. pic.twitter.com/qD1uuWDhfs

    Going back to the start of Driveline Baseball, when Boddy first started in a garage lab, the initial focus was a velocity-based program using weighted balls. Now, it involves pitch design, physical therapy/recovery, and even improving bat speed and exit velocities for hitters. It’s currently being used as a tool at every single level of baseball, ranging from camps for little leaguers, to the best high school and college programs, and of course the big leagues where Trevor Bauer popularized it.

    There’s no denying that Boddy cracked the code for pitchers adding velocity, which was shown in a 2018 study by the American Sports Medicine Institute. It was led by former Red Sox athletic trainer and physical therapist Mike Reinold (fired after 2012), who cited that a weighted ball program could lead to a significant increase in how hard a pitcher throws (3.3% increase in this study of HS arms), but also resulted in a higher injury rate of 24%. What many get confused though is that Reinold wasn’t saying that the training itself was a problem, but how it was implemented.

    Boddy didn’t deny those findings, but emphasized his training was not only about velocity but efficiency, which was why he believed his system was able to keep guys healthy through biomechanical analysis and proper rest. Reinold also included in his study that he used weighted ball programs himself in his own work with athletes. As pitching injuries continue to spike in baseball though, trying to throw hard has become a polarizing topic in the sport.

  • Garrett Mashburn on Twitter: "Kyle Boddy's approach when evaluating arms: pic.twitter.com/ZZWcJCshGC / Twitter"

    Kyle Boddy's approach when evaluating arms: pic.twitter.com/ZZWcJCshGC

    Taking a step back, it’s no surprise that Breslow had his sights set on Boddy. Both heavily emphasize the importance of velocity, with Breslow himself saying his development process starts with maximizing those ticks on the radar gun. In 2023, Cubs minor-league arms averaged the highest velocity across the minors and the second-best Stuff+, which is the pitch model heavily used in Driveline’s analysis process.

    In recent years, Driveline employees have infiltrated baseball in a number of ways, even inside the Red Sox organization. Director of Hitting Development and Program Design, Jason Ochart, Roving Complex Hitting Coach, John Soteropulos, and Coordinator for Player Development, David Besky, were all hired by Chaim Bloom. In the last week, Breslow hired JP Fasone as the new hitting coach for the Greenville Drive.

    While this won’t satisfy fans as they continue to starve for big name free agents or trades, this at least points to the Red Sox fixing some internal flaws. There’s no excuse for them to be wary of spending significant draft capital on pitching moving forward with all these minds coming together. Hopefully, this is just the start of more guys like Brayan Bello and Kutter Crawford emerging in the coming years.

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