Hurley: Red Sox Town Hall with John Henry, Chaim Bloom, Sam Kennedy was a tough watch

BOSTON -- When John Henry, Sam Kennedy and Chaim Bloom gathered to take the stage at Winter Weekend in Springfield, they likely anticipated some pushback from fans who remain a bit stung by the last-place finish and the loss of Xander Bogaerts. A jeer here or there, a moment of discomfort perhaps, but nothing overwhelming.

What they got, as you know, was a relentless pounding of boos and shouts from a crowd of die-hard Red Sox fans who paid $95 just to be there. Instead of a positive, celebratory night among fans, the evening took on a "Showtime At The Apollo" vibe. It didn't go too well for the principals involved. 

Videos of that crowd reaction went viral immediately on Friday night, while the event was taking place. On Monday night, though, the session aired on NESN.

And though at least two moments stood out as having some choppy cuts to presumably edit out some of the worst moments -- John Henry's "It's expensive to have baseball players" line didn't air, for example -- the broadcast version couldn't hide all of the reactions from the fans in attendance at the MassMutual Center.

 After sitting through the slightly sanitized but not overly edited discussion, here's what stood out the most.

--Chaim Bloom picked an odd time to take a victory lap. The chief baseball officer (a real title) was seemingly prepared for some negativity from the crowd, and to combat that wave, he prepared a speech of sorts. That speech essentially focused on where the organization was when he took over in 2019, and where the organization is now.

"Well hold on, hold on, hold on," a smiling Bloom told the booing crowd. "Let's talk about this. Last time I was sitting up here was three years ago. So where was the organization three years ago? The organization was coming off an 84-win season. That team had shown in 2019 [that it] had good players, but the team wasn't good enough. There wasn't a whole heck of a lot coming. You guys know that. You follow this organization? You know there wasn't a whole lot coming. So we had two choices, right? We could keep going. We could drive right off that cliff. You guys have seen big market teams do it before and end up rebuilding for half a decade. That's not acceptable. That's not acceptable to you guys. That can't happen in Boston. So what we had to do was find a way to turn that car around before we drove off the cliff."

The message was clear: Dave Dombrowski depleted the Red Sox' farm system, I was brought in to build it up, now all of my prospects will be coming up to save the day, you're welcome.

Considering the Red Sox are coming off a 78-win season (worse than 2019, for you mathematicians out there), and considering two of Boston's top three prospects joined the organization under Dombrowski's watch, it's a bold stance for Bloom to take.

--Chaim Bloom should also not pursue a career in standup comedy. At one point during his 4:15 speech, Bloom decided to try to work in some wordplay. It flopped.

Without naming Mookie Betts, Bloom repeatedly used the word "bets" to describe the organization's approach to Betts -- an approach which obviously led to a trade with a rather unsatisfactory return.

"We didn't sign him because when you make those bets, they're big bets," Bloom said, pausing for what he likely hoped would be chuckles but were instead angry shouts. "And those bets -- hang with me here, hang with me here -- those bets, those bets usually now -- y'all know it. You guys are smart. Those bets are much better up front than on the back end. We know that, every team knows that when they're making those bets. But if you want to make that type of bet, you better be ready to back it up. You better be ready to surround that bet with a whole lot of talent, a whole lot of young talent, or you're not going to win. And you see it all the time in this game. You see it all the time. And I don't think anybody would disagree, where the organization was, we just weren't ready to back up that bet."

Fans really weren't in the mood for the cutesy dancing around letting one of the best players in baseball -- a homegrown talent who had won a World Series and an MVP with the Red Sox -- leave town.

--Somehow, Bloom made that spiel even worse.

"We made the move that we made with Mookie and we got Alex Verdugo," Bloom said, leaving out the Jeter Downs and Connor Wong portion of the return. "And we took all the resources that the organization provides us, and we added -- after we had 2020 -- we added Kiké Hernandez, we added Hunter Renfroe, we added Adam Ottavino, we added Garrett Richards. We did all those things. We built that team the right way. And with [Alex Cora's] leadership, we almost got to the World Series."

Alex Verdugo? He was good in 2020 but his numbers have dropped in each of the past two years.

Garrett Richards? He was a fourth/fifth starter on a team that had three such pitchers.

Hunter Renfroe? He was a value add who pounded 31 home runs and gunned down 16 base runners from the outfield. Bloom then traded him to the Brewers, acquiring a lesser player (Jackie Bradley Jr., who ended up getting DFA'd) and a couple of prospects who aren't considered top tier.

--Almost getting to the World Series in 2021 is considered an accomplishment. Or at least that's what Kennedy and Bloom tried to sell.

Multiple times, they referenced how close the Red Sox came to reaching the World Series in 2021, which is certainly factual. The Red Sox had a 2-1 series lead over the Astros and a 2-1 lead in the eighth inning of Game 4. But Jose Altuve hit a bomb (off Garrett Whitlock, who to be fair, has been one of Bloom's best acquisitions) in the top of the eighth, and the Astros plated seven runners in the ninth, en route to outscoring Boston 22-1 over the final 20 innings of that series.

The Red Sox were, technically, "close" to reaching the World Series. But for an organization that has always been championship-driven, it doesn't seem like a reason to feel overly positive about the state of the team. (Throw in the crazy ground-rule double the Red Sox benefited from in the ALDS, Kiké Hernandez hitting almost .500 for most of the playoffs, the run of grand slams, and the whole run was more of a fluke than it was evidence of a sustainable performance.)

--John Henry doesn't really care to answer questions. Multiple times, the team's principal owner was asked a question by either Tom Caron or Jared Carrabis. Multiple times, Henry would gesture, make a face, and then allow Kennedy to answer the question for him. Only when pushed by Caron to specifically answer a question on his own did Henry actually chime in.

It certainly won't help in building goodwill and trust among the fan base. While nobody denies the greatness of this ownership group delivering four World Series titles, there's still some genuine concern that Henry doesn't care about the Red Sox as much as he used to. With Liverpool, the Penguins, the racing team, and the desire to add an NBA team, the Fenway Sports Group is ever-growing. That has created the perception -- accurate, wrong, or somewhere in the middle -- that Henry is less focused on the Red Sox.

Yet when asked that question directly by Carrabis, Henry actually laughed, then faced the crowd while shrugging, then checked his watch.

Kennedy then put on a wide grin while explaining that the Red Sox have won four World Series championships during this ownership's tenure.

 "These questions will come up -- are you committed? -- at a period of time when you finish last in the American League East. Those questions didn't come up in 2021 when we were two games from going to the World Series," Kennedy said while suppressing a guffaw. "So we recognize that and it's our job to go out, compete in the American League East, and those questions will evaporate, I guarantee you."

The last part is certainly true. It's more a question of whether a team coming off a last-place finish that made minimal improvements is positioned to actually compete in the AL East.

--Whatever they're paying Alex Cora, they should double it. While Henry, Kennedy and Bloom were hit with boos and derision at every turn, Alex Cora was a human shield for that scorn. Every time Cora spoke, the fans cheered. At times, Cora spoke at length, seemingly sensing that every second he spent uttering words into a microphone was one second that the paying customers weren't booing his boss. Cora was and is actually able to accomplish what Kennedy hopes to accomplish when speaking in that setting, and it probably comes from the years of trust that Cora has established with the fan base in a uniformed capacity.

--The bottom line? Well, the season begins on March 30. Henry, Kennedy, and the rest of the front office better hope it starts out well for the team on the field. The fans who paid good money to voice their frustrations on Friday night made it clear that they've reached a breaking point. And while Kennedy's explanations may play a certain way on radio interviews or in press conferences, the fans made it quite clear that they're just not buying it. As a result, if they decide to not buy as many tickets or Fenway Franks in the upcoming season, management will surely receive the rest of the message that began its transmission on Friday night.

Fans want commitment and at least a smidge of transparency and honesty from the leaders of the team that means very much to them all. That commitment was undoubtedly there for the first decade of ownership's run, but for a while -- ever since lowballing Jon Lester in the spring of 2014 and trading him away later that year, if you were looking for a flash point -- the trust has been slowly eroding.

Whether or not that will inspire management to run the team differently, we will ultimately see. Yet from Theo Epstein to Ben Cherington to Dave Dombrowski to Chaim Bloom, the team has shown a willingness and eagerness to pivot its strategy based on current circumstances. The upcoming 2023 season -- and even just the first six to eight weeks of that season -- could be a make-or-break point for the current approach.