Some news from Boston, all courtesy of WEEI.com's Alex Speier…
- In a radio interview with WEEI's The Big Show today (Speier has the transcript), Red Sox principal owner John Henry said he was fined $500K by Major League Baseball in 2009 for comments he made to the Boston Globe about baseball's revenue-sharing system. "The large markets are not allowed to give their opinions," Henry said today.
- The Sox may be able to afford a new addition at the trade deadline or during the season. "We might have a little space, but we don’t have a lot of space," Henry said. "This is a big payroll."
- Henry thinks Terry Francona and Theo Epstein will remain with the team for years to come, but didn't want to commit to exactly how long. "[Francona] has a tough job everyday over those seven months, trying to deal with a lot of pressure," Henry said. "Same issue with our general manager. Will our general manager agree to do this for another five, 10 years? These are tough, tough jobs."
- The extensive renovations done on Fenway Park will ensure the stadium can last for another 50 years, Henry predicts.
- In a separate piece, Speier looks at how Jon Lester has developed into "arguably the most important player on the team" for Boston.
I strongly believe that at this point in time Tito and Theo deserve to stay with the Sox as long as they want to.
Theo has said previously that he’s not in this for the long haul and would like to do other things with his life. The job is also exhausting for him and his son is already 3 and he probably sees much less of him than he’d like. I’d say maybe one more contract, if that, and then he’s gone.
Yea hes still young, probably wants to try other things.
However you play a part in bringing 2 rings to the red sox and break the curse, is there any way to top that?
3 rings?
Hmm, I’ve never perceived MLB to be a fine happy league. I mean, I know Ozzie get’s his share of fines because he just can’t not say things, but 500k to an owner talking? Seems steep. Although I guess those are the guys who can afford big fines.
It would be funnier/ironic to see a small market team owner get a monstrous fine complaining about something like a salary cap. (Not trying to take a stance on either side of this fence, just saying it would be kind of funny.)
Nah they’re too busy pocketing the luxury tax money to complain.
At the rate of America’s obesity, Fenway may stand for 50 more years, but the amount of seats it holds will be cut down haha.
Also, I wonder if that 500k also went to revenue sharing out of spite…
Part of it went to a massive-scale Twitter campaign to quietly dispel rumors that Bud Selig wears a toupee, and the rest went to pay the evil trolls that take turns wearing Bud Selig’s corpse and pandering to corrupt owners.
Lester’s been the rock of the red sox rotation the past few years, i imagine that the Red Sox will aproach him next offseason/spring about a new extention like the rockies did with tulo.
supremely unlikely. he’s locked up through 2014 and as foolish as the tulowitzki deal was, a deal like it would be even worse for a starting pitcher
i would say youkilis is the most important person on the sox. i don’t have anything statistical to base that statement off of really, just an opinion. not to take anything away from lester though, he is outstanding.
He got fined for saying that?? Thats just ridiculous…
if the owners of big market team despise revenue sharing so much, why not move indians and pirates to boston and reds, rays, a’s and padres to new york? a little greed can go a long way to ruin the whole league.
It’s not teams like the Reds, Rays and Padres that are the problem. If you read the rest of the article, he’s specifically citing that about a billion in revenue sharing has gone to teams that are perennial losers. He’s talking about teams like the Marlins or Pirates who have been caught red handed funneling most of their profit sharing into the owners’ pockets rather than into the team.
The Rays are fine. A low budget is fine if you’re obviously making an effort. What the league doesn’t need is teams who are content to survive off of revenue sharing rather than even attempt to put a worthwhile product on the field.
Cheap owners and fair weather fans can ruin the league a lot quicker! Maybe contraction of these 4-6 teams would solve the problem and make for a better on-field product. You sound both petty and bitter here!
Contraction of these 6 teams would work better as the on- field product would improve and we would be free of these cheap owners and fair-weather fans! You sound both petty and bitter here I must say! Sad!
IMO, I would love to see Tito around for another 10-15 years. That may be a stretch because he has some healthy issues, but if he can do it, I would love to see it.
Revenue sharing is a joke. The system needs a major overhaul. Some small market teams are annually cheap while their owners roll around in beds of cash.
There needs to be a percentage of revenue sharing assigned to roster positions. Fans of these small market teams deserve better.