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CHAIM BLOOM HAS been reliving the negotiations with Xander Bogaerts in his head.

“There are a couple of regrets,” the chief baseball officer of the Boston Red Sox told ESPN a week after Bogaerts signed with the San Diego Padres.

When Bogaerts landed an 11-year, $280 million deal this month, the question among baseball executives and agents wasn’t whether Boston should have matched San Diego to re-sign its star shortstop, but why Bogaerts even got to free agency in the first place.

When Bloom signed Trevor Story to a six-year, $140 million contract before spring training last year, Bogaerts felt hopeful that an extension on his own contract might follow. One source close to Bogaerts said he would have seriously considered an extension similar to Story’s deal. Instead, the Red Sox offered Bogaerts an additional year and $30 million on top of the three years and $60 million left on his deal. For a player who helped bring championships to Boston in 2013 and 2018 and had grown into the team’s de facto captain, the offer felt like “a slap” according to a source close to Bogaerts.

Bloom and the Red Sox did not want to sign Bogaerts, who would turn 30 before the end of the season, to a contract that would take him into his late 30s and early 40s. But then Bogaerts posted the best season of his career in 2022 by bWAR — his 5.7 the best among all shortstops in baseball — while hitting .307/.377/.456 with 15 homers in 150 games. And when Trea Turner (4.9 bWAR in 2022) signed an 11-year, $300 million deal with the Philadelphia Phillies, the market for shortstops ballooned. Overnight, the price for Bogaerts doubled — and in the end, for what felt like the dozenth time this offseason, the Red Sox were outbid on a player they were pursuing, this one a beloved homegrown star.

Even with the signings of Masataka Yoshida and Justin Turner so far this offseason, two-last place finishes in three years (a span that also includes one American League Championship Series appearance) have elicited questions from fans who want answers not only about the team’s plan to win, but how a front office that preaches building around in-house talent could let go of two of the most accomplished homegrown stars in franchise history — Bogaerts and Mookie Betts, whom Bloom traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2020.

But when asked if there was anything in particular he regrets about the handling of Bogaerts, Bloom declined to share.

“I don’t want to elaborate,” Bloom said. “It’s more private. I don’t want to get into it.”


RED SOX PRESIDENT Sam Kennedy understands why fans are questioning the ownership group’s commitment to winning. As someone who grew up a few subway stops from Fenway Park, Kennedy constantly hears from his parents and the friends of his children about the team’s struggles in 2022.

“You want that passion,” Kennedy said. “You want the talk radio lines lit up.”

Since John Henry led Fenway Sports Group (then known as New England Sports Ventures) in 2001 to buy the Red Sox, the investment firm has grown into an international sports conglomerate that now owns Liverpool FC in the Premier League and the Pittsburgh Penguins of the NHL, with reports indicating Henry’s potential interest in bidding for the Washington Commanders, in addition to FSG partner LeBron James publicly indicating he wants an NBA team in Las Vegas. Kennedy said FSG targets sports teams tied to communities with deep emotional investments in their franchises — and that they spend to win.

But after missing out on Bogaerts, and finishing in second place in many other free agency sweepstakes, Red Sox fans are questioning the owners’ commitment to the team. In truth, those frustrations go all the way back to David Ortiz, who went year-to-year with the Red Sox during the last seasons of his career, and Jon Lester, who received a below-market extension offer in 2014 before being traded to the Oakland A’s.

Four years after trading Lester, Boston would win a World Series in 2018 after signing David Price to a seven-year, $217 million contract, trading a haul of top prospects for Chris Sale and Craig Kimbrel and locking up J.D. Martinez to a five-year, $110 million contract. And that, Kennedy believes, is the real difference in the fans’ responses to the departures of Betts and Bogaerts: the team’s last-place finish in the AL East in 2022.

“It gets frustrating and irritating when you hear [questions] about your commitment to winning,” Kennedy said. “All of our decisions we make are geared towards trying to win a World Series championship. We don’t get those questions when we’re winning.”

After their last World Series win, former president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski spent big to keep Sale, Martinez and Eovaldi, pushing Boston over the luxury tax threshold. When Betts then asked for a contract valued at $400 million, the Red Sox were unwilling to commit that amount of money, according to multiple league sources. Betts made it clear that he wanted to stay in Boston — he just would not give the team a hometown discount.

The ownership group fired Dombrowski before the end of the 2019 season, less than a year after winning the World Series, and mandated the team cut salary in order to reset the luxury tax penalties. In came Bloom — whom Boston hired from the Tampa Bay Rays — with a vision of creating a Dodgers-style of sustained success, spending big money on star players while consistently developing top prospects to fill out the lineup.

According to multiple sources, Boston’s ownership group did not mandate that Bloom trade Betts to get under the luxury tax. But that is what Bloom ultimately decided to do, with an eye toward increasing the Red Sox’s options in the future. The team traded Betts and Price to Los Angeles for Alex Verdugo, Jeter Downs and Connor Wong. And Betts eventually signed a 12-year, $365 million contract with the Dodgers — a deal he told ESPN in August that he would have accepted in Boston.

Just last week, the Red Sox designated Downs for assignment, admitting defeat on the prospect centerpiece of the Betts deal.

“Have we made wrong decisions in the past? Lots of them,” Kennedy said. “You can’t sit around regretting mistakes of the past. That’s not a good recipe. We respect Mookie and it’s a hard decision, but we’ve moved on.”

But for fans who were told that trading Betts was to create financial flexibility for the future, watching the team get outbid on Bogaerts was the last straw.

With Bogaerts’ production exceeding the team-friendly extension he signed in 2019, the All-Star shortstop planned to exercise the opt-out in his contract after the 2022 season, but he had hoped to play the rest of his career in Boston. He privately expressed to those close to him that he would be willing to eventually move to second or third base if necessary, but he was determined not to accept another team-friendly contract. Like Betts before him, Bogaerts wanted a deal more in line with his perceived value across the sport.

On last season’s Opening Day, Bogaerts expressed his disappointment in not getting an extension done with the Red Sox, and he played out the season knowing he would be a free agent at the end of it.

Bogaerts excelled in 2022, providing one of the few bright spots for a Red Sox team that finished 78-84 and at the bottom of an extremely competitive division. By the end of the season, both Bloom and Kennedy had publicly said signing Bogaerts was their top priority.

Before signing his first extension, Bogaerts told his agent, Scott Boras, that he wanted to stay in Boston. This time, though, he expressed a desire to explore free agency.

“I understand myself better,” Bogaerts told Boras. “I have more of a view of free agency. I want to look into it and see what’s available for me. I want to win, and I want to win now.”

San Diego significantly outbid Boston, and at Bogaerts’ introductory press conference on Dec. 9, he thanked the Padres for being “very straightforward” with him during negotiations.

Boras said Boston’s unwillingness to match the offer from the Padres stemmed from the organization’s evaluation of Bogaerts.

“I can only say that the market for Xander was very different from what their models said,” Boras told ESPN. “But that’s happened before.”

Executives around the sport see the same pattern emerging with Red Sox star third baseman Rafael Devers, who will be 26 at the start of the 2023 season, his last before he becomes an unrestricted free agent in 2024. According to multiple league sources, the Red Sox and Devers are “galaxies apart” in their contract negotiations. The current expectation from Devers and his camp is that the third baseman will be a free agent at the end of 2023, given the current state of contract talks.

Bloom said Boston will make every effort to keep Devers.

“We will probably, I think, go beyond reason to try to get this done,” Bloom said. “Hopefully we can get this done. There are always going to be limitations, like people can just put something plain out of reach. Some people love to bet on themselves and I hope he hits 63 homers if he does that.”


WHILE BOSTON DIDN’T break the bank to sign Bogaerts, the team has given out some large contracts this offseason, signing Japanese outfielder Yoshida to a five-year, $90 million contract while adding Kenley Jansen, Joely Rodriguez and Chris Martin to the bullpen. On Sunday night, the Red Sox also added Turner, a 38-year-old third baseman, on a two-year, $22 million deal. Bloom said the team aimed to add seven to nine players this offseason, and the Red Sox are continuing to explore trades. Additionally, the team is trying to sign players to contract extensions before they hit arbitration, similar to the four-year, $18.75 million contract they gave Garrett Whitlock in April.

If Kennedy is right, and a change in the team’s on-field fortunes will help the fan perception, Boston will need many things to go right that did not in 2022. Ace Chris Sale and center fielder Enrique Hernandez will need to stay healthy. Yoshida will need to produce immediately. Story will need to be more consistent at the plate. The Red Sox will need more contributions from players like Verdugo and Triston Casas, while the rotation will need to lean on Nick Pivetta, Whitlock, Tanner Houck, Brayan Bello and James Paxton, unless Boston adds another starting pitcher. The Red Sox will need to replace the offensive production of Bogaerts in the lineup and his clubhouse presence as a player who spoke both Spanish and English.

As the team builds the roster for 2023, some within the Red Sox front office have questioned Bloom’s decision-making process, team sources told ESPN. One front-office official said Bloom’s deliberate process toward making moves — asking many people for their input before making a decision — can put the Red Sox in a position to fall behind, reacting to other teams versus setting the market.

“I think we have a culture where people can and do express directly to me when they disagree with something,” Bloom said. “We have a lot of people in the loop on transactions that we make and we have a lot of really good debate. We have a place where people can share their opinion and have it be heard.”

Boras said during the negotiations on both Bogaerts and Yoshida that Bloom was “forthright and prepared.”

“Chaim has very defined structure and models that he does for player evaluation,” Boras said.

Executives from other teams question if Bloom can be decisive enough to make big moves to satisfy a rabid, impatient fan base, and whether the approach he built in Tampa will be aggressive enough for a market like Boston.

“I’m not sure how to respond to that,” Bloom said. “I certainly think we’ve made some large commitments in the time I’ve been here. For people who would’ve liked to have seen more, that’s their right. I think a lot of circumstances under which I joined the organization really precluded that for a period of time. I would argue we would’ve been worse off certainly prior to 2021 had we listened to people who wanted to see us make a splash instead of building a good baseball team.”

Boras said Bloom’s aggressiveness varied between Bogaerts and Yoshida.

“For Yoshida, they were very aggressive,” Boras said. “With Xander, they certainly did not meet the standards of what we expected them to do.”

Bloom hears the criticism from the fans, too. When asked about his job status, though, Bloom did not entertain the speculation, saying, “I don’t really worry about that.”

The pressure is on Boston to succeed, but both Bloom and Kennedy know one thing can change the minds of Red Sox fans and earn back their trust: winning.

“There was a lot of talk about our spending in 2022, there was not a lot of talk about our spending in 2021, which was about the same,” Kennedy said. “I think it goes with the wind. If you make the postseason, you’re not going to hear a lot about the spending. If we don’t win, it’s going to be we need to spend, we need to fix things, we need to get better. Winning solves everything.”

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Buffs coach: Stars ‘should be going 1-2’ in draft

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Buffs coach: Stars 'should be going 1-2' in draft

BOULDER, Colo. — For the horde of NFL talent evaluators and some bleachers full of fans, Colorado coach Deion Sanders said Friday that they all got to see the top two players available in this year’s NFL draft.

Quarterback Shedeur Sanders and Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter were among the 16 Colorado players who took part in the school’s showcase event for scouts, coaches and personnel executives from every NFL team. And Deion Sanders said the two marquee players confirmed what he has known for a long time.

“It’s tremendous,” Sanders said. “… They should be going 1-2 [in the draft], that’s the way I feel about it. They are the two best players in this draft. … The surest bets in this draft are those two young men, and I didn’t stutter or stammer when I said that.”

Neither Shedeur Sanders nor Hunter took part in most of the position drills or physical testing, but Sanders had a throwing session for just under an hour and Hunter was one of the wide receivers who participated. Neither player worked out at the scouting combine earlier this year, so it was the first time Sanders had thrown in such a setting since the end of the season. He showed some full seven-step drops and play-action from the shotgun and under center.

“I think I did pretty good, to my expectations,” said Sanders, who set the career FBS accuracy mark in his two years at Colorado (71.8%) to go with his 4,134 passing yards and 37 touchdowns last season. “I know I did the best in college football right now, for sure.”

Asked after the throwing session whether he believed he was the best quarterback in the draft, Sanders said: “I feel like I’m the No. 1 quarterback, and that’s what I know. But at the end of the day, I’m not stuck on that because it’s about the situation, so whatever situation, whatever franchise believes in me, I’m excited to go. … I’m comfortable in any situation.”

Players Hunter, who did not speak to the media after the workout, and Sanders met with the Cleveland Browns contingent, including team co-owner Jimmy Haslam, on Thursday night in Boulder.

“They got me really full,” Sanders said. “I definitely needed to go to the sauna after that. … It was a good vibe.”

Said Deion Sanders said: “[I] spoke to the owner, truly delightful. He was engaging. … I think one of those guys is going to be there [at No. 2].”

Hunter, the No. 1 player on Mel Kiper Jr.’s Big Board, did not do any defensive drills Friday, but he ran a full assortment of routes.

Colorado safety Shilo Sanders, Shedeur’s brother, offered plenty of encouragement, shouting commentary and clapping after each throw, including “not a lot of quarterbacks can make that throw” after one deep completion.

The highly attended event — by NFL representatives as well as fans packing small bleachers — had a festive atmosphere. Deion Sanders named it the “We Ain’t Hard 2 Find Showcase,” complete with a large lighted “The Showcase” sign next to the drills.

Hunter, who has said he wants to play offense and defense in the NFL, won the Chuck Bednarik (top defensive player) and Fred Biletnikoff (top receiver) awards in addition to the Heisman. He said whether he will primarily be a wide receiver or a cornerback in the NFL depends “on the team that picks me.”

On Friday, Deion Sanders said “ain’t nobody like Travis.”

Hunter had 96 catches for 1,258 yards and 15 touchdowns as a receiver last season to go with 35 tackles, 11 pass breakups and 4 interceptions at cornerback. In the Buffaloes’ regular-season finale against Oklahoma State, he became the only FBS player in the past 25 years with three scrimmage touchdowns on offense and an interception in the same game, according to ESPN Research.

He played 1,380 total snaps in Colorado’s 12 regular-season games: 670 on offense, 686 on defense and 24 on special teams. He played 1,007 total snaps in 2023.

Shilo Sanders, who hoped to show teams more speed than expected, ran a 4.52 40-yard dash after he measured in at 5-foot-11⅞, 196 pounds. He did not participate in the jumps or bench press that opened the workout, citing a right shoulder injury.

With all NFL eyes on the Colorado campus to see Shedeur Sanders throw, one player who made the most of it was wide receiver Will Sheppard. Sheppard, who measured 6-2¼, 196 pounds, ran the 40 in 4.56 and 4.54 to go with a 40½-inch vertical jump and a 10-foot-11 broad jump.

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O’s Henderson off IL; will make ’25 debut vs. KC

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O's Henderson off IL; will make '25 debut vs. KC

Baltimore Orioles All-Star shortstop Gunnar Henderson was activated from the 10-day injured list and will make his season debut Friday night against the Kansas City Royals.

Henderson has been sidelined with a right intercostal strain and missed the first seven games of the big league campaign.

The 23-year-old Henderson will lead off and play shortstop against the host Royals.

Henderson was injured during a spring training game Feb. 27. He was fourth in American League MVP voting last season when he batted .281 and racked up career bests of 37 homers and 92 RBIs.

Henderson completed a five-game rehab stint at Triple-A Norfolk on Wednesday. He batted .263 (5-for-19) with two homers and four RBIs and played four games at shortstop and one as the designated hitter. He did commit three errors.

“I think everybody’s looking forward to having Gunnar back on the team,” Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde said Thursday. “The rehab went really, really well. I talked to him a couple days ago, he feels great swinging the bat. The timing came, especially the last few days. He just had to get out there and get some reps defensively and get some games in, and it all went well.”

Baltimore optioned outfielder Dylan Carlson to Triple-A Norfolk to open up a roster spot. The 26-year-old was 0-for-4 with a run and RBI in two games this season.

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Life after OMG: Can 2025 Mets replicate their 2024 vibes?

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Life after OMG: Can 2025 Mets replicate their 2024 vibes?

When New York Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns attempted to assemble the best possible roster for the 2025 season this winter, the top priority was signing outfielder Juan Soto. Next was the need to replenish the starting rotation and bolster the bullpen. Then, days before pitchers and catchers reported for spring training, the lineup received one final significant reinforcement when first baseman Pete Alonso re-signed.

Acquiring a player with a singing career on the side didn’t make the cut.

“No, that is not on the list,” Stearns said with a smile.

Stearns’ decision not to re-sign Jose Iglesias, the infielder behind the mic for the viral 2024 Mets anthem “OMG,” was attributed to creating more roster flexibility. But it also hammered home a reality: The scrappy 2024 Mets, authors of a magical summer in Queens, are a thing of the past. The 2025 Mets, who will report to Citi Field for their home opener Friday, have much of the same core but also some prominent new faces — and the new, outsized expectations that come with falling two wins short of the World Series, then signing Soto to the richest contract in professional sports history.

But there’s a question surrounding this year’s team that you can’t put a price tag on: Can these Mets rekindle the magic — the vibes, the memes, the feel-good underdog story — that seemed to come out of nowhere to help carry them to Game 6 of the National League Championship Series last season?

“Last year the culture was created,” Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor said. “It’s a matter of continuing it.”

For all the success Stearns has engineered — his small-market Milwaukee Brewers teams reached the postseason five times in eight seasons after he became the youngest general manager in history in 2015 — the 40-year-old Harvard grad, like the rest of his front office peers knows there’s no precise recipe for clubhouse chemistry. There is no culture projection system. No Vibes Above Replacement.

“Culture is very important,” Stearns said last weekend in the visiting dugout at Daikin Park before his club completed an opening-weekend series against the Houston Astros. “Culture is also very difficult to predict.”

Still, it seems the Mets’ 2024 season will be all but impossible to recreate.

There was Grimace, the purple McDonald’s blob who spontaneously became the franchise’s unofficial mascot after throwing out a first pitch in June. “OMG,” performed under Iglesias’ stage name, Candelita, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Latin Digital Songs chart, before a remix featuring Pitbull was released in October. Citi Field became a karaoke bar whenever Lindor stepped into the batter’s box with The Temptations’ “My Girl” as his walk-up song. Alonso unveiled a lucky pumpkin in October. They were gimmicks that might have felt forced if they hadn’t felt so right.

“I don’t know if what we did last year could be replicated because it was such a chaos-filled group,” Mets reliever Ryne Stanek said. “I don’t know if that’s replicable because there’s just too many things going on. I don’t know if that’s a sustainable model. But I think the expectation of winning is really important. I think establishing what we did last year and coming into this year where people are like, ‘Oh, no, that’s what we’re expecting to do,’ makes it different. It’s always a different vibe whenever you feel like you’re the hunter versus being the hunted.”

For the first two months last season, the Mets were terrible hunters. Lindor was relentlessly booed at Citi Field during another slow start. The bullpen got crushed. The losses piled up. The Mets began the season 0-5 and sunk to rock bottom on May 29 when reliever Jorge Lopez threw his glove into the stands during a 10-3 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers that dropped the team to 22-33.

That night, the Mets held a players-only meeting. From there, perhaps coincidentally, everything changed. The Mets won the next day, and 67 of their final 107 games.

This year, to avoid an early malaise and to better incorporate new faces like Soto and Opening Day starter Clay Holmes, players made it a point to hold meetings during spring training to lay a strong foundation.

“At the end of the day, we know who we are and that’s the beauty of our club,” Alonso said. “Not just who we are talent-wise, but who each individual is as a man and a personality. For us, our major, major strength is our collective identity as a unit.”

Organizationally, the Mets are attempting a dual-track makeover: Becoming perennial World Series contenders while not taking themselves too seriously.

The commemorative purple Grimace seat installed at Citi Field in September — Section 302, Row 6, Seat 12 in right field — remains there as part of a two-year contract. Last week, the franchise announced it will feature a New York-city themed “Five Borough” race at every home game — with a different mascot competing to represent each borough. For a third straight season, USA Today readers voted Citi Field — home of the rainbow cookie egg roll, among many other innovative treats — as having the best ballpark food in baseball.

In the clubhouse, their identity is evolving.

“I’m very much in the camp that you can’t force things,” Mets starter Sean Manaea said. “I mean, you can, but you don’t really end up with good results. And if you wait for things to happen organically, then sometimes it can take too long. So, there’s like a nudging of sorts. It’s like, ‘Let’s kind of come up with something, but not force it.’ So there’s a fine balance there and you just got to wait and see what happens.”

Stearns believes it starts with what the Mets can control: bringing positive energy every day and fostering a family atmosphere. It’s hard to quantify, but vibes undoubtedly helped fuel the Mets’ 2024 success. It’ll be a tough act to follow.

“It’s fluid,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “I like where guys are at as far as the team chemistry goes and things like that and the connections and the relationships. But it’ll continue to take some time. And winning helps, clearly.”

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