Outfielder Alex Verdugo is preparing to face the Boston Red Sox for the first time as an opponent later this week, and he has only one real complaint about his tenure with the team.
Now with the New York Yankees after an offseason trade, Verdugo had plenty of praise for his former organization. However, he said in a new interview that he wished former GM Chaim Bloom had more aggressively tried to improve the team while he was playing there.
“When you’re winning in Boston, those fans and everything, it feels special out there,” Verdugo said, via Chris Cotillo of Mass Live. “2021 was my favorite year. The other years were good but it just felt like we were fighting a little bit. We didn’t have the pieces that we needed. To not get them at the trade deadlines was a little bit tougher, too.
“I think they were trying to play the long game or re-amp the minor leagues, get some new prospects in. It would have been nice to see a little bit more initiative when I was there, just to try to force winning. But that organization is great. They’ve won for a long time and a lot of times. They have a process. They know what they’re doing.”
There was a great deal of talk about a rift between Verdugo and Red Sox manager Alex Cora, but Verdugo downplayed that and had nothing negative to say about his former manager. His real issue was simply that he felt the team could have been improved more than it actually was during his tenure.
The Red Sox acquired Verdugo prior to the 2020 season as part of the return for Mookie Betts. They made the playoffs just once in his four seasons there, finishing last in the AL East on the other three occasions.
Verdugo is not the only ex-Red Sox player who did not approve of the job Bloom did as GM. On the other hand, that same player is also no fan of Verdugo’s, so it might not be much common ground after all.
