This article by Beth Healy at Boston.com isn’t good news.
Healy‘s article details that principal Boston Red Sox‘ owner John Henry “has shut down his investment firm in Florida after a period of poor performance.”
In Healy‘s report it states about the firm: “its assets have declined from more than $2.5 billion to less than $100 million.”
Wow. That doesn’t bode well for people like me that were expecting an interesting winter of Hot Stove action.
This story immediately lends credence to the report from Charlie Gasparino at the Fox Business website that the Boston Red Sox are potentially for sale.
And it also puts into question the Red Sox trade with the Los Angeles Dodgers last summer where the Red Sox traded Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto in order to remove over $262 million from their payroll.
At the time, the trade was viewed as a chance for Boston to reset its roster and get out from underneath the contracts of Crawford and Beckett and a team that wasn’t winning.
Now? Maybe the Red Sox saw this coming and knew they couldn’t afford a $175 million dollar payroll anymore. Maybe the Red Sox have spread themselves too thin between all of their investments.
Maybe it was simply a salary dump that was hidden inside all of the Bobby Valentine drama.
The biggest concern is whether this will impact the Red Sox’ ability to put a competitive team on the field next season.
Will they spend for free-agents and assume larger contracts from other teams as had been anticipated this offseason? Will they be able to climb out of the cellar next season?
We’ll find out if they are in the mix to sign players like Mike Napoli, Hiroki Kuroda and Torii Hunter.
If the Red Sox end up being bystanders this offseason, we’ll know that the financial problems are more than Red Sox’ ownership has let on.
If that happens, all of the goodwill that started with firing Bobby Valentine, hiring John Farrell, resigning David Ortiz and the generally pro-active approach of general manager Ben Cherington will go by the wayside.
Its enough to put a chill on all of the Hot Stove talk.
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