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KGMZ-FM / 95.7 THE GAME
  • 6/19/2025
Transcript
00:00Let's go out to the River Island's guest line.
00:02I want a lot more on this because apparently Chris Cotillo,
00:05Red Sox beat writer, masslive.com,
00:08he has been covering baseball for years.
00:10He's at the park and just left the dugout in order to have this conversation with us.
00:16So, Chris, hello, welcome, and thank you so much for doing it.
00:20I'm happy to.
00:21I like being called a beast writer.
00:23That's nice and beat.
00:23You know what?
00:24Let's stick with it.
00:25Can we do that for the rest of the conversation?
00:26That sounds great.
00:27All right.
00:27That's awesome to me.
00:28Chris Cotillo, beast writer, masslive.com on Willard and Dibbs.
00:32We're going with it, Chris.
00:35Sounds good.
00:35All right.
00:36All right.
00:36Okay.
00:37What do you know?
00:38What do you know here?
00:39And I almost feel like asking you because it seems like it's being pitched to us this way out of Boston.
00:44Whose side are you on, Rafi or the Sox?
00:47Yeah, I'll give you the cop-out and say that I really do see both sides of this one,
00:51and I think the Red Sox were not good with their communication from the jump with Rafi on this situation.
00:56As I wrote yesterday, you know, it wasn't that Rafi never wanted to play cross-base,
01:01or he never wanted to be the DH, or he never was going to move.
01:04It's that if they were up front about it with him, he probably would have done it,
01:07and he probably would have been good with it from the start.
01:09But his camp contends that they called and said, hey, don't believe the hype.
01:15We're not going to sign Arenado.
01:16We're not going to acquire Bregman.
01:18We're not going to flip those, trade for Arenado or sign Bregman, and you're our third baseman.
01:23You'll be fine, and then he gets to spring training, and they obviously bring in Bregman,
01:27and they call him into the office and say, we need you to DH.
01:30And he didn't like that.
01:31He didn't like that they were not up front with him, and that's where everything really went sideways.
01:35And by the time they asked him to play first base in May, he said, nope, you guys moved me once.
01:39You told me to put my glove away.
01:41You know, screw.
01:41And you don't see players do that very often.
01:45You can argue all day that it was not the best thing you could do for the team.
01:49I would absolutely say that, watching the options they had at first, watching, you know,
01:54kind of the dark cloud that was brought over the Red Sox.
01:56But in a way, they brought it upon themselves.
01:58So knowing Rafi for as long as I have, covering him for the last seven, eight years,
02:02he is not a bad teammate.
02:04He is not a bad guy.
02:05He's a very happy-go-lucky guy who likes being kind of a running mate, kind of a secondary guy in the clubhouse
02:11and all that type of stuff.
02:13In this situation, I think there's fault to be had on both sides.
02:17How did this devolve into a breakup so quickly where the owner has an alleged meeting with Devers,
02:24and then at that point it's untenable, and then he gets shipped out?
02:27Just how bad did that meeting go?
02:30Yeah, that's a great question.
02:31That's one that still really hasn't been answered.
02:33In Red Sox world, oftentimes the people making the decisions don't have to speak for those decisions,
02:39and that is a battle we fight every single day.
02:42John Henry hasn't spoken to the media since the Mookie Betts trade in early 2020,
02:47which is ridiculous and insane, of course.
02:50He was the one in that meeting with Rafi Devers.
02:52Craig Breslow was not in that meeting, which I don't know why, in Kansas City,
02:56but then Breslow had to explain to us how candid and productive it was without having been in there.
03:02So I've always said, you know, Breslow must have had his ear pressed against the door trying to figure out
03:07what was being said between Henry and Devers.
03:10Devers that night and in the subsequent weeks didn't want to talk about it at all.
03:13But, I mean, the only thing we can possibly guess now is that he told them, no, I'm not doing it.
03:19And when the owner tells you, hey, we have designs on competing.
03:23I just spent all this money on Alex Bregman.
03:25I just gave up the farm to get Crochet, extended him, signed Walker Buehler, Chapman,
03:30signed a bunch of these young guys to extensions.
03:32The big three prospects in Anthony Meyer and Campbell are coming up.
03:36We're going to go all in, and we need you to play first.
03:39And you tell the principal owner who's signing your $313 million contract, no, figure it out,
03:44go do your job and find someone else.
03:47At a certain point, that's going to get to a point that it's an unfixable situation.
03:52And I think from that point on, it didn't get better.
03:56They were hoping that maybe Rafi would come to them a couple weeks later and say,
03:59hey, you know what, enough with Abraham Toro and enough with Romy Gonzalez playing first.
04:03I'll start taking grounders.
04:05It didn't happen.
04:05And on Sunday night, he found himself on a plane here.
04:08Chris Cotillo is with us.
04:10MassLive.com.
04:12Red Sox beast writer is what we're going with today.
04:15With Chris here on Willard and Dibs 95-7, the game.
04:19Chris, this probably won't surprise you.
04:21This is a little bit foreign of an idea, maybe to the Bay Area fan base,
04:25the fact that you cover the Red Sox and the Red Sox went to Seattle, but you came here.
04:31Like, I'm interested in that dynamic.
04:34What is the reason for that?
04:36What does that say about what Red Sox fans are feeling about Rafi Devers right now?
04:41Yeah, I mean, it was a – they're on a 10-game West Coast swing.
04:47They just had three in Seattle.
04:48They'll play three here over the weekend.
04:50And then three in Anaheim.
04:51And I was not on any part of the trip.
04:53We had three guys from MassLive to cover the team.
04:55Chris Smith was in Seattle for us.
04:57Sean McAdam was doing San Francisco and Anaheim on the two back legs of the trip.
05:02And I was going to go to the AAA team in Worcester about 20 minutes down the road
05:06and write some features and have a slow week.
05:08That did not happen.
05:10When this happened on Sunday, we talked and basically said,
05:12this is a huge story.
05:14We need somebody to be at Devers' press conference.
05:16So I get on a flight Monday night, as did Pete Abraham from the Boston Globe.
05:20And the two of us are going to spend the week because they're here on Friday anyway.
05:25So we'll have Devers against the Red Sox on Friday, and I'll cover that
05:29and then head home, and Sean will cover it for us this weekend.
05:31But, you know, this is not something I don't know.
05:33I don't know if we would have done it, you know, in a lot of circumstances.
05:38But just, you know, the magnitude of this divorce, I think, is really what speaks to us.
05:44This trade is not about the money.
05:46It's not about Kyle Harrison, Jordan Hicks, James Tibbs.
05:49It's not about, you know, in Boston, obviously, the Giants getting the big bat.
05:53It's about the Red Sox, you know, having a horrible, messy divorce with a star player
05:58and one they gave the biggest contract in franchise history two years ago.
06:02And I think it's a huge, huge, huge indictment on the organization,
06:06the dysfunction within it, all that type of stuff.
06:08And, you know, the goal here is to get Devers' side.
06:11We haven't been able to do that yet.
06:12He didn't say much about the Red Sox yesterday.
06:14But, you know, that's why we're staking out in the dugout.
06:17Well, and, Chris, I wonder what your reaction is to that press conference.
06:21Did it surprise you that he landed and said all the things to the Giants
06:26that he wouldn't say to the Red Sox?
06:28It was in a lot of ways, and I'll explain why he did what he did.
06:34It was the verbal equivalent of a middle finger to the Red Sox yesterday.
06:37I don't think there's any other way you can possibly imagine that or interpret it.
06:41I don't think it's exaggeration to say that.
06:43I think people back home were absolutely stunned.
06:46And I think even those who were, like, on the Devers' side of things, Red Sox fans,
06:51I think he lost a lot of them by saying,
06:54they're the men in charge, I'll do whatever it takes.
06:56But, as I said before, it's not that he wasn't unwilling to do first or DH
07:01or whatever they asked him.
07:02It's that he got here, and the Giants have never promised him
07:05he'll be the third baseman of the future.
07:07And the Giants didn't tell him over the offseason
07:09that they were not trying to sign Bregman or get Aaron out of him.
07:12The Giants and him have a clean slate.
07:14And so when he comes in and he sits down with Posey and Melvin
07:17and everybody yesterday, they say, hey, we'd like you to play first.
07:20And he says, all right, I don't know you guys, but I'll trust you, sure.
07:23We don't have any background or any history.
07:25If that's what you need, I'll do it.
07:26And I also think, you know, there's probably a tiny bit of self-reflection on,
07:33all right, you know, like, that ended so badly.
07:35Maybe here, I'm not in a negotiating place.
07:38I'm not in a place of power to, you know, make a stand.
07:41Obviously, it's a horrible first impression for a team
07:44that just took on $250 million of your contract
07:47to come in and limit where you're going to play positionally.
07:50So I think Red Sox fans and the Red Sox at large
07:53are looking at that and shaking their heads
07:54just because he was so unwilling and so inflexible with them.
07:58Again, it's in communication.
08:00I had somebody very close to him yesterday say,
08:02it's not what you ask, it's how you ask it.
08:04And how the Red Sox asked him over and over and over
08:07and the way they communicated with him was the reason it got so bad.
08:10So do you think that that press conference yesterday
08:12will sway a lot of the fans who maybe were down on the franchise
08:16for letting him go and now perhaps the fan anger
08:19might be directed more at Devers?
08:22No, Boston fans have the capacity to be pissed off at everybody
08:24at the same time.
08:26They're going to do that, and I think they already have.
08:29And, of course, those of us who cover the team
08:31for conveying the messages too.
08:33So, you know, I think, you know,
08:34I think you can be mad at the Red Sox for not communicating well.
08:38You can be mad at Devers for, you know,
08:41the inflexibility and then rubbing it in
08:43by playing first base immediately here.
08:45And if he gets ready in three days
08:46and plays first base on Friday night against them,
08:48it's like, you've got to be kidding me.
08:50They're in the eyes of Red Sox fans.
08:51And I think that's a fair take.
08:53The overarching theme to me is
08:54they can't keep having dysfunction in the organization
08:58where they, you know,
08:59they don't have enough financial flexibility
09:01as a big market team,
09:02so they trade Mookie Betts for nothing.
09:03Or they, you know, let Sandra Bogarts walk
09:06when they could have had him on a bargain deal
09:07or all these other things
09:08that have happened over the last few years.
09:10It's just, you know,
09:11three general managers in the last 12 years.
09:13And when they hired Breslau,
09:14they had 15 people turn them down for interviews.
09:17Like, it's the Boston Red Sox.
09:18You've got to be better.
09:19And I think that's where the real anger from fans lies.
09:21But there's plenty to go around for Rafi still too.
09:24What's the impression of what
09:25the Boston Red Sox got back in this trade?
09:28And is there a sense that, you know,
09:30they probably should have waited a little bit longer
09:32to get more of a haul for this player?
09:34Yeah, I mean, I think fans are not happy
09:37with before they got, you know,
09:39the report yesterday they wanted Eldridge.
09:41He would have fit them in a lot of ways.
09:42They have really, as kind of dysfunctional as they are,
09:45they have theoretically long-term solutions
09:47at a lot of spots
09:48because they have a lot of prospects just coming up
09:50and too many outfielders.
09:52And they have, you know,
09:53Meyer and Campbell as infielders who are rookies.
09:56First base is a place where they could use some help
09:58because Kristen Koss has just had a gruesome knee injury.
10:00And it's kind of questionable
10:01if he'll ever be, you know,
10:03a guy who can play full-time again,
10:04as young as he is.
10:05So Eldridge would have been perfect.
10:07That's what they wanted at the beginning,
10:08according to reports yesterday.
10:10They didn't get him,
10:11so they got the package that they did.
10:12I think fans look at it and say,
10:14that's it, that's all you've got for Rafi.
10:15But I think the way you have to look at it is this.
10:18In the trade for the Red Sox,
10:19they got five players back.
10:21Player A is $255 million of payroll flexibility.
10:25And then the other four guys are what they are
10:28as kind of B, C, D, and E in that deal.
10:31And now you can't judge the full return
10:33until they spend that money.
10:35If they don't, it's organizational malpractice
10:38and they should fire everybody.
10:39But we'll see how they do it,
10:41whether it's they go on the trade deadline
10:42and they take on another big deal from a team
10:45that's, you know, willing to make another
10:47seismic move similar to this one,
10:48whether it's they give a big extension to Bregman.
10:51Remember, his deal is really a one-year,
10:53you know, $40 million deal deferred with opt-outs.
10:56Maybe they get to July 31st
10:58and there's a big star on another team who's available
11:00and they're able to take that on.
11:02They need to.
11:03They have the flexibility to do that now.
11:06So, you know, how they fill,
11:08not necessarily Devers' spot in the lineup,
11:10but the commitment in terms of dollars,
11:12I think will really be the story of what they got back.
11:14Plus, you know, I think they do think
11:15Harrison has some upside.
11:17Hicks is the guy they wanted to sign
11:18before he came here anyway.
11:20And then Tibbs, you know,
11:21the first-round pick last year,
11:22get him in the organization, see what you have.
11:24Chris Cotillo is with us.
11:26He's at the ballpark, getting ready for the game tonight.
11:29MassLive.com, covering the Sox.
11:31We appreciate him here on Willard and Dibbs.
11:3395-7, the game.
11:34Chris, one thing we haven't gotten,
11:36and I don't think we ever will,
11:38are the thoughts from inside the Red Sox clubhouse.
11:42And here's why that's important to me.
11:43It feels like a little bit of a smear campaign has gone on,
11:47and now you're starting to hear,
11:48oh, actually, Rafi was a bad clubhouse guy.
11:51This was a cancer to the team.
11:54And I figure the only way we really would know that
11:56is if that's how the other players felt.
11:58So here's a question that I wanted to throw at you.
12:02And let's use the Sox' best pitcher.
12:04Garrett Crochet, you give him a baseball
12:06and send him out to the mound.
12:08You put Devers in the left-handed batter's box,
12:11and you put John Henry in the right-handed batter's box.
12:15Which one is he throwing at?
12:17Raphael Devers didn't just give Garrett Crochet $170 million a month ago.
12:23So by default, I think Devers probably gets it.
12:26But to answer the question, I mean,
12:27I don't think that Devers was disliked, hated, any of that.
12:32I think that it was unquestionably –
12:35I'm not going to call it a dark cloud.
12:37Let's call it a gray cloud that lingered over
12:39and was kind of the elephant in the room in a lot of ways there
12:42where something was amiss.
12:44That's the phrase that Craig Breswell used the other day
12:47where you have this Raffi question and all the drama
12:50and is the team on the same page as their best player?
12:53It was weighing on guys in whatever way it was.
12:57I heard from some players who said,
12:59I stand with Raffi.
13:00They kind of screwed him over.
13:02They jerked him around.
13:02They shouldn't have done it the way they did.
13:04Other players were giving him the side eye and saying,
13:06hey, we need you to play first.
13:09What are you doing?
13:10Pick up a glove.
13:10We can't have these guys who are out there doing that every day
13:13when you could definitely do it.
13:14So I think there is guys on both sides of it.
13:18It's not like any of them are going to go on the record with it
13:20because you're either ripping your team or your teammate.
13:23I wish they would.
13:24That would be great for business,
13:25but it just wasn't the case over the last couple weeks
13:27or a couple months.
13:29I think the one thing that the Red Sox have said
13:33and the one thing that they're big on
13:35in terms of getting the message out the last three days
13:37is they didn't want what they think are three blue-chip players
13:41and maybe more than that.
13:42They have four rookies in the starting lineup.
13:44Right now the catcher, the third baseman,
13:46the second baseman, and the right fielder,
13:48including some very blue-chip prospects.
13:50They didn't want those guys coming up in an environment
13:53where they looked around and said,
13:56yeah, this is okay.
13:57You can disobey and you can just do what you want.
14:00You get your big deal and you run to the beat of your own drum.
14:02But was Raffi going around to those guys
14:04and poisoning the well and telling them,
14:06hey, screw the Red Sox, watch out for yourself,
14:10never trust these guys, anything like that?
14:13I have my doubts about that.
14:15There's been a little reporting about that,
14:16and I have my doubts about that reporting too
14:18for various reasons.
14:19But I do think that they didn't want those guys
14:21coming up in this environment where things were off
14:24and they felt like they were walking on eggshells
14:27because Devers was a sourpush,
14:29as Ken Rosenthal put it yesterday,
14:30and he was running to the beat of his own drum
14:33and not doing what was best for the team.
14:35And so they cleared him out.
14:36I think this was about the divorce more than anything.
14:40As I said, the return secondary, the money secondary,
14:42every other piece of it.
14:44And the Red Sox, to their credit,
14:45they won two out of three this week
14:47with a lineup that looks terrible on paper in Seattle.
14:51I think there's some guys that are probably like,
14:53I can't believe they traded our best player in June 15th
14:58after we just got on a really good run
15:00and had a really good week.
15:00And swept the Yankees.
15:02I think there's other guys who say,
15:03well, you know, we can relax a little bit.
15:06We don't have this hovering over us anymore.
15:07So I think it's probably a split camp.
15:09Chris, what is your take on the way Buster Posey
15:13and the Giants played this whole thing
15:16in terms of holding on to Eldridge
15:18and the player they just got in Rafi?
15:20It's what big market teams do.
15:23You know, taking a risk and taking on a big deal.
15:27It's kind of basically a free agent deal
15:30where the guy didn't have to agree.
15:32Obviously, there's been some issues, you know,
15:33landing that high-paid player here.
15:36And that's been well documented, obviously.
15:38They've obviously gotten a couple high-paid players here
15:40in the last couple of years.
15:41But, you know, I think it's one of those things
15:45where, you know, he is a guy that is going to hit
15:49no matter what.
15:50And you can really kind of pencil him in
15:52and know he's going to do that
15:53no matter what's going on.
15:54And to his credit, with all this stuff going on
15:57and with all the drama and everything happening,
15:59he had a 905 OPS and led baseball in walks
16:02and was having a really good year before he got traded.
16:05And so, you know, I think that it's what big market teams do.
16:10They took a risk.
16:11And they were able to kind of, I think, in a way,
16:13capitalize on, you know, the Red Sox misfortunes here
16:16where, you know, if you're a Giants fan,
16:19you can, I always say fans shouldn't be mad about,
16:22you know, owners spending money.
16:24If there's enough of it, they'll figure it out.
16:26You know, I don't think Giants fans are too beat up
16:28about the four guys that were traded, right?
16:30Like, that just seems to be,
16:31if Red Sox fans aren't happy about them,
16:33I'd expect it would be, you know,
16:35the shoe on the other foot.
16:37And from everything I've seen,
16:38it looks like a great fit in the middle of that lineup.
16:40So he's going to hit.
16:41He's going to be good.
16:42People are going to like him.
16:44I think they capitalized on the fact
16:45that the Red Sox were in a tough spot.
16:47But, you know, this trade has a chance
16:49to be a win-win for both teams in the end.
16:51Chris, great to have you, man.
16:52Thank you for the time, for jumping in.
16:55You truly are a beast rider.
16:57I appreciate it.
16:59All right, there he goes.
17:00Chris Cotillo, MassLive.com,
17:02I'm covering the Sox.