The Red Sox are back to their winning ways this season after a 2012 season to forget, and Red Sox owner John Henry said it has to do with the team returning to its championship roots during an interview with WEEI’s Mut and Merloni on Thursday.
This offseason, Boston general manager Ben Cherington focused on adding solid free-agent players like Ryan Dempster and Mike Napoli to improve the team’s overall depth without spending top dollar for a more high-profile player. This return to a focus on depth, along with a more patient approach at the plate and an attack-first mentality from pitchers has helped Boston tremendously, Henry says.
“The way we look at it, we took a certain turn back in 2008 away from our core philosophy,” Henry said. “I would say in May of last year we decided that we — there was some emphasis that we needed to get back to that.”
He later added, “We needed greater depth. In order to have greater depth, you can’t necessarily go out and spend — go after Josh Hamilton, for instance, and spend $25 million on one player. You spend $100 million on four players and it makes it difficult to have depth. Every team has to rely on staying healthy to one degree or another. But I think every team has a tendency to underestimate how much depth means.”
He also credited Cherington and new manager John Farrell with helping to spur the turnaround this season.
