BOSTON — There's an underlying notion that Larry
Lucchino undermined Ben Cherington in last year's managerial search.
While Lucchino encouraged Cherington to interview Bobby
Valentine for the position, Boston's brass contends all parties agreed with the
decision.
But entering this offseason, Cherington said he feels
empowered by ownership to spearhead the search without issue.
"I've always said I feel like I have the appropriate
amount of autonomy, which is to say not full autonomy and no GM does,"
Cherington said. "But there ought to be a strong involvement from
ownership on a major decision like this because we want whoever our next
manager is to succeed [and] he needs to have the support of all of us. We all
need to get behind him, so we all need to build consensus around someone that
we can do that with."
Cherington emphasized the importance of making a quick
decision. Last year, the interview process dragged all the way to December,
giving Valentine inadequate time to select his coaching staff.
Right now, Cherington plans to reach out to the team's
current coaching staff. Once the process is over, the general manager plans to
reach out to candidates and begin the interviewing process.
At this moment,
however, he hasn't established a deadline for the decision.
"I don't know what our timetable will be,"
Cherington said. "I know we'll work as hard as we can to find the right
person. Every organization is different. Every organization's decision-making
apparatus is a little bit different.
"I'm going to work, I'm going to spearhead the
search process and work with John [Henry], Tom [Werner] and Larry to find the
person that we can all get behind."
The pressure is on to make the right hire.
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