Bobby Valentine had a tumultuous first season in Boston, a season that could end up being his only one as Red Sox manager.
He confirmed Wednesday what many had suspected — that he had problems with his coaching staff, thus making his job even more difficult than it already was.
Valentine was asked on WEEI on Wednesday afternoon whether or not he felt his coaching staff was loyal to him.
"No," he quickly stated on The Big Show. "You asked me what I feel. That's what I feel."
He was then asked whether or not he felt undermined by his staff. The answer, again, came quickly.
"Yes," he said, eventually adding that was "just what I feel."
Valentine revealed that he interviewed each member of his staff upon taking the job, but he said that he would obviously do things differently given another chance.
"I had the say. I interviewed everyone. Just bad decisions."
As manager, however, Valentine was left to try and make the frayed relationships work, all things considered.
"You work it," Valentine added. "I had to work through it all. It's just another thing that's part and parcel of the job and work through it. It's part of the job. That's my part of the job to try and make it all functional."
When asked, should he return next season would he employ the same coaching staff, Valentine had another quick answer.
"Some."
However, the relationship between Valentine and general manager Ben Cherington was a pretty decent one, at least by comparison. Valentine yielded that there were disagreements between the two — which is par for the course for any such relationship — but things never got carried away.
"It's been a work in progress all year," Valentine reflected. "I think Ben had as tough of a year dealing with this roster situtation as any general manager will ever have. I think there's been a daily communication that has struggled through the situation and with all of the problems.
"We haven't had any arguments. He's my boss and he pointed some things out along the way that he might have disagreed with and I respected his opinion. I don't know how you judge these things. I think it's been very functional."
The veteran skipper was able to find some positives upon reflecting on his first season with the Red Sox.
"The job is, at the end of the day, is the record," he said. "The experience, I really enjoyed experiencing all the development of the players that weren't expected to be here. Look at [Pedro] Ciriaco, [Mike] Aviles, [Mauro] Gomez, [Jarrod Saltalamacchia] and you know, Daniel Nava, you know Felix Doubront and [Franklin] Morales and [Andrew] Miller, these guys are guys who people were looking at as kind off of the radar. I think they've established themselves as having a foothole in the major leagues. I've been proud to have had a part to watch that develop."
