John Henry Explains Why Red Sox Had No Press Conference On Dave Dombrowski

When the Boston Red Sox decided to part ways with Dave Dombrowski, they did so in rather unique fashion by deciding to not hold a press conference following the news.

That left manager Alex Cora to answer many of the questions from the press, something Red Sox CEO Sam Kennedy apologized for in offering a little bit of insight behind the decision to not hold a press conference earlier this month. In speaking with the media about Dombrowski for the first time on Friday, team owner John Henry offered his own explanation.

“It was painful to make a change for me personally, it was painful. But we felt it was the right thing to do,” Henry told reporters, as transcribed by the Boston Herald’s Jason Mastrodonato. “And from my own standpoint, if we were going to have a press conference, I would love to have talked to you about the things he brought, what he accomplished for us. You guys all would’ve asked what went wrong, which is your job to do, I understand that. It wasn’t so much a case of, I think, as it was portrayed that we were hiding from you. It’s just that I didn’t see a utility of going through what the differences were. It was more of a personal thing.”

Team chairman Tom Werner also noted many of the positive things Dombrowski did in his four-year tenure in Boston, which returned three division titles and a World Series.

But the decision to move on from Dombrowski seems to be one based on the long-term future of the roster, not necessarily solely based on the team’s performance in 2019 (which Alex Cora perfectly summed up in one line on Friday.)

Regardless, whoever takes the reins is going to have the not-so-enviable job of lowering payroll while finding a way to keep Mookie Betts in a Red Sox uniform, per ownership’s desire.