Red Sox management made all kinds of bold statements during Monday’s annual day-after-the-season, state-of-the-team news conference. But nobody got around to making a statement that would go beyond words and send an impactful message to their fan base.
In other words, they failed to come right out and announce, in technicolor, the Red Sox would hold the line on ticket prices for 2025. Maybe even lower the prices of tickets.
Traditionally, Red Sox president/CEO Sam Kennedy uses these news conferences to make an announcement about a “modest increase” in ticket prices. This time, as he sat at a table at Fenway Park along with chief baseball officer Craig Breslow and manager Alex Cora, Kennedy ladled out this bowl of word porridge:
“So ticket prices now are set throughout the course of the year. And it’s dynamic pricing, so ticket prices go up during the year, they go down, and they change based upon demand. So I can’t tell you overall where ticket prices will be for 2025. I can tell you that if you looked where we were in 2023 to 2024, now that the ’24 season is over, on average overall the ticket price increase was 1.7 percent for this year, for 2024. I can’t tell you where we’re going to be for 2025 until after the season because prices change throughout the course of the year.”
It’s usually the brainy, Yale-educated Breslow who speaks in such a way as to suggest that every syllable of every word has been crafted by a team of physicists. And Kennedy can usually be counted on to present himself as the chatty, ever-smiling former Brookline High School baseball player who grew up rooting for his beloved Red Sox.
This time, Breslow was refreshingly down to earth. This time, Kennedy spoke in riddles. Leastways, he did so when confronted with the question about ticket prices. And that was very unfortunate. For if the Red Sox truly believe their fans have been very “patient,” a word that was used repeatedly Monday afternoon, then management should do something about it. Something bold.
“it’s time to get back where we belong … I can tell you, this ownership group feels urgency and hunger [to improve this team]”
Sam Kennedy & Craig Breslow on Red Sox offseason plans 💬 pic.twitter.com/NKbvvOmw6V
— NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSBoston) September 30, 2024
Yes, the boldest thing the Red Sox can do is assemble a championship-caliber team, except we all know that’s something that can’t be promised at a news conference. But what can be promised, and should have been promised Monday, was a seismic announcement that ticket prices for 2024 are actually being reduced.
You read that right. Remember, it was during last offseason that Red Sox chairman Tom Werner, speaking at Breslow’s introductory news conference, said, “We know that we have to be competitive next year. So we’re going to be competitive next year. We’re going to have to be full-throttle in every possible way.”
“Full-throttle” isn’t something you say when you’re about to start shopping for been-around-the-block-a-few-times middle relievers. It’s something you say when your team is about to return to the swashbuckling days of big spending and big names. Back to the days of strutting. Back to the days of brash talk, as when the late Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino called the Yankees the “Evil Empire.”
That’s kind of how “full-throttle” was interpreted when Werner said it.
Instead, Breslow was a tinkerer in 2024. And for a while there it looked as though tinkering would be enough to earn the Red Sox passage to October. The 2024 Red Sox were at times exciting, what with Jarren Duran having a bust-out season and Tyler O’Neill remaining healthy enough to deliver 31 home runs, but everything fell apart after the All-Star break. The bullpen couldn’t hold a lead. The defense was a mess. Third baseman Rafael Devers was too banged up to finish the season.
When it was over, the Red Sox were 81-81, the very definition of average. This makes three straight seasons the Sox have failed to qualify for the postseason.
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I’m not one to whine about baseball’s expanded playoff structure, because I do believe it’s good for the game. It keeps hope alive, even if metrics-minded GMs don’t always behave that way when it counts. But that’s a story for another day. For today, though, we are here: With all these teams getting side-door invites to the postseason, it should be an annual lock that the Red Sox, with their infinite resources, be one of them.
And where do those resources come from? They come from a rabid, loyal fan base, that’s where.
“The feeling is that our fans have been through a lot, and patient,” Kennedy said Monday. “And it’s time to get back where we belong.”
What does the future look like for the Red Sox?
“I think we’re here, I think we’re ready to deliver,” said plain-spoken Breslow.
And if that’s not enough to fire up the fan base, Cora is talking about the 2025 season as though it’s going to be a family outing to Disney World.
“Where we’re going, it’s going to be fun,” Cora said. “I truly believe this is the last struggle, to be honest with you. I think this is it. There were some positives, there were a lot of negatives, but I think where we’re going as an organization it’s gonna be fun again. It’s gonna be fun again. It starts this offseason.”
“I truly believe, this is the last struggle… it’s going to be fun again.”
Alex Cora talks about re-signing with the Red Sox and the future of the team pic.twitter.com/4tpMTlMvGm
— NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSBoston) September 30, 2024
Perhaps that should be the title for the Netflix series about the 2024 Red Sox: “The Last Struggle.”
If all the Red Sox are interested in is using Fenway Park as a nightclub, as a party playpen for young people to go and have a good time, with the playing of baseball serving as a backdrop, then nothing needs to be done. But if they’re still interested in the actual business of baseball, the offseason should start by doing something to thank their actual baseball fans.
(Photo of Sam Kennedy: Matt Stone / MediaNews Group / Boston Herald via Getty Images)
