I have to admit that I rolled my eyes at the breathless reports that the Red Sox had secured a meeting with free agent slugger Juan Soto. Not because I don’t believe that Red Sox ownership will aggressively pursue Soto (I’m ready to have my heart broken again!) but because the very idea of the meetings seems just so silly to me.
Juan Soto is not Roki Sasaki, a young player barely into his twenties who has limited experience with American professional baseball and America in general. Soto has lived in the United States for eight years. He’s fluent in English. He’s already hit three home runs at Fenway Park! At this point in his career there isn’t anything that Juan Soto and the Red Sox don’t already know about each other.
Moreover, it’s not like Soto is some reclamation project pitcher who might want to hear what Andrew Bailey has in store for his pitch mix. He’s a hitting savant who is going to end up with over 500 home runs. Was Pete Fatse going to show up with a deck explaining how Soto could tweak his approach to make his OBP even higher? Of course not. If anything, it would be Soto outlining a plan for Fatse to unleash his potential as a hitting coach.
What I’m saying is: we all know that Juan Soto is going to go to the team that offers him the most money. The only thing he and the Red Sox need to discuss is a dollar amount, making this meeting the very definition of “could’ve been an email.”
And yet, as Sean McAdam of MassLive reported, Craig Breslow, Alex Cora, Sam Kennedy, and Tom Werner met with Juan Soto and his team last night in LA. And not only did the meeting somehow last three hours, but they didn’t even discuss a contract number!
So what did they actually discuss over the course of 180 minutes? I’ve never been a part of MLB free agent negotiations. But I sure as hell know my way around a meeting, so here’s my guess as to how they spent those three hours:
- 18 minutes talking about security lines at the airport, because Federal Aviation Administration rules require everyone who flies on an airplane to engage in at least one discussion about airport security lines within three hours of landing.
- 23 minutes discussing traffic from LAX. This is Southern California, talking about traffic gives them a reason to live.
- 26 minutes dealing with various A/V glitches, because Scott Boras is a 72-year-old who thinks that puns are the highest form of comedy — there’s no way this man knows what to do with an HDMI cable.
- 5 cumulative minutes of Sam Kennedy saying “I’m Sam Kennedy, President of the Boston Red Sox,” after Juan Soto repeatedly mistakes him for Scott Boras’s assistant, calls him Wayne, and asks him to get him a glass of water.
- 14 minutes debating where to get takeout, then 11 minutes passing around someone’s laptop to get a Seamless order going.
- 4 minutes adding even more food to the order because Craig Breslow keeps going “Hey, how about we split some shumai? Oh, and maybe a couple orders of dumplings? Can’t go wrong with dumplings.”
- 23 minutes singing happy birthday and eating cupcakes, because it’s always someone’s birthday and there are always cupcakes.
- 8 minutes discussing RFK’s nomination as Secretary of Health and Human Services because seriously what the fuck.
- 4 minutes taking turns going “you think we got enough food, ha ha!” as they unpack the Seamless order.
- 2 minutes cleaning up the water that Sam Kennedy spills on Juan Soto’s jacket.
- 9 minutes Venmoing each other after Tom Werner insists on itemizing the Seamless bill. Alex Cora helps Boras set up a Venmo account and download the app.
- 2 minutes of awkward silence when Boras goes to the bathroom, followed by 9 minutes asking each other whether they’ve seen various streaming shows and responding “no, but I’ve heard it’s good. Is it worth watching? What’s it on? I don’t even know what anything is on anymore.”
- 5 minutes helping Craig Breslow box up all the extra food because, hey, you can’t let all these dumplings to to waste.
- 17 minutes helping Sam Kennedy fill out the paperwork to legally change his name to Wayne.
Welcome to Boston, Juan Soto!
