McAdam: Red Sox failed to be aggressive enough in Stanton talks

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- Now that Giancarlo Stanton has posed in pinstripes, done a round of media interviews and torched his former team on the way out the door, perhaps it's a moot point.

But we'll ask anyway: Were the Red Sox aggressive enough in their pursuit of Stanton? On Monday, the first full day of baseball's Winter Meetings, there seemed to be conflicting answers and contradictory statements.

But the short answer would seem to be: no.

Whether Stanton would have approved a trade to the Red Sox, remains, to this day, a matter of some uncertainty.  Some reports had Stanton ruling out the Red Sox from the outset of the process, while others suggested he hadn’t definitively ruled them out. That stance may never be clarified.

But this much was made clearer Monday: after balking at the initial asking price from the Marlins at the GM meetings last month, the Red Sox never seemed to make much of an effort to get back into the game as the details evolved. And by the time they did, it was too late.

“Boston was never presented to us as an option,’’ said Stanton’s agent, Joel Wolfe. “To my knowledge Boston never had an interest in him. Not that they don’t love him as a player, but they never tried to make a deal with the Marlins.’’

At the GM meetings last month, Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski was seen chatting with Marlins GM Michael Hill and it’s known that the subject of Stanton – however superficially – did come up as part of the conversation.

A baseball source said the Marlins demands – an insistence on taking most if not all of Stanton’s gargantuan $295 million contract as well as some young, controllable players – put off the Sox, and Dombrowski publicly acknowledged that Monday.

"The early asks for him were not things that we were interested in,'' confirmed Dombrowski. "And then, as time went on, there were conversations at the end.  (The Marlins) had a deal done with St. Louis, they had a deal done with San Francisco (that both were voided by Stanton, who held a full no-trade clause). At that point, when I reached out, the (Marlins) were in the midst of a deal with the Yankees at that point.''

Wolfe added that in his own conversations with Dombrowski at the GM meetings, he came away with the understanding that the Sox were set with their outfield alignment of Andrew Benintendi, Jackie Bradley Jr. and Mookie Betts and were focused on other needs this off-season.

“I wasn’t (surprised) because they have a tremendous outfield,’’ said Wolfe. “We were told at the GM meetings that they were looking for pitching and other areas, so we didn’t expect (them to be involved).’'

"No, I never said that to him,'' emphasized Dombrowski. "I might have said relief pitching as one of the things we (we looking for), but, no, I never said we were prioritizing pitching. We're looking for a middle-of-the-order bat; that hasn't changed.''

Stanton himself, meanwhile, was asked if he had considered the Red Sox during the process.

“I didn’t really have a thought on it,’’ he said.

Stanton reportedly had narrowed his list of preferred destinations to four teams: the Cubs, Astros, Dodgers and Yankees.

"We were not on his immediate list,'' said Dombrowski of Stanton, "so when we called at the end, we were not on his list. At that point, he had given (the Marlins) the four (teams to which he would agreed to be dealt). As soon as that changed, they changed into the Yankee situation.''

But Stanton seemed open to possibilities, too, as the Marlins negotiated trades with both the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants before Stanton nixed both, turning the Marlins attention elsewhere and eventually, to the Yankees.

While the Yankees absorbed $265 million of Stanton's $295 million remaining, the package of players was far from overwhelming. Second baseman Starlin Castro will likely be dealt elsewhere by the Marlins -- he makes too much money for their tastes -- and the two low-minor pitching prospects are years away from contributing and scouts from other organizations don't consider them blue-chip arms.

After the deals with the Cardinals and Giants fizzled, the Marlins lost leverage. Couldn't Dombrowski have gone back to the Marlins and offered a competitive package of talent, while taking on as much money as the Yankees did?

"I can't really talk about that,'' said Dombrowski. "Those are things that are really (done) on a confidential basis. And again, he's already with another club (and MLB frowns on talking about players under contract with other teams).''

But that opportunity existed last week. At the very least, by being aggressive, the Sox could have upped the ante for the Yankees, forcing them to either take on more salary or give up a better package of players to make the deal work.

Instead, the Sox threw their hands up, leaving them both behind the eight-ball, and even more obviously, behind the Yankees.