It's a widely held axiom in pro sports that if you start listening to fans, pretty soon, you'll be sitting with them. That's good career advice.
And rare is the executive who pays attention to what the media is suggesting should be done.
Players, however, are another matter. When players speak, they generally get the attention of the front office. Because what the players think and/or say matters -- at least to a point. The players don't get to call the shots, but generally, their input is welcome.
Before the Red Sox made their belated jump into the free-agent market Sunday by signing infielder Trevor Story to a six-year, $140-million deal, the Red Sox clubhouse was getting restless.
They saw the Yankees swing a mega-trade to remake the left side of their infield. They saw Toronto add Kevin Gausman, Matt Chapman and Yusei Kikuchi. Meanwhile, outside their division, the Minnesota Twins landed Carlos Correa, the Texas Rangers acquired Corey Seager and Marcus Semien and the Detroit Tigers obtained Javier Baez.
And the Red Sox? The Red Sox had added a couple of veteran relievers (Jake Diekman and Matt Strahm). Before the lockout, they had signed a trio of veteran starts (Rich Hill, James Paxton and Michael Wacha). Useful pieces, all, but hardly acquisitions that moved the needle, or changed how you viewed their roster in any significant way.
The players had heard and read the same things everyone else had -- that once a labor agreement was in place, the free-agent signings and blockbuster trades would come at a dizzying pace. And then, nothing. Well, maybe not nothing, but strictly complementary moves.
So the chatter began. On Saturday morning, as word of Correa's landmark deal with the Twins broke, the talk in the Red Sox clubhouse focused on the club's relative inaction. Almost as a chorus, Red Sox players began asking, out loud: What about us?
"We lost a couple big guys,'' Xander Bogaerts told reporters, "so if you can add impact players, it'll benefit the team and make the team a better team. We'll see what happens in these weeks.''
"We'll see what happens until Opening Day,'' added Christian Vazquez, "but I hope we can get somebody. I know there's noise outside but you can all the teams, everybody (else making moves). We want to be there, too, in October.''
Those, of course, were just the players speaking on the record. Undoubtedly, there were others thinking similar thoughts who weren't as comfortable sharing their remarks publicly, out of fear that it would appear they were being critical of team management.
This isn't to suggest that Chaim Bloom was taking his cue entirely from inside his own clubhouse. Bloom isn't someone who operates on emotion. He's analytical to a fault sometimes, weighing the consequences of every move and examining the risks and benefits. Further, even as these players were speaking out, the Sox were already far down the road in negotiations with Story, who arrived in Fort Myers Saturday to take his physical, the last step necessary for making the deal official. So the idea of signing Trevor Story didn't begin when the players began to speak out.
But it sure didn't hurt that there was a groundswell from within that the Red Sox needed to add some talent. It's even possible that some of that sentiment was conveyed to Bloom (or manager Alex Cora) earlier.
Players generally like to avoid controversy, so they measure their words carefully. They don't want to do anything to upset the internal dynamic. Simply by suggesting that a team should make improvements could be interpreted as some as a criticism of their own teammates. You're essentially saying: "We're not good enough in here; you need to supplement the talent in this clubhouse.''
That can be a dangerous path to tread.
It's easier to offer the usual banalities. That's not my job, so I'll let (fill-in-the-blank) handle it and just go about my business.
That's not what happened last week in Fort Myers, when a handful of players got impatient and spoke out.
Coincidence or not, within a few days, the Red Sox had signed their biggest free agent since J.D. Martinez in February of 2018.
