Beyond all the other items already on their offseason to-do list, the Red Sox can now add another: finding a new bench coach.
Will Venable, who filled that role the last two seasons for the Sox, was named associate manager of the Texas Rangers Wednesday.
In Texas, Venable will be reunited with former Princeton teammate Chris Young, who was put in charge of Baseball Operations for the Rangers earlier this fall.
Venable will join the staff of new manager Bruce Bochy, who ended a brief retirement and was named Texas manager last month.
At the end of the regular season, Venable was thought to be a potential managerial candidate for a number of openings, including those in Texas, Kansas City and elsewhere. Those opportunities, however, failed to materialize.
With Venable's departure, the Red Sox must find his replacement on the staff. Logically, first base coach Ramon Vazquez would be the most likely in-house candidate for promotion. Vazquez is close with manager Alex Cora -- the two were once traded for one another in their playing days -- and Vazquez will manage Team Puerto Rico in the upcoming World Baseball Classic. Venable has also managed in winter ball in his native Puerto Rico, and for one season, in the minor leagues.
Bench coaches have three primary job responsibilities: Organizing and running spring training; helping the manager with in-game strategic decisions; and serving as a liason between the manager and the players. Vazquez would seem well-suited to handle all three chores.
Another potential in-house candidate could be Jason Varitek, who has ambitions to manage one day. But Varitek just finished his first season as the team's game-planning coordinator -- helping pitchers prepare to face the opposing lineup with analytics and information from the team's advance scout -- and the Sox may wish him to continue in that critical role.
Additionally, it would be easier to find a new first base coach -- Vazquez's role last season -- than it would be to find someone to take over Varitek's responsibilities.
If the Sox choose to go outside the organization for the hire, Houston Astros coach Alex Cintron, one of Cora's closest friends in the game, would be one possibility.
__________________
Attending Major League Baseball's quarterly owners meetings in New York, Red Sox president and CEO Sam Kennedy told the Boston Globe that the team has made two offers to Xander Bogaerts in the past six weeks -- one in October, when the Sox had exclusive negotiating rights with Bogaerts -- and another more recently, after Bogaerts opted out of his contract which had three years and $60 million remaining.
Kennedy added that the Sox had also made a long-term offer to third baseman Rafael Devers since the conclusion of the regular season. Devers is under control for the 2023 season, but will be a free agent at this time next year if the Red Sox don't extend him before that.
"I can tell you that we've been very proactive,'' Kennedy told the Globe, "though I know that people don't want to hear how aggressive we've been because it doesn't mean anything until there's something to announce. But I can tell you we've made offers to several players, including our own players. And we're cautiously optimistic that things are going to start moving here.''
Kennedy said the Sox have had "productive conversations'' with Bogaerts and his agent Scott Boras in recent weeks.
The club executive noted that the Red Sox take into account that both Devers and Bogaerts have performed well in Boston, something not every player can do.
"You have to factor that into the calculus,'' acknowledged Kennedy. "(Playing in Boston) is not for everybody. It's intense. There's a lot of scrutiny.''