Rob Bradford

Okay, you don't want to give up what you need to give up for Matt Shaw, and you don't have really any other options.

You land at Caleb Durbin, which as we said, good player and everything else, but not the skill set that you were looking for in terms of hitting the ball out of the park.

There was no logical pivot off of Alex Bregman.

And they knew they had to know that.

It was almost like, well, we just assumed that we're going to get him.

And wait, what?

I thought he wanted to play here.

That's how it feels right now.

Well, it just it feels like and when you see a quote like that from Sam Kennedy, it's like, well, if he wanted to be here, he'd be here.

Maybe we have different definitions of what it takes to want to be in a place.

But to me, like wanting to be in a place doesn't mean bending at every corner to make it happen.

To me, Sam Kennedy wants Alex Bregman at the Red Sox price.

And that's not, to me, wanting to be a Boston Red Sox does not mean bending the knee everywhere to accommodate the Red Sox lowball offer, whatever it may be in a situation.

In this case, I think he did want to be here, but...

to give up a no-trade clause, to take less money, to take worse deferral clauses.

It was asking a lot.

It was asking a lot of the guy, especially a guy who had only been here for one season.

All right, let's go to the phones.

Allison in Cambridge, always good to talk to you.

How are you, Allison?