Red Sox News

BOSTON (WBZ) ― Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein and manager Terry Francona met with reporters Monday to talk about their plans for the ballclub this winter.

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Epstein addressed a series of issues he'll face this off-season, including free-agent Jason Bay, the never-ending shortstop saga, Dice-K, Tim Wakefield, David Ortiz, the next catcher, those one-year free agent deals that didn't pan out this year, and pitching coach John Farrell.

JASON BAY

"We've had a lot of discussion with his representatives through the course of, I'd say, the last nine months… We'll just continue that and try to work something out."

"We have a lot of respect for him and what he's done… we want the relationship to continue and we'll see if it does."

"It's been a really unusual negotiation in the first place. I can't tell you what's going to happen."

SHORTSTOP

"Alex (Gonzales) really stabilized things the last couple months of the season… (we'll) try to figure out what the market might look like before we decide on Alex's option for next year. That's certainly one way we could go. I think we'd all be comfortable having him back here under the right circumstances."

"(Jed) Lowrie's an important factor for us as well. This is a young player we really believe in, who has been hurt as a big league player. We have not seen the type of player he can be yet at the big league level, because he's been playing hurt the entire time."

"I don't think we can hand a job to him because he hasn't proven his health yet at this point."

"We can't stake our season on the hope that he'll be healthy. We have to have other options."

DICE-K

"We want him to have a really productive off-season and come into camp in the best possible shape."

"That's been clearly communicated. There will be follow-up and our strong expectation is that he shows up in fantastic shape on day one of spring training. I see it as a necessity, not really an option."

TIM WAKEFIELD

"He's going to have surgery probably this week."

"Wake is someone that is in our plans and we hope he makes starts for us next year as well."

"We haven't sat down and finalized anything. Obviously, we want to see how the surgery goes and then both side will sit down and talk."

DAVID ORTIZ

"Predicting future performance is tough. Obviously that's part of my job."

"I think the last four months of the season were certainly better than the first two months for him."

"If he's going to be the DH on this team, we need him to be a force. And we're a different team when he is that force, so there will be conversations about what he thinks he needs to do to get back there."

CATCHER

"I think we made a trade (for Victor Martinez) that should address that for the most part next year. Victor is about as good as you're going to get. We're really happy with him on and off the field - his leadership, his offensive ability, his desire to work with the pitching staff."

"Ultimately it's Tito's call, but we discussed it enough to know that Victor's going to catch a lot next year and then we'll see what happens from there."

"I haven't talked with Tek yet. We're going to. There are decisions that need to be made on both sides. I don't think it's fair to discuss those publically before we get to sit down and talk about it."

ONE-YEAR DEALS (Penny, Smoltz, etc.)

"Yeah, I have a natural instinct to say you know let's shy away from that a little bit, but the reality is looking at our club, if we want to complement to wake in the fifth starter's hole, we're probably not going to end with a front-line free agent starting pitcher… Could we end up with another 'buy low, high upside" low-risk starting pitcher, position player somewhere on the roster? Sure. And if it doesn't work out, it's not going to sink us. We'll move on."

JOHN FARRELL

"Before the Indians called, John expressed a strong desire to stay here and said he would not make himself a candidate for that job (as Indians manager) because of his desire to stay here."

They called recently and I have a meeting scheduled with John to just complete that circle. But based on everything we've talked about, my strong expectation is that he is going to stay here."
 
Epstein also said the Sox first base coach Tim Bogar and bench coach Brad Mills will interview with the Houston Astros about their their manager's job.

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