Yankees’ Alex Verdugo calls out Red Sox, his former team, over roster building: ‘We didn’t have the pieces’

Thanks to a scheduling quirk, AL East rivals the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees will face off for the first time this season later this week when the two clubs play a three-game weekend series at Fenway Park . They won’t see each other again until early next month. The new, more balanced schedule really spread out these cross-divisional rivalry series.

The upcoming series will be the first trip back to Fenway Park for Alex Verdugo, who went from the Red Sox to the Yankees in a rare exchange between the two rivals last off-season. New York sent three pitching prospects to Boston for Verdugo, who wrote a .261/.317/.432 line with excellent defense in 2024. He slashed .281/.338/.424 in four seasons with the Red Sox.

Verdugo isn’t sure if Red Sox fans will boo him or root for him this weekend – “I’m open to whatever they do,” he recently told MassLive.com – but he knows he wanted the team to do more by the trade deadline in recent years. Here’s what Verdugo had to say about the Red Sox’ competitiveness and decision-making at the recent trade deadlines, via MassLive.com:

“I really loved the organization,” Verdugo said. “I really loved putting on the Red Sox jersey and playing for my teammates. It was more about wanting to be in a winning environment. When we won in ’21, it was one of the most fun years of my life and it’s because we had a team winner. We went to the ALCS. When you’re winning in Boston, with those fans and everything, it seems like 2021 was my favorite year a little bit. little more difficult.”

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“I think they were trying to play the long game or retool the minor leagues, get new prospects,” Verdugo said. “It would have been nice to see a little more initiative when I was there, just to try and force the win.

The Red Sox were 52-52 and three games out of the wild card spot on the morning of the 2022 trade deadline, and both added (Tommy Pham) and subtracted (Christian Vázquez) at the deadline. Last season, they were 2.5 games out of the wild card spot on deadline day and made just a small deal for infielder Luis Urías. Boston’s deadline approach was a bit timid.

The Red Sox moved on from chief executive Chaim Bloom last September, in part because ownership grew impatient with his slow approach to team building. New CBO Craig Breslow had an active, albeit more low-key, offseason with fewer big names. It is not yet known how he will act within the deadline and will depend on the team’s performance until then.

Verdugo, 28, joined the Red Sox in the Mookie Betts trade in February 2020. That led to unfair expectations, though Verdugo didn’t do himself many favors during his time in Boston. Last season he was eliminated for poor performance and arriving late, which is a much bigger problem. By the end of 2023, it became clear that it was best for everyone to move on and the switch was made.

There were no such issues in New York this year — Verdugo will be a free agent this offseason and it’s up to him to be on his best behavior — although Verdugo appeared to attack Red Sox manager Alex Cora during his introductory presentation. conference call in December. “I saw the way he protects his players,” Verdugo said of Yankees manager Aaron Boone.

With Verdugo’s help, the Yankees are ahead of the AL East at 46-21. The Red Sox are in third place at 33-33. They are 1.5 games back of third place as a wild card.