Teoscar Hernandez has had quite the season with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He made the All-Star team for the second time in his career, won the Home Run Derby and helped lead the Dodgers to one of the best records in all of baseball. But, Hernandez almost joined a different team this offseason instead of signing with Los Angeles.
The star outfielder revealed just how close he was to signing with the Boston Red Sox instead of the Dodgers in an interview with WEEI’s Rob Bradford on the Baseball Isn’t Boring podcast. Ultimately, Boston simply didn’t offer what the slugger was looking for.
First, Hernandez admitted that the Red Sox initial offer was for two-years, $28 million compared to the one-year, $23.5 million deal that he ended up signing with the Dodgers.
“Obviously, I was not going to spend my free agency trying to get a bad deal,” Hernandez said. “At the end of the day, I love the Red Sox and they are one of my favorite teams, and I love playing there.”
Bradford then asked if he felt like he could have gotten the Red Sox to up their offer to three years.
“At the end, honestly, I thought they were going to make it,” Hernandez said. “Unfortunately, they said they had to wait because they had to make some moves and all of that stuff, and I couldn’t wait any longer.”
“It’s just the way they approached the free agency, teams that want to win, they spend, they go after good players,” Hernandez continued. “I’m not saying they don’t have good players, because they do, the Red Sox are really good right now and they have amazing players, for my part, I just want to go to a team that’s looking for everybody that is good, to win, to spend, where they’re not afraid to spend and go after good players so that they can make their team better.”
