The Red Sox addition of Alex Verdugo was a shock for him.
To be fair, it shocked the baseball world just as well. Two huge rival teams making a trade?
Nonetheless, he was now on the Yankees. What kind of teammate will he be? Well, former Boston pitcher Jonathan Papelbon was outspoken about his thoughts on Verdugo, and they weren’t pretty.
“Look, man, I did 30 games with NESN last year, and I’m doing pregame, and [Verdugo] would come the same time I showed up at the field in some Charger, rev his engine up and, ‘Look, everybody, I’m here at the park, look at me,’” Papelbon said Wednesday on Foul Territory.
“You’re late. Nobody wants to play with those kinds of guys. Unfortunately, in the Red Sox clubhouse, they didn’t necessarily have the guy to say, ‘Hey, Alex, quit the (expletive). We’re in this together and if you want to be like that, we don’t need you.’”
Papelbon said the trade was inevitable.
“He rode himself out of town,” he said.
Verdugo’s first reaction to finding out he would now sport the pinstripes was a negative one.
“The genuine reaction was mad. I was hot. I was just like, ‘Man, they really sent me to the rivals? The Yankees?’” Verdugo told reporters after the trade.
That didn’t last long, of course.
“Then, after about a day, I just started sitting back, started thinking, reminiscing about how this year went with the Red Sox, everything that was going on, then I started having guys reach out — [Aaron] Judge, [Giancarlo] Stanton, Gerrit [Cole], [Anthony] Rizzo — just these guys started all reaching out and welcoming me to the team. It got me excited, man,” he said.
In return for Verdugo, the Red Sox acquired right-handed pitcher Greg Weissert and minor league right-handed pitchers Richard Fitts and Nicholas Judice
Despite the move strategically helping the Yankees, Papelbon said the Red Sox “got rid of a headache.”
About Jessica Kleinschmidt
Jess is a baseball fan with Reno, Nev. roots residing in the Bay Area. She is the host of "Short and to the Point" and is also a broadcaster with the Oakland A's Radio Network. She previously worked for MLB.com and NBC Sports Bay Area.