Commissioner Rob Manfred, visiting Fenway Park to take part in the David Ortiz pre-game ceremony Sunday, addressed the issue of the San Diego Padres' failure to act in good faith in the deal that sent pitcher Drew Pomeranz to the Red Sox in July.
Manfred, who suspended San Diego GM A.J. Preller for 30 days without pay as a result of an investigation, revealed that he offered the Red Sox the opportunity to rescind the deal after the Padres' refusal to follow proper protocol was revealed.
"It's important to understand,'' said Manfred, "that for a very, very long time, there has been a rule in baseball that if something happens with a lack of complete information in baseball with respect to a trade, then the remedy is to rescind the trade.
"We offered, early on, the Red Sox the opportunity to seek rescission of the trade. For good baseball reasons - the biggest one being that we were past the trading deadline -- they elected not to seek rescission. Once that happens, the rule in baseball has always been that we do not reconfigure trades.
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"Why is that? Every institution has limitations. Once a player is moved, (has begun) playing for another franchise, his physical situation may resolve. . . figuring out exactly what happened and when is extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible. And even if you can figure that out, we're not institutionally capable of deciding who would have traded what for what -- even in retrospect. That's why we have the rescission rule in the first place.''
Manfred added that when the offer to rescind the trade was made, the investigation was not yet complete "but we knew enough. . . we thought we could get the rescission done.''
Boston Red Sox
Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski has steadfastly refused comment since the ruling, though Red Sox chairman Tom Werner has said he was ''disappointed'' with the ruling and added that the Sox deserved some additional compensation.