Red Sox have shown interest in Hensley Meulens for manager, per report

The Red Sox manager search is obviously still in the early stages, with Sam Kennedy indicating the team is willing to enter spring training without the position filled if need-be, though that’s obviously not the preference. As one would expect, the search is starting with internal candidates, though from the outside it’s hard to know how viable those candidates are going to be. That likely comes down to what the report from MLB’s investigation ends up looking like. If guys like Ron Roenicke and Carlos Febles are mentioned, they would presumably no longer be candidates. Hell, even if they aren’t but the report is damning overall, the Red Sox may want to look in a different direction.

Sunday evening, we got our first connection to an outside candidate. That candidate is Hensley Meulens. Jon Heyman reported the Red Sox have shown interest in the Mets bench coach.

As Heyman alludes to here, this one is a little bit complicated. The Red Sox are one of three teams looking for a manager, and Meulens is already employed by one of those teams. If the Mets want to look at an outside candidate themselves, then Meulens is viable here, but presumably if the Mets want to stay internal he would be their top candidate. It is not known if the Red Sox have even requested permission for an interview at this point.

Meulens is an intriguing candidate, and I think there is a fair case to be made that he is the top candidate in this search. He was at least of interest back in 2017, though I’m not sure he actually got an interview at that point. Meulens, a native of Curacao, has played all over the world with his career making stops in MLB, Japan, Korea and the Dominican. As a coach, he spent a long time learning under Bruce Bochy, who is among the best managers of the last quarter century. He has also managed for the Netherlands in the World Baseball Classic, which of course means he has managed Xander Bogaerts. Having a relationship with one of the best players on the team is certainly a huge selling point, as is his ability to speak multiple languages (five, to be exact) and communicate with both the English-speaking and Spanish-speaking players on the team.

There’s presumably a long way to go in this search, but Meulens is as good a place as any start in terms of looking at outside candidates.