Cherington on D&C: Theo 'happy' for Sox

Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington joined Dennis & Callahan on Monday morning to talk about the weekend trade that sent Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Nick Punto to the Dodgers for James Loney and prospects.

Asked if he was surprised the Dodgers were willing to take so much salary off the Red Sox' hands, Cherington said he understood their thinking.

"I think there was a lot of motivation on their part. They're in a different position than we are right now, obviously," Cherington said. "Adrian makes a ton of sense for them, not just in their lineup but with what they're trying to do in building that business in Southern California. I can understand that motivation, and trying to put a flag in the ground out there. But I can't really speak to -- every team has reasons why they do things. They obviously felt like this made sense for them, and we felt it made sense for us."

Added Cherington: "There was a lot of back and forth. There were other things that we asked for that we didn't get. You never get everything you want in a deal. We're happy about it. … Hopefully we've added to the upper-level talent in the system. And hopefully this is another step toward rebuilding our pitching staff. Again, a large part of this will be how well we take advantage of the opportunity and what kind of decisions we make going forward."

Cherington said he's been in touch with former GM Theo Epstein since making the deal.

"I haven't had a chance to talk to him live, but I went back and forth on text a couple of times," Cherington said. "He and I were obviously together for most or all of the decisions that we've made in baseball ops over the last few years. And this one obviously, this latest deal, the reality was it was an acknowledgment that some of the work that we had done together hadn't worked quite the way we wanted it to. That's on me as much as on anybody.

"He was happy that we've got a chance, to maybe just give ourselves a chance to do some different things and build the team a different way."

Despite trading away the team's most potent bat, Cherington insisted the team still has a solid base upon which to build.

"I'm excited about the players we still have, first of all. We're got a great core here still," he said. "A handful of them are injured right now, but they're going to get healthy. And as we go and look toward next year, I feel like we have a core of talent we can build around and build a really good team.

"We removed some talent, we traded some talent, we created some flexibility, but we still think we have a lot of talent here. It will be exciting to find ways to complement that core of talent. We've got to be smart in doing it. We can't just go and try to fill the void in one or two fell swoops. We've got to try to build a team and do it in a smart way and do it in a way that reflects what we believe in."

At Saturday's press conference to announce the deal, Cherington used the word "disciplined" in referring to the team's strategy going forward. He explained that he was referring to more than one thing.

"I guess I was referring to our decisions moving forward," he said. "But I think it really applies to the entire team outlook and not just the decisions we make but how we play. … Our best teams have been disciplined teams. We've grinded at-bats, we've made pitchers work, we've thrown strikes , we've played good, fundamental baseball, we've played disciplined baseball. Of course, the more disciplined players you have, you tend to play discipline baseball.

"The discipline that comes into decisions is simply trying to find good value -- good value in free agency, good value in trades. that doesn't mean you don't spend money on players. We're going to have a significant payroll, a large payroll every year. This is Boston. We didn't all of a sudden become a smaller market. So, we're going to have a significant payroll. But we've got to make the most of that payroll. The good news is we can be disciplined but still take maybe more chances than another team might on the right guys and be aggressive at the right time. But ultimately what we really want is to have a disciplined team on the field."

Following are more highlights from the interview.

On contacting Beckett and Crawford to ask them to waive their no-trade rights: "Once we got to a certain point in the negotiations, I made those phone calls. Josh and Carl were involved, as were their agents. You never know what the reaction is going to be. In this case, both guys were just really professional -- really professional and ultimately really appreciative.

"I think the way I saw this and the way I presented it to them was: 'Guys, look, you've got rights here. Here's an opportunity that we have, and if this is something that can be good for everyone, then let's consider it. And I'd ask you to consider it. Let me know what you think.' And ultimately they felt that it was going to be a good situation."

On Crawford, who had just come off Tommy John surgery: "That was tough timing. We felt badly about the timing. He literally had just gotten out of surgery, had gotten back to [his home in] Houston. To Carl's credit, despite that, going through a pretty traumatic experience, he really handled it very professionally and was very gracious in the way that he dealt with the process."

On criticism of Beckett: "I think some of the criticism of him has been unfair. But performance-wise I think he would admit this year there have been some outings that he wished had gone better. For the most part this guy was a really good pitcher for us, and certainly early in his tenure here was a great pitcher for us and on the mound for some huge games. I felt like some of the criticism of him just got too much. And maybe that made it harder for him to be who he wanted to be and perform at the level he wanted to perform at. It's possible that this gives him a fresh start and was the right thing to do for everyone."

On Jacoby Ellsbury's future in Boston: "He's the type of guy that we want here. We haven't gotten into any sort of conversation about past next year, past 2013. But I'm sure there'll be a time to do that."

On the three-game suspension of Alfredo Aceves: "Some things happened Friday that we felt warranted action on our part. Ace has been a really good pitcher for us for the most part the last years. And we all know how much he likes to pitch and wants to pitch. And he's a really competitive guy. That's the type of guy that we need on this team. That said, there were a couple of things that happened -- I'm not going to get into details -- a couple of things that happened that we felt warranted action, we felt like were not consistent with what we expect from a player or a teammate. We felt like this was important for Ace and for his teammates and the staff to send a message that it wasn't acceptable. I think Aceves understands that. There'll be an opportunity for him to get back on the team, and we've talked to him about what steps he needs to take to do that."

To hear the interview, go to the Dennis & Callahan audio on demand page. For more Red Sox news, visit the team page at weei.com/redsox.