Rumored reason for Jordan Montgomery spurning Red Sox is salt in the wound

After spending the bulk of his big-league career with the hated New York Yankees, there was actually a chance veteran left-hander Jordan Montgomery would sign with the Boston Red Sox in his free agency. Montgomery was dealt over to the Texas Rangers from the St. Louis Cardinals midway through last season. He helped Texas win its first World Series championship in franchise history.

Although his wife works in a Boston area hospital, the 31-year-old southpaw valued one thing over everything else in his free agency: Winning. It was ultimately the deciding factor in signing with the Arizona Diamondbacks, the team Texas beat to win last season's Fall Classic. To make things sting even more for Boston fans, Montgomery was not that interested in sufficing this particular narrative.

According to Jon Heyman of The New York Post, "Montgomery didn't love the Red Sox because he wants to win." Heyman also mentioned that Montgomery "wasn’t as enamored of the idea of playing for the Red Sox as the narrative went."

The last noted Scott Boras client eventually signed with the Diamondbacks the Wednesday before the start of the regular season. Arizona is not Boston at all...

The Red Sox have the far better history and brand, but right now, Arizona can give him a winner.

Jordan Montgomery spurning Red Sox is even more pain for Bostonians

Admittedly, this would sting a lot more if Montgomery was a native New Englander and the Red Sox were anything close to a winning product. Whatever Chaim Bloom did to this team should never be celebrated, only to be brought up in a future chapter of a team-building book on what to absolutely not do. Given that Montgomery is a Boras client from South Carolina who wants to win, I understand.

While I don't claim to know everything under the sun when it comes to MLB, outside of my Atlanta Braves, of course, I know that what Arizona accomplished is the sign of more good things to come in the Valley of the Sun, just like I know that losing Dave Dombrowski to the Philadelphia Phillies was a death sentence to the Red Sox being relevant for the better part of a decade now. It has been rough.

Although I have no idea what Brian O'Halloran plans to do for this team, it will certainly be better than whatever it was that Bloom did to wreck this proud franchise. Every other team in the AL East has serious aspirations to make the playoffs. While Tampa Bay and Toronto think they can win the World Series, Baltimore and New York might actually be able to. For Boston, let's try to win 81 games, alright.

Failing to land Montgomery signifies that Boston must change the narrative surrounding the Red Sox.