GM Mike Hazen ‘focused’ on D-backs as rumor mill links him to Boston

In case you’ve missed it, the Arizona Diamondbacks’ general manager has been the subject of speculation regarding a job opening with the Boston Red Sox.

Over the weekend, Boston fired Dave Dombrowski, its president of baseball operations. D-backs GM Mike Hazen worked for Dombrowski as the Red Sox’s general manager for one season, although Dombrowski was the head of the baseball ops department at the time. That arrangement is unlike the one Hazen has in Arizona, where he’s in charge and has final say on baseball decisions.

So it’s understandable that after Dombrowski was let go, rumors started to circulate about Hazen’s viability as a candidate to return to the Red Sox, this time as the one in charge. He was pressed about that matter on Wednesday in an interview with 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station’s Doug & Wolf.

“I am an Arizona Diamondback, I want to talk about the Arizona Diamondbacks,” he said. “That’s really where my focus is. It’s [where] 100% of my focus has been and will continue to be. So that’s all I’m really going to have to offer on that. Let’s talk about the team in New York [visiting the Mets] and our chase of the pennant.”

It was an answer that seemed to give no leaning one way or the other as to what Hazen would or would not consider this coming offseason, when personnel moves are more likely to happen around the league. For the time being, Hazen is the GM of a D-backs team trying to make the postseason, and he claims this rumor mill is not a distraction.

“No. There’s no distraction. We are focused 100% every single day on how we get to the playoffs,” he said. “That’s it.”

Just a day earlier, on Tuesday, D-backs manager Torey Lovullo joined Burns & Gambo and expressed his confidence that Hazen would stay with the Diamondbacks.

“Mike and I have great conversations,” Lovullo said. “We’ve been doing this a long time, and we both have the same dream and the same goal, every single day, and that’s to work tirelessly for the Arizona Diamondbacks daily to help us win a world championship. I know he’s aligned with that, we talk about it often. We know that’s the big plan. We don’t lose sight of what’s happening day by day.

“I’m not concerned about him leaving the organization whatsoever. I know that he wants to win a world championship as badly as I do in Arizona.”

Hazen is in his third season with the Diamondbacks after coming over from the Red Sox during the offseason prior to the 2017 season. The D-backs have one postseason appearance and a 250-219 regular season record in that time.

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