Red Sox owner John Henry serenaded by 'sell the team' chants at Fenway

It's a bit difficult to tell Henry's exact reaction, but it was clear that he was listening in to the crowd. As a rule, Henry doesn't make public media appearances. So, it isn't likely he publicly shares his thoughts either.

How much of the Boston Red Sox's struggles are John Henry's fault?

John Henry and Fenway Sports Group have received plenty of flak from fans in recent years. In particular, frustration over investments like Liverpool seemingly taking precedent over the Red Sox.

Since the 2018 World Series win, the Red Sox have made several changes that look like the moves of a small-market team. Previous president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom had a small market background and was seemingly hired to move the team in a direction where it spent less on free agency. 

Bloom's first move was to dump Mookie Betts, receiving poor return, instead of paying him. He would go on to draft well, but made moves in free agency that missed, like Trevor Story and Masataka Yoshida, while also losing fan favorite Xander Bogaerts after lowballing him. During his tenure, Boston made the playoffs once.

Craig Breslow took over, bringing an extreme analytics model. His tenure has now been marked by misjudging the trade deadline twice, salary dumping Rafael Devers and failing to re-sign Alex Bregman.

All the while, Fenway Sports Group signaled it would be aggressive every year in free agency, using phrases like "full throttle," only to not hold up its end of the bargain. The results seem to prove the team isn't ownership's focus.

Not all of the blame is on John Henry and Fenway Sports Group being cheap. The Red Sox have MLB's sixth-highest payroll. That could go up, but it's proof that the bigger issue is the front office spending money poorly rather than not spending at all.

There is clear blame on the hires Henry has made to run the club. He's hired executives who rely extremely heavily on analytics and seemingly struggle in negotiations. Those hires are ownership's fault.

And, no, Henry isn't selling the team anytime soon. He does need to return his focus to Boston, though.