O’Halloran’s comments indicate that both are locks to be back IMO.
https://www.masslive.com/redsox/2022/10/red-soxs-chaim-bloom-xander-bogaerts-is-no-1-priority-talks-will-start-right-away.html
This one is self explanatory.
https://www.masslive.com/redsox/2022/12/red-sox-still-want-to-add-starting-pitcher-with-upside-consistency-and-leadership.html
I don't think anyone read the above as "we're going to add Corey Kluber and do nothing else of consequence."
Realistically, there is nothing else that Kennedy could / should say. Who knows, they very well could both be back, but I wouldn't take anything said to the press as anything but a hypothetical or an "as we stand here today" perspective.
@8slim - my opinion (and admittedly my opinion and $2.50 gets you a coffee at Dunks) is that it's generally a combination of the first two points.
As an example, the Red Sox from 2003-2018 really did an almost model job of developing enough players and evaluating them properly that they had cheap players in the pipeline and those coming through to replace them. Names that come to mind include the obvious (Hanley R, Sanchez, Pedroia, Youk, Ellsbury, Pap, Lester, Buchholz, Masterson, Bogaerts, Betts, Bradley Jr, Benintendi, Moncada, Kopech, Margot) but also those that were useful enough as big league pieces or included in trades (Delcarmen, Andy Marte, Moss, Reddick, Lowrie though he was more of an established MLB player at that point, Iglesias, Fossum, Espinoza, etc, etc).
They of course won 4 titles in that time frame and were probably seen as the best organization in baseball, at worst tied for that honor with SFG and StL.
Dombrowski certainly identified the right pieces to deal off as I can't think of a single one that came back to hurt him, and the bigger argument was "did he monetize this player enough", or could he have gotten more, but that's another argument. I suppose it's fair to critique if he did enough to rebuild the farm system (and many would say no) but many of the core pieces pointed to now where brought into the organization by DDski (and developed under Bloom) such as Bello, Casas, Duran, I'll add Rafaela as a "core" piece and wherever you want to put Houck and Crawford in that mix.
DDski didn't do much in terms of the "depth" pieces of the farm, and Bloom seems to do a good job of that. Alternatively, we have no idea what Mayer, Anthony, Bleis, Yorke, etc will look like at the big league level, assuming they all get there.
At this point we don't know where Bloom is going to fall in that continuum. The only players I can think of that have been acquired by Bloom as prospects and have reached the Majors to this point are Wong (very valuable); Seabold (already gone, but Pivetta was obviously the prize of that deal), Valdez (TBD but he's looked like a decent utility option), Abreu (looks solid, but SSS), Hamilton (looked terrible, but SSS obviously), Winckowski (he's been valuable this year, but peripherals don't back it up), Downs (terrible), and German (terrible). Both Murphy and Walter were technically drafted under DDski, but I don't know that either of them even pitched in the organization before Bloom came on board, and if so, it was for like 3 months. I'll give Bloom "credit" for those two, and I think one is fine as a swing man with some upside (Murphy), the other looks terrible, but again, SSS caveat is there.