“Any time you have the opportunity to have a surefire first ballot Hall of Famer as part of your organization, that’s a good thing,” Kennedy said. “He’s interested in entering the ownership rank. He made an investment into Fenway Sports Group. It sends a signal that there’s a lot of confidence and belief and trust in this ownership group from his perspective. But again, we need to do the right things in the baseball operation and get the team back to where we belong.”

As MassLive reported Friday night, Epstein was brought back into the fold, at least in part, due to Red Sox ownership privately acknowledging that they have, at times, not given the club the attention it has deserved in recent years as the FSG portfolio has rapidly grown. The 50-year-old, despite taking on a part-time, behind-the-scenes advisory role that includes involvement in all of FSG’s properties, will be in part tasked with re-instituting processes and lines of communication that made the Red Sox so successful during his tenure as general manager from 2003 to 2011.