BOSTON -- In "The Clubhouse: A Year with the Red Sox," Netflix pulls back the curtain on what a 162-game baseball season is like.
The docuseries contains eight parts, and they are all available to stream now.
This isn't so much about a team that ultimately finished 81-81. It's more about what a Major League team and its individual players deal with on and off the field daily.
From Jarren Duran opening up about severe mental health issues he dealt with earlier in his career to Brayan Bello having a hard time living up to his new contract while being separated from his family, there are stories that Netflix is able to reveal through unprecedented access to a baseball team.
Netflix takes you inside Red Sox team strategy meetings, casual and serious conversations in the dugout, and into the homes of some of the players.
Director Greg Whiteley, a four-time Emmy-winning filmmaker, took some time with MLB.com to discuss the completed project, which was produced by One Potato Productions, Boardwalk Pictures Inc. and MLB studios.
MLB.com: Just being around seeing you guys all last year, and seeing how many thousands of hours you collected through Spring Training, through the season, how hard was it to edit all your content down to eight episodes?
Whiteley: The first editorial choices you're making are very early on. You've got to decide who you're going to follow and who are you going to spend more time with. I feel like you've got to decide sooner than later, otherwise, you run the risk of telling a very superficial story about 36 to 40 players, as opposed to going deep on three or four.
MLB.com: Episode 4 is the one that really stuck with me. How surprised were you that Jarren Duran was so open about his mental health struggles, including his previously undisclosed failed suicide attempt?
Whiteley: I don't think I was. By that point, I'd had enough conversations with Jarren to at least suspect that something like that might have been part of his experience. And I also had gotten a sense by some conversations with him that this was someone who was not afraid of questions, and sort of welcomed a deeper exploration of this issue. And as he has explained to me, he feels an obligation, by virtue of the position that he holds, to offer some sort of example to kids who might otherwise think they're alone.
MLB.com: You had some really touching content on Brayan Bello in Episode 5. When he struggled in the first half, most people assumed it was because he was feeling pressure to live up to his contract. While that issue loomed large, lesser known is that he was distraught about not seeing his wife and child for months because they were having visa issues in the Dominican Republic. How important was it to tell stories like that?
Whiteley: I felt like my job as a documentarian, our job as the filmmaking team, was to help an audience feel the same way about these players as maybe their own family members do. We're not going to be able to get all the way there, but I did feel like there's so much happening in these players lives that affect, or at least raise the stakes for them, when they're on the field. ¡ And Brayan is just a prime example of that. He's struggling. And I think fans that have a vested interest in the Sox could get frustrated when Brayan isn't performing up to even his own expectations. And I think it helps to kind of understand just what's going on. I found it fascinating.
MLB.com: While the series was obviously focused on personalities, there was some great inside baseball stuff. One of the most memorable games of the season was the Sunday night game against the Yankees in June when the Red Sox stole a team record of nine bases. How pleased were you to be able to be in the meeting that foreshadowed the gameplan, especially when it played out the way it did?
Whitely: We just tried to be everywhere all the time, and we tried to hit all those team meetings. And we saw that the Sox had noticed a tendency on this particular Yankees catcher, and we knew that they were going to try and run and to see that come about. And we thought, 'OK, it's one thing to note it. It's another thing to be able to execute it in a story.' I'm really pleased with that sequence.
MLB.com: Just the way this team has been put together this year, obviously a very dramatic offseason with acquiring Garrett Crochet and Alex Bregman and the big-time prospects, one who has already come up in Kristian Campbell and two others not far away in Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer. Do you almost wish now you could do a sequel this year the way this could all play out?
Whiteley: Well, the Red Sox have my number. If they're open to it, all they have to do is pick up the phone. I know that they're as anxious as a lot of people are to see how this show plays out, but I felt like the Red Sox as an organization could simply have not been better to work with. We really ask a lot. It's all access. They had no editorial control. It was a huge leap of faith on their part, and so we really are to them, all risk. What's the upside? And yet, they just could not have been better to work with. We would do it again in a second. But it is a lot to ask of a Major League team.