At Winter Weekend in January, Fred Lynn told the Herald the “priority number one” for the 2024 Red Sox had to be improving on defense.

The legendary Red Sox outfielder is happily watching Jarren Duran answer the call. The outfielder, 27, has emerged an all-around superstar and face of the franchise this season, playing Gold Glove-caliber defense while moving between two outfield positions and taking command of the leadoff spot. And doing it all in each of Boston’s first 106 games.

Lynn, a nine-time All-Star, was in Texas for the game earlier this month. He saw Duran homer in his first career All-Star at-bat, delivering Team American League the win and earning MVP honors, and he knew he wanted to meet the young outfielder. When the Red Sox Hall of Famer came to town for a long weekend in the Legends Suite, they were able to make it happen.

On Monday afternoon, the past, present, and future of elite Red Sox outfielders converged. Standing by the dugout steps, they spoke for several minutes. At times, Lynn pointed or gestured toward the outfield, his 2004 World Series ring gleaming on his left ring finger. He made Duran, who can be reserved at times, smile and laugh.

“I congratulated him on being an All-Star. He’s a good kid. I could tell he’s quiet, I’m pulling stuff out of him a little bit, but once we got that bond, the California thing, the center field thing, then he opened up,” Lynn told the Herald. “Believe me, I was the same way, I didn’t say boo! Especially when the old-timers came in. I just respected what they had to say. I was just kind of tongue-tied talking to Ted Williams.”

Lynn sees a lot of himself in Duran, a fellow SoCal boy who grew up to be a Red Sox All-Star outfielder and line-drive hitter for whom the homers “come in bunches.”

“We didn’t grow up too far from each other, his college was close to mine,” said Lynn. “We’d never met. He might know who I am, I was hoping he did.”

Duran grew up a Red Sox fan, so he knew of Lynn, but not that they had so much in common.

“I didn’t realize he was a SoCal guy, so that was super cool to learn,” he told the Herald.

Lynn was shocked to find out that the towering, muscular Duran was once one of the smaller players on his teams.

“First question out of my mouth, did you play football?” Lynn said with a chuckle. “And he said he was little! He was like, 5-foot-3 and he played second. I said, ‘What?!’ But he was always fast. He always had that speed, so that’s what sets him apart from everybody else. He can flat-out fly.”

That’s one key difference between them. In Lynn’s era – and most Red Sox eras – they weren’t a team of base-stealers; he saved his speed for the outfield. Hours after their conversation, Duran swiped his 23rd bag.

“We didn’t do that. We had too many good hitters, I didn’t want to get thrown out stealing with (Jim) Rice and (Carl) Yastrzemski behind me,” Lynn said. “We stole when we needed a bag stolen, but he leads off! He’s the sparkplug, so when he gets on, woo! Go! …If he gets thrown out, I’d be stunned.”

Using what teammates call his ‘angry lizard’ style of running, Duran frequently turns singles into some of his AL-leading 33 doubles and doubles into an MLB-leading 12 triples.

“Triples are kind of an anomaly, because if you’re playing in a symmetrical ballpark, they’re hard to hit; if they play you straight-away, either somebody messes up, or you just have blinding speed, because a gapper’s always double,” said Lynn. “But here, it ricochets a little funny, you’re on third. And that guy can fly. He probably has more foot speed than I did.”

Mostly, though, the two talked about patrolling Fenway Park’s tricky outfield dimensions. Duran has proven more than up to the challenge. Among AL center fielders, his plus-8 Outs Above Average is tied for third. He’s also been a plus-defender in left field, and Alex Cora often moves him from one to the other within games.

“(There are) little things that center fielders get to see that the flank guys don’t see: where the pitch is being thrown, where the catcher’s setting up. Those are the things that are unique to center,” explained Lynn, who won all four of his Gold Gloves in his seven seasons with the Red Sox. “You can communicate to your flank guys how your pitcher’s doing. If he’s missing wildly, that’s when the alarm bells go off, you might play a little deeper and tell your other guys as well.”

“The stuff that he was talking about is stuff that we do to this day,” said Duran. “Kind of makes it seem like the game hasn’t changed too much in certain aspects. We were talking about reading the catcher’s positioning, and if your pitcher’s feeling good or not, maybe his pitches are breaking off differently and making adjustments to that. That was cool to see that he was doing that back then.”

Duran’s first two years in the Majors, up and down from Triple-A, were rocky. With hard work, patience, and perseverance, he’s light years away from that version of himself now. Lynn is confident Duran is only getting started.

“(I) told him I was proud of him and that he’s doing really well,” Lynn said. “Bouncing back and forth, position to position, it’s not easy. It’s not easy, especially here, because you play left, you gotta learn to play the wall, you play in center, you play a lot, you gotta do a lot. So he’s doing that on the fly, plus he’s hitting first, that’s a lot of responsibility. And he plays every day! He’s a work horse.”

“He’s really figuring it out, and he hasn’t even been the everyday center fielder! It’s really difficult (to switch between center and left),” Lynn said. “The team’s all messed up, got too many guys hurt, and you’re just plugging guys in. Cora’s like a magician. My era, the same guys played all the time, and it wears you out, but you knew what was gonna happen.”

There’s something Lynn thinks the Red Sox need to figure out, too.

“He’s the guy now,” Lynn said. “I don’t know what you pay him, but yeah, oh yeah, he’s gotta play here. He’s too valuable – you don’t want him to end up down south or with your competitors. You don’t want that. So yeah, he’s a fixture. He should be.”