The Uncertainty of Craig Breslow

More so than any time in recent Red Sox history, we just don't know what the new guy in charge is going to do.

I’m not sure if it’s in the service of content or not, but much ink has been spilled over Craig Breslow’s priority list. The new Red Sox POBO (President of Baseball Operations) certainly has a large to-do list that he’ll get to tackling following his introductory press conference this Thursday, but how he’ll tackle those items or even if he’ll tackle them, is very much up for debate.

Breslow isn’t exactly an empty vessel, but he’s more of one than any Red Sox POBO since John Henry bought the team back in 2003. Each of the POBOs under Henry have had their own operating principles, and, unlike Breslow, those were all pretty clear when those people were hired. Theo was going to use Moneyball-esque ideas in Boston. Cherington was basically a continuation of Theo (though with a bit more conservatism, as we came to find out). Dombrowski was an old school win-now damn-the-torpedoes kinda dude. Bloom was going to incorporate new school analytical ideas from the Rays.

But what is Breslow? Every profile of him includes the following four details:

1. He graduated from Yale.

2. He was a relief pitcher for the Red Sox (and other teams).

3. He worked in the Cubs front office.

4. He was in charge of improving the Cubs pitching.

Those are all fine, but they don’t really tell us much about what he’ll do when he takes the keys of the Red Sox. They tell us he is smart, he has major league experience as a player, and he’s worked in a front office. None of that differentiate him from hundreds of other nameless front office employees the Red Sox not only didn’t hire, they weren’t interviewed. OK, maybe the played-in-MLB part is different, but there are a ton of ex-players working as scouts and in player development, so maybe not?

The only truly pertinent piece of information we have about Breslow is that he ran a program to improve pitching organization-wide in Chicago using high-level analytics. That’s something, I guess, but in Boston Breslow is going to be charged with more than just pitching. He’s going to be in charge of everything. Will there be a greater focus on pitching? I mean, I guess? But do you really think the Red Sox would’ve hired anyone for POBO that wouldn’t focus on improving their pitching org-wide?

In fact, what’s funny is that there are a lot of similarities between Breslow and Bloom. Like, a lot, at least personally. They’re both young-for-the-role analytically-focused Yale grads with no POBO experience when hired. The big difference is Breslow pitched while Bloom spent his entire career in front offices. And none of that tells us anything about what Breslow is likely to do as POBO of the Red Sox.

To me, one of the defining features of Bloom’s tenure was his conservatism. He didn’t push the envelope, he didn’t make deals he wasn’t pretty certain he’d win. We saw that at two consecutive trade deadlines when the Red Sox didn’t like the market so they just did nothing. We saw it in the massive holes in right field in 2022 and at shortstop in 2023 when, again, the Red Sox didn’t like the deals that were out there so they decided not to do anything. That might’ve worked over a 10 year stretch, but it takes a long time to amass a high enough organization-wide talent level. So, in just three plus years, it was quite limiting.

Do we know that Breslow won’t be exactly like that? No. In fact, he could be even more conservative than Bloom. There’s nothing in his resume to indicate one way or the other. I guess the one thing you could say is it’s unlikely the team would have hired him had similar tendencies been indicated during his interviews, but interviews are just talk. We won’t know anything about Breslow until he actually gets in the driver’s seat and starts making decisions. He could be Dombrowski, he could be Bloom, he could be a bit of both and a lot of neither, either in a good way or not. We don’t know!

I guess the point of all this is to say let’s pump the brakes on the team’s priorities. Yes, if I were in charge I’d go after high level pitching and I’d make a run at Shohei Ohtani and Juan Soto. And it seems somewhat obvious that the team needs those kind of players. To me. Here. Now. Sitting on my couch. But we don’t know what Breslow thinks about any of that. He could entirely disagree. And I don’t think that would necessarily be wrong, either. Breslow could be working on an entirely different timeline than ‘how to fix the roster to win next season.’ Reasonable and smart people can come up with a scenario wherein the team’s farm system starts spewing out talent and with few additions to the roster the team becomes a long term contender in the American League after next season.

Add Marcelo Mayer (pronounced My-er, not May-er) as the starting shortstop, Kyle Teel as the starting catcher, and Roman Anthony to center (or right) field, and if those guys are as good as people say (and people say they’re all pretty good!), that’s a pretty strong lineup. So maybe coming in all Dombrowski-ish and tossing $100 million contracts out like Halloween candy while loading all your top prospects into t-shirt cannons and firing them across the entirety of MLB in search of whatever ails you in the moment isn’t the best long term strategy.

This is all to say, nobody really knows what Breslow will do, what his priorities will be, who he’ll target, how flexible and focused he’ll work to acquire them, how much money he’ll have to spend, or how much money he’ll want to spend. It’s all a mystery.

(That said, sign Ohtani and trade for and extend Soto please and thank you.)

Thanks for reading.