Chief Baseball Officer of the Red Sox, Craig Breslow, joins the show! Breslow talks Alex Cora extension and what changed on not wanting to talk contract during the season. Thoughts?
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00:00And joining us now, a guy that Alex Cora referred to as the closer because they were able to get
00:08their deal done. It is Craig Breslow, the chief baseball officer of the Boston Red Sox. Hey,
00:13Craig. Hey, good morning. How are you doing? Congratulations. I think we're very excited
00:21about the fact that Alex Cora will be here for the next three years. And I know that he had been
00:26pretty specific just a couple weeks ago about not wanting to talk about this during the season. So
00:34what changed his mind? How'd you guys end up getting this done?
00:39Yeah, first, let me share in that excitement. I think this is a great moment for the organization,
00:44for Boston, and for what we believe we can accomplish together. And I think this came
00:50together because when Alex made it clear that this is a place that he wanted to be, and I was
00:58very clear with him that he was the guy that I wanted to lead our team heading into the next few
01:05years here, we were able to put it together pretty quickly. And I think over the last few weeks that
01:11we've had these conversations, it became more and more clear to me that he was absolutely the right
01:15guy. And the chance for me to see him navigate the clubhouse and young guys and veteran guys
01:22was really impressive. And so I'm glad that ultimately this is the place that he wanted to
01:28stay and that we were able to get something done. Craig, Alex has been pretty outspoken,
01:32not just this season, but seasons past about adding to this team and leading the forefront
01:38this season of making sure that there is some type of acquisition before the trade deadline.
01:42Was there conversation between you guys and Alex about what he needed you guys to do to make sure
01:48that he would stay here and sign that contract? Alex and I have had great conversations
01:56for going on six months now. I think I've been very open about where we are and the opportunities
02:04that I think we're going to have in front of us. He has also been outspoken about opportunities for
02:09us to improve. And that's exactly what I would want in a manager, exactly what I would want in
02:14a thought partner. And so we've talked about, and I think I've talked about here over the last
02:20couple of weeks, that we're focused at this point on trying to find opportunities to improve the
02:25club. But in terms of what Alex's expectations are, I think we were both completely honest with
02:31each other. And he was very honest about the fact that Boston was a place that was very comfortable
02:37for his family, and that was of significant importance. And additionally, he wanted to be
02:41in a place where we had a chance to win the World Series, and so do I. So the fact that we had that
02:46in common makes for a great partnership. Well, and you said as much yesterday, I think the
02:51quote was, you want to stop the stupid analogies and put the turn signal on. And you believe that
02:58this team is, just to be clear, in a position where you need to do what you can to improve the
03:08team, correct? Yeah, I think our play over the last two to three months, and we can obviously
03:17point to a tough road trip coming out of the All-Star break, but I think Alex said it really
03:21well in saying that that didn't represent who we are as a team. I think you can get yourself in a
03:28tough place when you're living and dying day to day. I think instead, we see the total body of
03:33work. We see the momentum that we had built heading into the All-Star break. We can look at the guys
03:39that we expect to get back here in the near future and say, we should be looking at ways to improve
03:43the team. And so that's how we're going to spend the next few days here. Awesome. Craig, so you guys
03:48use analytics as most teams do, which relies upon a much bigger sample size than the time between
03:54now and the 31st. So my question is, when did you arrive at the decision that this team was worthy
04:02of an investment in at the deadline? Well, I think it's important to say that you always want
04:10to come to the conclusion that a team is worthy of looking for reinforcements, looking for
04:14opportunities to improve. That's why any of us takes the job that we do. That's why we work in
04:19sports. And we've played really well against teams that are going to be competing for playoff
04:27spots and playing meaningful games down the stretch over the last month. And so I think
04:33the team has put itself in a position to where we say, hey, what opportunities do we have to
04:37improve the team? And we'll go into the next few days looking to have those conversations. Of
04:42course, we have to line up. But I think we've got a good farm system. We've got depth. We've got
04:51some opportunities to use guys in conversations that are going to be really good Major League
04:57players but may not have the opportunity to do so here. Looking at adding positionally,
05:03what have you identified as being most important? Yeah, so I think it's pretty clear that our lineup
05:10is pretty left-handed heavy. We struggled against left-handed pitching. And so I think trying to
05:16find a right-handed hitter that can help even out the lineup a little bit, one with positional
05:20versatility would be super helpful, whether that's first base or potentially in the outfield.
05:26I think that's probably where we'll spend some time.