For the last time this season, Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer, Craig Breslow, joins!
With Red Sox officially eliminated from contention, did this Sox team exceed expectations? Thoughts?
With Red Sox officially eliminated from contention, did this Sox team exceed expectations? Thoughts?
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00:00Hey Craig, how you doing?
00:02Hey, I'm hanging in there. How are you doing?
00:04Great. Alex Cora, you just heard Alex Cora say that there was not much of an expectation
00:09outside of the building that the Red Sox would be playing meaningful games this time of year.
00:17So I guess I would ask if that's kind of the outlook of the organization,
00:20which is that this team did better than expected.
00:24Well, you know, I think ultimately we have to measure the success of our season and wins and
00:32losses and whether or not we met our goal of getting to the postseason, giving ourselves a
00:36chance to play for the World Series. And we didn't do that. So, you know, I think while we can look
00:42at some individual performances that were really positive and overall I think the health of the
00:49organization is in a really good place, I think we have to all agree that the season was disappointing
00:53and that we didn't reach ultimately what we set out to do.
00:56Craig, how difficult is your job right now when you're coming off a season that's ending like
01:00this and you've got free agents like Nick Pavetta, Tyler O'Neal, Kenley Jensen, to name a few, that
01:06are headed for the open market. How hard is it for you to be able to keep big names like that
01:10on your roster when you guys didn't go out and do what you had hoped for?
01:17Yeah, you know, I think all of those guys contributed to some of the, you know,
01:21success that we did have in spurts. Obviously, like I said, not enough in total, but I think if
01:28you were to talk to those guys, every one of them would speak positively about their experience here
01:32in Boston. Every one of them contributed and, you know, we'll have conversations with those guys and
01:37understand whether or not there's a fit here. They've earned the right to reach free agency
01:42if that's the path that they want to go and we have to look to put together the best team we
01:45possibly can heading into 2025. Craig, you told Greg that the team didn't reach its goal of winning
01:51World Series. Did you think this roster was capable of winning a World Series?
01:57You know, I think there were a number of times during the season where, you know, we were playing
02:03really good baseball. We were pitching well. We were scoring a bunch of runs that, you know, sure
02:07that the defense at times let us down, but we were playing with, you know, teams that I think the,
02:14you know, the baseball world viewed as World Series contenders. So, you know, kind of by
02:20measures of being able to, you know, play with the Yankees and play with the Phillies and play
02:24with the Guardians, like, yeah, I think we were capable of that. Obviously, you need to get in
02:29to be able to do that and we didn't. And I think over the course of 152 games, we saw, you know,
02:35or, you know, at this point 159 or 158, like you, we saw some of our deficiencies. We definitely
02:43have some holes that we need to address, but I think we also saw the core of a really exciting
02:48team. Off-season wise and free agents that require writing a big check to get and looking
02:54at priorities. What do you think are from your perspective right now, the two big priorities
03:00for you positionally for this team off-season wise? Yeah, I think we need to figure out how
03:07to balance out our lineup. Obviously, it's left-handed heavy and a number of our young
03:13players who will be impacting the big league club here shortly are also left-handed. And so,
03:19you know, I think we need to figure out how we balance that out and don't leave ourselves so
03:24susceptible to left-handed pitching. And then, you know, we can never have enough starting
03:29pitching. We can never have enough quality starting pitching. So I think looking at
03:33starting pitching is the other area of focus for us. Craig, when you look at regardless of what
03:38sport is, the teams that generally are successful is because ownership is willing to spend a lot of
03:44money. Is ownership invested, and this is three years in a row that their Red Sox are not going
03:50to make the postseason. Are they invested financially in this organization when it comes
03:57to going out and spending the money that we saw them in years past? Because I think that's a big
04:02knock on them now is that, you know, they're not spending the type of money. Have they told
04:08you that they want things to change? They want this team to get back in the hunt, and they are
04:13willing to open up the checkbook to bring in elite talent that can help get the Red Sox back to
04:19championship contending? Yeah, the commitment from ownership to get the Red Sox, you know,
04:26to get us where we need to go is there, is strong. You know, it's up to me, up to the rest of
04:33the front office to, you know, figure out what opportunities we need to pursue. But, you know,
04:39I don't have any questions about ownership's willingness to do what we need to do to put
04:44the Red Sox back where we belong. Craig, what happens in the final two months of the season
04:50with these Red Sox teams the last three years? Have you done any internal work on why you,
04:56every year with Alex Kora of late, it's been 10 to 15 games over 500 at the trade deadline or
05:02All-Star break, and then just the completely opposite effect after the All-Star break. Why
05:08does this keep happening? Yeah, we're, you know, we're looking at a bunch of different explanations
05:15for that. You know, I think one thing it seems is that it's not luck, right? You know, in that
05:23when this has happened time after time, we have to start to think that, you know, there's something
05:27that we can do or something that we're not doing. And so, you know, we're looking at, you know,
05:32monitoring workload and understanding whether or not we're asking more of guys than, you know,
05:36they're equipped to handle. And if that means that we need to change off-season conditioning
05:41or in-season workloads, you know, I think one thing that we can point to is just overall
05:45organizational depth, you know, in that when some of our key relievers went down, you know,
05:52we had a handful of guys who were able to step up. We also, you know, at times had a pretty
05:56significant drop-off in talent in terms of who was ready to come up and contribute. And so,
06:04you know, I think overall improving the organizational depth, especially on the
06:07pitching side, is something that we can point to as, you know, one way that we can overcome
06:13some of the struggles that we've had in the second half. Last one from me. You played the game.
06:17You're a student of the game. You work in the game. Is this Shohei Otani season the best ever
06:24by a Major League Baseball player? It is really, really impressive. You know, I think the one
06:32thing that does stand out is I saw something the other, you know, a couple days ago about how,
06:36you know, this season relative to Barry Bonds would have been like somewhere between I think
06:40the 12th and 15th best season of Bonds, which maybe adds a little bit of perspective to this,
06:46but certainly like in, you know, in today's game, it's as impressive as anything I've seen.
06:52All right. Well, thanks for taking the time this season and we will,
06:57we will, I'm sure, get the opportunity to do this with you again next year. So,
07:01look forward to that and look forward to you writing some big checks as soon as possible.
07:08Thank you. I appreciate it.
07:11We're at the buzzer here. I just have one quick question, Craig. You guys have said that when
07:16the team's core is at a certain point and is worthy of an investment, you will invest into
07:22the roster. Has the team and the farm system reached a point where this offseason you feel
07:28comfortable in saying that this is a team that you will invest in free agency for?
07:33Yeah, I think, I think you can see that the cornerstones, you know, have emerged over the
07:38course of this season and the significant steps forward that some of the guys in the upper levels
07:43of the minor leagues have made, I think, do, you know, merit the ability to say,
07:49hey, this is a really good team. This is a team that we need to supplement. We need to add to it
07:53because we have a chance to do exactly what we're hoping to accomplish, which is compete for World
07:57Series championships year after year. You know, and I think there's a lot of excitement around
08:03these young guys. There's a lot of excitement around what we think we're capable of doing and,
08:07you know, we absolutely need to improve the product we're putting on the field.
08:10All right, Craig Renslow, thank you very much.
08:14All right. Thank you. Take care.