Boston Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow joined The Greg Hill Show Thursday morning for the “Front Office Report” and discussed how he’s approaching the MLB trade deadline, which is now just three weeks away. Listen to the full segment below.
Thanks to their six-game winning streak, the Red Sox have pushed their way back into playoff position and are making a strong case to be buyers, not sellers. Jermaine Wiggins asked Breslow what “one area” he would want to address between now and July 31.
“It's a very fair question. I'm not trying to avoid answering it, but I think it kind of depends on where we are,” Breslow began. “And so, we have to zoom out a little bit and try to figure out who are we, and what do we have coming back, and what do we think is sustainable? Meaning, a month ago, a month and a half ago, we would have talked a ton about starting pitching and getting more consistency and finding someone who slots in towards the top of the rotation, behind Garrett [Crochet]. And then you look at what Lucas [Giolito] and Brayan [Bello] have done over the last month and a half, and start to feel confident in the way that the starting pitching is coming together.
“That said, you can never have too much, so I think that's probably what we would prioritize. But we've seen what [Richard] Fitts has done, [Hunter] Dobbins is getting healthy, [Tanner] Houck is getting healthy. So, we have some depth, but I think if there's the opportunity to provide some impact starting pitching and add that to the group, that's probably where we focus.”
There has been plenty of speculation around the league that the way the Red Sox might add a starting pitcher is by subtracting from their outfield, which now has a logjam with Jarren Duran, Ceddanne Rafaela, Wilyer Abreu, Roman Anthony and Rob Refsnyder, plus Masataka Yoshida now returning in the designated hitter role.
Meghan Ottolini asked Breslow about that, and Breslow acknowledged that while there could be a trade that makes sense there, he doesn’t believe the Red Sox *need* to trade an outfielder.
“It's something that you would have to consider if there was an opportunity to improve the team elsewhere,” he said. “But I think it's really important to point out that we don't have to trade one of the outfielders simply because we have more guys that are capable of contributing than can start every night.
“And I think there's a way to balance this out. Alex is very aggressive in matching up, finding pinch hit opportunities, moving guys around, and making sure that the pieces come together. But we have to be open-minded about ways to improve the team, and the obvious one that continues to pop up is, is there an opportunity to address the rotation, potentially through some of that outfield depth? And we just don't know yet.”