Behind the scenes of Craig Breslow's journey
ARLINGTON, Texas - Mike Hazen landed in the visitors' dugout Thursday afternoon, roaming about while contemplating his Arizona Diamondbacks' appearance in the World Series one day later.
As the head decision-maker for Arizona for the past seven years, Hazen has done things his way. Building a front office. Building a team. Building a coaching staff. And even deciding that many of his superstitions - such as prioritize wearing the same clothes throughout October - is the way to go.
When it comes to that job, however, this isn't a cookie-cutter proposition. Hazen knows that. But there are elements of taking over the baseball operations of a franchise that only a select group of people can understand. This is what the Diamondbacks' boss came to understand, and what Boston's new chief decision-maker, Craig Breslow, is about to be presented with.
"I think you feel like when you first are getting into the job that there is more time, but when the season starts you realize nobody cares that you just got here," Hazen told WEEI.com on the Globe Life Field during the Diamondbacks' pre-World Series workout. "When I first came over, I didn’t understand that. I just got here. I got a five-year deal. I have time. But then the season starts and you’re like ‘Whoa!’"
When talking about Breslow's lot in life, Hazen not only is well-versed in the position, but also has a pretty good understanding of the person.
When the former reliever first entered into the Red Sox organization in 2006, Hazen was the farm director. And during the Sox' 2013 World Series run, both were in majors with Hazen serving as an assistant GM and Breslow playing a key role in the Boston bullpen.
"His intelligence … The conversations you would have in the dugout," Hazen said when asked about what he remembered about his first interactions with Breslow.l
"He was just so intelligent. And all the conversations you would have with him, even things outside of baseball, he was so smart. He asked a lot of good questions, and that jumped out right away. He’s a very interesting guy to always to talk to. He’s very introspective and he’s very likable. I feel like he connected with people."
Now all of those qualities are going to be needed for an entirely different kind of venture.
When Hazen took over the Diamondbacks in 2016, he was inheriting a club that had lost 93 games and was desperately trying to find a direction and identity. A few weeks later, he made his first big trade, dealing for Ketel Marte and Taijuan Walker.
But, as he can now attest, the job can't be about shock and awe right out of the gate. And that's the first challenge facing people in positions like the one Breslow now finds himself.
"I think when you’re getting into for the first time you have to prioritize your roster. You have to get to know exactly where your roster is at and what you need to do," Hazen said. "Obviously, in the position they are in they have to rev the engine up and get it going for next season. It doesn’t seem like he’s taking over a team that is at the bottom of the American League.
"You do have to get to know everybody. It’s hard to get to know your players right away because nobody is around. So you have to get to know your staff. We had to bring people in for meetings, player development and scouting because int he offseason it’s hard to get everybody together. So we had to force that to make sure we knew all those things. Then you have to be ready to make moves."
But, as Hazen points out, there is so much more than finding the players you want on your roster from the coming season. There is sifting through which people in all corners of the organization belong to stay along for the ride.
"I didn’t start mapping out exactly what I was going to do until I got the job. But then you go from zero to 60," Hazen explained. "Like Day 1, people are in your office wanting to know what is going on. It’s front office people, staff coming in saying, ‘What do you want me to do? Here is what we do, do you want it done this way? How do you want to reshape this?’ A lot of times you’re like, ‘I don’t know.’ It only took me off guard because I hadn’t done it before. The speed you have to give people direction … My response was that I am going to give very little direction at the start. I want to watch it work to a degree.
"I think my mentality around it was that I didn’t want to make mistakes about people too quickly. I did that when I was a farm director. When I came to Boston, when you become the farm director you inherit a large group of people. Sometimes the people you meet initially from a first-impression standpoint isn’t what you think about them a year later and that happened a lot. I reminded myself about that a lot. You have to make some changes."
And then you have one of the final - and most important - pieces of the puzzle: Building the partnership with your manager.
For Hazen, the process of cementing who he wanted to deal with in his own dugout became a priority, hiring Torey Lovullo three weeks after becoming the Diamondbacks' general manager. For Breslow, that dynamic is built-in, with his former teammate Alex Cora being part of the job heading into the 2024 season.
So, how important is it to have the right dynamic for any front office boss and manager?
"Critical," Hazen responded without hesitation.
"There are so many hard discussions that you have to have, either in emotional moments or unemotional moments," he added. "I don’t really know any other way, but as an assistant GM in Boston, or with Tito (Francona) when I was a farm director, you saw those interactions. It’s not always roses. There are a lot of hard conversations. Sometimes there are difference in opinions. Sometimes those difference of opinions can get heated. You just have to navigate that and not have it turn into something that it is a personnel discussion. It’s not a personal conversation. Personnel vs. personal. If the relationship isn’t good it gets personal really quickly. If it’s good you can be like, ‘Alright, I will talk to you tomorrow.’ A couple of times I called Torey on the way home and said, ‘Sorry that conversation went off the rails. I know I was a little more worked up than how I feel, so let’s tackle this in the morning.’ And I apologized."
While Breslow will undoubtedly be writing his own chapters on building out the job, Hazen's guidance certainly seems like a good place to start.
And considering the words of wisdom are being uttered from somebody wearing a World Series sweatshirt one day before his team plays in Game 1 of the Fall Classic, the advice should carry some significant weight.