This year’s Boston Red Sox team is heading into the spring with something they haven’t had to contend with in a long time: expectations.
Following a disappointing but slightly improved outcome last year, with a record that didn’t land them in last place for another season, Boston cobbled together an offseason that has been generally well-received by fans and media alike.
Although chief baseball officer Craig Breslow didn’t land a blockbuster Juan Soto or Corbin Burnes signing, his acquisitions, headlined by pitcher Garrett Crochet and infielder Alex Bregman, have earned the Red Sox the privilege of pressure.
But when Breslow joined WEEI’s The Greg Hill Show on Thursday for his first weekly appearance of the season, he stopped short of taking a victory lap.
“I will say we need to wait until the season starts and the season plays out, but I think going into the offseason with a very clear punch list of needs that we had to address, and then feeling like collectively as a front office, with the support of ownership, we were able to hit on a number of those, it feels good,” Breslow said.
“It feels good coming in here; now we need to execute on that,” he continued.
Breslow’s biggest signing of the season, the 3-year, $120 million deal with Bregman, came in under the wire, just three days before the official start of spring training.
“The baseball offseason does tend to drag out. There's no signing deadline; there's no kind of constraint around that,” Breslow said.
While Bregman was on their wishlist for the entire offseason, Breslow said they wanted to wait until they could reach a deal that felt more on the Red Sox’s terms.
“I think we identified Alex as being a great fit for our team, but also needed to do that on kind of terms that felt responsible and comfortable, or slightly uncomfortable, for us,” Breslow said.
“Ultimately, when you have a player as accomplished as Alex is, he's got choices and needed to work through all of those pretty deliberately, but ultimately, we're thankful he chose the Boston Red Sox,” he continued.
While the Bregman signing is a significant step toward contention for the Red Sox, it’s also caused some PR headaches for the team after last year’s everyday third baseman Rafael Devers said he wouldn’t move to DH for Bregman to play at third.
Breslow said that conversations are happening behind the scenes to ensure all players are “comfortable” with the ultimate decision at third base.
“There are a lot of conversations that go on internally between Alex and players, Alex and me, players and me, and it turns out not everyone is privy to those conversations,” Breslow said.
“Look, like Raffy is an incredibly competitive guy,” he continued. “I think we saw him say two days ago that winning is the most important thing. Winning is going to supersede everything. And that's true of Raffy, that's true of Alex Bregman, it's true of Alex Cora, it's true of me. And if that is where we're starting, we're going to be just fine.”
Breslow also didn’t want to confirm or deny whether Devers was informed of the Bregman signing before it went down.
“I don't know that there's a perfect way to handle those types of conversations,” Breslow said. “What I can say is we acted decisively to bring in Alex Bregman because we recognize that he can improve our team and that Raffy has been very outspoken about wanting to win, wanting to be assured that the front office is doing everything that we can be doing to win, and we were kind of consumed with how we get Alex Bregman into a Boston Red Sox uniform.”
“Now that he's here, we have to put the pieces together in a way that gives us the best chance to win games, and I think that's all anybody could ask for,” he continued.
When pressed on who would be the third baseman on Opening Day, Breslow did not give a definitive answer.
“We're going to take the 26 guys who help us win as many games as possible on Opening Day,” he said. “We're going to put in the field the eight guys plus a pitcher who help us win the game that day.”
“Like I said, if we establish our baseline as we've got 26 guys that are pulling in the same direction, and that direction is toward winning games, we’re going to be OK.”