Craig Breslow weighs in on Red Sox' 'underperforming' comment, conversation
A big part of the conversation around the Red Sox in recent days has centered on team president Sam Kennedy's proclamation on The Greg Hill Show that, despite the massive amount of key injuries, the believed the team was underperforming.
Exactly one week after the statement, with the Red Sox still sitting at .500 (31-31), it was chief baseball officer Craig Breslow's chance to weigh in on the matter.
Appearing on GHS Thursday morning, Breslow attempted to balance both sides of the argument when asked about his perception regarding the Red Sox.
"It’s an interesting question and I will certainly choose my words carefully," he said. "When you think about overachieving or what your expectations are, We are 62 games into the season and if were were to play the same 62 again do I think we would win more or fewer than we have. There is an argument we would win more games if you look at the run-differential and the expectations and the injuries we have had to overcome. But I don’t think that means we are necessarily underperforming. It’ just the nature of how our team is constructed and the performances we have gotten that have kept us in games. I think it’s probably more important from my end to think about the progress that we’re making and think about how the roster is coming together and the steps forward we have seen from some of the younger guys we have talked about through the offseason and needing to see them take a step forward.
"It’s hard to pin down what the right answer is outside of saying we are 31-31. We are a .500 team. There is no way around that right now. But I think we have been in a bunch of games that are definitely a roll of the dice that we would have won more and I think that shows up in some of the things like run differential and where the expected wins are right now."
When asked about Breslow's hesitancy to label the Red Sox as a team prioritizing the future over the present, he said, "I think we have been pretty unspoken about wanting to understand exactly where our players were to build toward to the future. About being unwilling to trade future wins for now wins. I think your players and our staff are working really hard and very delierately every day to identify the opportunities to develop and focus on those. I think that’s very important work so I would want to highlight that. I think this idea of either saying if we are underachieving or we are overachieving takes away some of the work and some of the controllables we are facing every day."
The Red Sox currently sit 2 1/2 games out of a Wild Card spot, possessing the fourth-best run-differential (plus-26) in the American League.
