The Craig Breslow/Sam Kennedy press conference
SEATTLE - The last time Craig Breslow kicked off a series with an appearance in the T-Mobile Park visitors clubhouse, he was being rolled through the locker room in a laundry cart to receive a celebratory beer shower.
What a difference 14 months makes.
Monday, the Red Sox chief baseball officer once again strolled through his team's dressing room prior to its game against the Mariners, this time under much different circumstances. On this day, there were no expectations for celebrations. He was, after all, the guy who had removed the best hitter from the room ... voluntarily.
It was the day after Rafael Devers had been traded to the Giants and there was a sense of curiosity as to how Breslow's stroll through the clubhouse might be received. Or even just how the overall vibe among the Red Sox players might be. Would they prioritize their five-game win streak or the image of Devers walking off the team plane?
The verdict? It was an atmosphere that honestly didn't offer much anxiety at all.
"For us, he is a teammate of ours, or was, and obviously a really special player. But at the end of the day the roster and the decisions that are made are above our pay grade and our job is to go and play and try and win games," said pitcher Walker Buehler. "I think at this point our goal is to keep playing good. We have had a good last 10 days and kind of push the front office at the same time as we get to the trade deadline and hopefully we can make a good run."
"Right now it’s just on us to move forward," starter Garrett Crochet added.
"We went on a good run this past week. There were 26 guys who were playing hard. Obviously, we’re one down but somebody is going to come up and fill that spot. Right now it’s next man up mentality."
"The timing of it comes at a weird time," noted shortstop Trevor Story. "We thought we were playing really good. I think it’s a brutal reminder that this game is a business. It showed its face. There are a lot of things that are out of our control. A weird time, for sure. But we have a game to play tonight and we’re coming to win it."
"Who's making it a big thing, though? Yeah, he's a great player, but at the end of the day, it's how many guys, 26? That’s just one guy, so we’ve got 25 other guys that were pulling the same line to win those series, not just one," commented outfielder Jarren Duran. "So I think we got to think about it like that as a team."
And then there was the manager.
"We have to keep going," Alex Cora said. "That’s the bottom line. We put ourselves in a good spot. We have played good baseball for an extended period of time. Now we have to do it without Raffy."
Questions? Concerns? Anything? Other than Ceddanne Rafaela giving a "no comment" when approached for his thoughts on the Devers trade, it was difficult to decipher any sort of difference.
"At the end of the day, at some point, this story is done and over and kind of written," Buehler said. "Obviously, you guys will ask all of us about this for a few days. At the end of the day, if we keep winning and we keep playing good baseball that’s kind of our goal and what gets rid of this stuff for us."
So, inside the clubhouse they weren't asking questions, seemingly prioritizing the better baseball from those 25 players who were still in Red Sox uniforms. But that mean curiosity when it came to the Devers deal had dissipated outside the Red Sox' inner-sanctum.
That was evident thanks to 39 minutes worth of questions to Breslow and team president Sam Kennedy while the Red Sox were preparing for their series opener.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
The complexity of the Devers trade was always going to lead to more questions than are affixed to most deals. That was brought into focus during a Zoom call with the Sox' chief decision-makers.
More than 50 media members crowded into the Red Sox' Zoom room to try and uncover answers for questions that had bubbled up to the surface since the surprise deal was made.
Perhaps the most telling of Breslow's answers came in response to the first question thrown his way. The Red Sox' CBO let it be known that he truly believed this trade was going to result in more wins than if the team stayed status quo with Devers.
The ready-for-major league-action players (Kyle Harrison, Jordan Hicks). The roster flexibility (playing time for Roman Anthony and, eventually, Masa Yoshida). And the money saved with San Francisco taking on Devers' entire contract. In Breslow's world, it was all an equation that meant more than the star power of the one player.
"I think when you consider the flexibility, the ability to give some of the young players some run, the opportunity to maybe repackage some of the resources and fill some voids in the roster as early as approaching this year's deadline, and being really intentional about the environment that we create for these young players to thrive in, then I do think that there is a real chance that at the end of the season, we're looking back, and we've won more games than we otherwise would have," he proclaimed.
The questions (and answers) were just getting going ...
Did Devers ask for a trade? "There were times during the course of conversations with Raffy’s camp where they had indicated that perhaps a fresh start would be best for both sides. We were committed to trying to work through this, and like Sam said, ultimately, we weren't able to achieve that alignment. This does represent that chance to reset on our end, and for Raffy to get a fresh start with a historic franchise. So that's kind of how that came about."
Did the Red Sox feel obligated to get a deal done right away? "If we didn't get the return that we were holding out for, then we wouldn't have made it."
Did they engage with more clubs other than just the Giants? "I think we rightfully set a really high bar in order to execute a trade of this magnitude. And we did have conversations with other clubs. We got a sense for the way that they might behave, whether it was today or a few weeks from now, and felt like this, it’s not that this was the best deal that we could get, because the best deal that we could get may not necessarily be good enough to trade a player like Raffy Devers, but when you consider all the factors here, this is the one that made sense. This is the path that we went down, and so we ended up where we did."
How does this whole equation work? "Giving some more flexibility at the DH spot does allow us to rotate through the three left-handed hitting outfielders as soon as Wily’s back, plus Ceddanne able to stay in center field, where we've seen him play elite defense, likely opens up some additional at-bats for Masa as well, as soon as he's healthy. And then we look at opportunities to improve our team every single day. And if we were having this conversation a week ago, we would be talking about starting pitching, and they've been really good the last two turns through, and we need to make sure that that has some staying power. But starting pitching could be an opportunity for us to continue to upgrade. Also, we've had our share of both bullpen injuries and inconsistency in trying to get the ball to Aroldis, who's been so good late in games. So, so that's another potential pathway, and then we need to start thinking about what is a long-term solution at, say first base, and Triston’s rehab is going well, but it's going to be a long road there. So, yeah, I think we're, we're absolutely going to look at the best use of those resources, and could put them to use as early as the 2025 trade deadline."
Why now? "The timing was absolutely not great. And we don't always have the choice about when these things kind of reach the point of execution outside of we absolutely could have walked away or said we're not going to make this trade, but we do ultimately believe that it was best for the organization. And I don't think it's fair to say that our performance was solely because of Raffy any more than to say a number of these games that we've won over the first, couple of months have been because of the offensive contributions that he's made. But I do think, you know, as we think about the identity and the culture and the environment, that is created by great teams, there was something amiss here. And it was something that we needed to act decisively to course correct."
Could he have done anything different to avoid the Devers chaos? "That's one of the questions that I ask myself every day. And there is no blueprint for how to navigate this. It does seem easy at this point, given where we are today, to say that we mishandled it. And I think that would be a totally fair criticism. I also, to be totally candid in my head, kind of play out this OK so we have this conversation with Raffy and he is resolute and adamant that third base is his position. Now we have a different type of problem on our hands. And so we try to operate with certainty and clarity and sometimes baseball is so unpredictable that it's really difficult to do that until the very end. But I think to answer your question, I think about that all of the time. And if in a similar situation next time, my hope is that I, we are able to manage that in a way that it never reaches this point."
Four hours later, Breslow was back in the visitors clubhouse, wearing the smile that came with the Red Sox' 2-0 win over the Mariners. There was no beer shower, but there were handshakes. For now, that will have to do.