Craig Breslow talks trade deadline
How did the Red Sox land here? Considering this team's here and now, it has become a fascinating question.
The here and now, of course, is a 10-game win streak heading into the All-Star break, punctuated by a four-game series sweep of the Rays. The feather in the cap for this, the Red Sox's longest win streak since the Steve Pearce-propelled run in 2018, was Sunday's 4-1 win over Tampa Bay at Fenway Park.
Starting pitching? Brayan Bello was good again, this time giving up just one run over 6 1/3 innings. Relievers? No problems. That's a group that has a 1.57 in the 10-game stretch (needing to pitch in just eight of them). And the bats? In case you missed it, Ceddanne Rafaela has suddenly become a star, hitting another home run to seal the Sox's Sunday deal.
The latest victory was somewhat of a microcosm of why this has worked. A lot of subtle and not-so-subtle contributions. And then there is the overall belief that whatever concoction this club has rolled out can enter them into legitimate postseason consideration.
And that's a belief that took three months, and one enormous Rafael Devers roll of the dice, to finally come upon.
"We’re not in a position where we have to make a trade because I think everybody understands what we’re trying to accomplish," Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said on the "Baseball isn't Boring" podcast. "Everybody is bought in. And Alex does a really good job of managing the roster."
He then added, "I have been on both sides of it. I have been on the side of guys on the bench kind of being disgruntled and frustrated and not putting the team first. And I’ve been on the successful teams that say, ‘This is the way I can contribute to winning games and I’m completely invested and all in on that.’"
Players have gone out of their way in recent days to highlight how good the environment feels. It's the same kind of vibe felt during that 10-game streak seven years ago, with the late-June acquisition of Pearce offering that springboard. This time, the ability to become just the fourth team in MLB history to storm in the All-Star break with a win streak of at least 10 games is a bit more complicated.
The last time a team accomplished such momentum heading into the All-Star break, the Mariners three years ago, it was the trade for Carlos Santana that seemed to give that team a much-needed nudge. That was immediate, as was the Pearce move.
In case you forgot, the Red Sox went 3-8 after moving on from Devers. But things settled in, and haven't stopped settling.
The reliance on Roman Anthony proved to be a good move (hitting .377 with a .982 OPS in his last 16 games), as did not budging off the belief of both Trevor Story and Rafaela. With two more hits Sunday, the shortstop is hitting .319 with a .911 OPS dating back to June 1. And Rafaela? He might have presented the most impactful about-face. In his last 21 games, the outfielder leads MLB in doubles, extra-base hits, RBI, and total bases, while having the second-highest OPS in all of the American League (1.152).
So, now what?
Make no mistake about it, this position is one Breslow and manager Alex Cora could have only dreamed about a month ago. Fangraphs has the Red Sox's playoff odds at 53.7 percent, a significant jump from where they were on June 27, when the number was 13 percent.
Now comes the next challenge: Finding out what is this team's chink in its armor.
The current guess by both the front office and some interested parties in the clubhouse is that the logical priority should be a no-doubt-about-it postseason-level starting pitcher. It was the same sort of feeling that the team had back in 2018 as they headed into late-July, hence the deal of a promising young pitcher (Jalen Beeks) for a starter on the last year of his contract (Nathan Eovaldi).
At that time, Eovaldi wasn't the no-doubter he became, which offers the example of how difficult acquiring such a position can be even for a win-now decision-maker like Dave Dombrowski.
"There’s an element of trying to understand how willing a team might be to trade them," explained Breslow. "There are a lot of players we would love to go after but if we spend three, four, five days, trying to engage only to find out that the team was going to hold on to the player all along then that’s three or four days we didn’t spend on another idea.
"We’re not just looking for bodies that we can call starting pitchers. If we’re going to bring somebody in they need to really move the needle for us. That’s where we will have our sights set. But it’s really hard to find impact starting pitching."
Would it be fair to say getting that sort of player - a top-of-the-rotation starter - is the most difficult to acquire at the trade deadline?
"Yes," Breslow confirmed.
Is this a reality the first-time CBO learned from last season?
"Yeah," he added.
It is just one of the lessons learned from Breslow's first go-round with the Red Sox last season. The obvious other one was not finding a better way to fortify the club, both in the weeks after the All-Star Game and at the actual deadline. It was, after all, a team that went into the break 10 games over .500.
That new test is coming. But for now it's worth appreciating how the Red Sox passed this one.