The buzz around Fenway Park Wednesday was centered on two things: 1. The debut of the top prospect in baseball, Baltimore's Jackson Holliday, and 2. Ceddanne Rafaela's contract extension.
The latter was what drew chief baseball officer Craig Breslow to meet with the media in the hosts' dugout prior to the Red Sox' second home game of the season.
Within the praising of Rafaela following the announcement of his eight-year, $50 million extension was talk of any potential additional contract extensions the Red Sox might be close on.
Put it this way, according to Breslow there doesn't figure to be anymore similar announcements any time soon.
"Impossible to handicap perfectly what the chances are of getting another deal across the line. I would say, I don't see anything as particularly close right now," said Breslow when asked about the extension conversations. "And I do think it makes sense at some point to focus on the season and give players some clarity around what they're trying to accomplish every day and give us a chance to kind of assess more broadly what we're trying to accomplish, what our vision is. So I wouldn't ever say never, but I think it's unlikely."
While Breslow talked, Triston Casas - the perceived No. 1 target for the team's next contract extension - just finished his batting practice session, stopping to offer his perspective on his own talks with the team.
"We’re close. In terms of relationship-wise, we’re really close," Casas quipped to WEEI.com. "I love the organization. I love everything about here. I want to stay here a long time. If we’re talking dollar amounts, I don’t know where my team countered with what was originally offered by them. I don’t know what talks have been elevated or in the works because I told my team not to keep me informed about it during the season. I said I want to focus on this, but if you guys want to keep talking about it that’s their job. And Craig is going to go about it how he wants to in terms of the quantity of times he wants to offer based on how he sees my progression. But at this time, I don’t know.
"(Casas' agents) know what they want for me. I don’t know what they want for me. I don’t even want them to tell me what they want for me. I know what I want for myself, and that’s to get better every single day and focus on winning ballgames."
The reliance on his agents (the MVP Sports Group) to drive the negotiations is also allowing Casas to allow for possible continued negotiations while not being distracted during the season.
"It doesn’t impact me negatively or positively to know the numbers or not," he said. "I was informing my team to keep me out of the loop for this, so I don’t know anything in terms of negotiations or numbers or dollar signs or any type of valuations.
"My representation, they’ve been doing this for a long time. They have a lot of former corner infielders that they feel have made the money that they deserve, including Albert Pujols, including Joey Votto, including Manny Machado and Josh Donaldson. So I whole-heartedly trust them with what they are going to be doing with my money and my contract. So that’s where I’m at with it."