Chief Baseball Officer of the Red Sox, Craig Breslow, joins the show! Breslow talks Alex Cora extension!
Chief Baseball Officer of the Red Sox, Craig Breslow, joins the show! Breslow talks Alex Cora extension and what changed on not wanting to talk contract during the season. Thoughts?
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00:00And joining us now, a guy that Alex Cora referred to as the closer because they were able to get
00:08their deal done. It is Craig Breslow, the chief baseball officer of the Boston Red Sox. Hey,
00:13Craig. Hey, good morning. How are you doing? Congratulations. I think we're very excited
00:21about the fact that Alex Cora will be here for the next three years. And I know that he had been
00:26pretty specific just a couple weeks ago about not wanting to talk about this during the season. So
00:34what changed his mind? How'd you guys end up getting this done?
00:39Yeah, first, let me share in that excitement. I think this is a great moment for the organization,
00:44for Boston, and for what we believe we can accomplish together. And I think this came
00:50together because when Alex made it clear that this is a place that he wanted to be, and I was
00:58very clear with him that he was the guy that I wanted to lead our team heading into the next few
01:05years here, we were able to put it together pretty quickly. And I think over the last few weeks that
01:11we've had these conversations, it became more and more clear to me that he was absolutely the right
01:15guy. And the chance for me to see him navigate the clubhouse and young guys and veteran guys
01:22was really impressive. And so I'm glad that ultimately this is the place that he wanted to
01:28stay and that we were able to get something done. Craig, Alex has been pretty outspoken,
01:32not just this season, but seasons past about adding to this team and leading the forefront
01:38this season of making sure that there is some type of acquisition before the trade deadline.
01:42Was there conversation between you guys and Alex about what he needed you guys to do to make sure
01:48that he would stay here and sign that contract? Alex and I have had great conversations
01:56for going on six months now. I think I've been very open about where we are and the opportunities
02:04that I think we're going to have in front of us. He has also been outspoken about opportunities for
02:09us to improve. And that's exactly what I would want in a manager, exactly what I would want in
02:14a thought partner. And so we've talked about, and I think I've talked about here over the last
02:20couple of weeks, that we're focused at this point on trying to find opportunities to improve the
02:25club. But in terms of what Alex's expectations are, I think we were both completely honest with
02:31each other. And he was very honest about the fact that Boston was a place that was very comfortable
02:37for his family, and that was of significant importance. And additionally, he wanted to be
02:41in a place where we had a chance to win the World Series, and so do I. So the fact that we had that
02:46in common makes for a great partnership. Well, and you said as much yesterday, I think the
02:51quote was, you want to stop the stupid analogies and put the turn signal on. And you believe that
02:58this team is, just to be clear, in a position where you need to do what you can to improve the
03:08team, correct? Yeah, I think our play over the last two to three months, and we can obviously
03:17point to a tough road trip coming out of the All-Star break, but I think Alex said it really
03:21well in saying that that didn't represent who we are as a team. I think you can get yourself in a
03:28tough place when you're living and dying day to day. I think instead, we see the total body of
03:33work. We see the momentum that we had built heading into the All-Star break. We can look at the guys
03:39that we expect to get back here in the near future and say, we should be looking at ways to improve
03:43the team. And so that's how we're going to spend the next few days here. Awesome. Craig, so you guys
03:48use analytics as most teams do, which relies upon a much bigger sample size than the time between
03:54now and the 31st. So my question is, when did you arrive at the decision that this team was worthy
04:02of an investment in at the deadline? Well, I think it's important to say that you always want
04:10to come to the conclusion that a team is worthy of looking for reinforcements, looking for
04:14opportunities to improve. That's why any of us takes the job that we do. That's why we work in
04:19sports. And we've played really well against teams that are going to be competing for playoff
04:27spots and playing meaningful games down the stretch over the last month. And so I think
04:33the team has put itself in a position to where we say, hey, what opportunities do we have to
04:37improve the team? And we'll go into the next few days looking to have those conversations. Of
04:42course, we have to line up. But I think we've got a good farm system. We've got depth. We've got
04:51some opportunities to use guys in conversations that are going to be really good Major League
04:57players but may not have the opportunity to do so here. Looking at adding positionally,
05:03what have you identified as being most important? Yeah, so I think it's pretty clear that our lineup
05:10is pretty left-handed heavy. We struggled against left-handed pitching. And so I think trying to
05:16find a right-handed hitter that can help even out the lineup a little bit, one with positional
05:20versatility would be super helpful, whether that's first base or potentially in the outfield.
05:26I think that's probably where we'll spend some time.