Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer, Craig Breslow, joins the show!

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Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer, Craig Breslow, joins the show! Tyler O'Neill signing?

Transcript

00:00Good morning, Craig Resolow.

00:02Good morning. How are you guys doing?

00:04Great. How are you?

00:07I'm good. You know, it's as much as I tell myself that it's not wise to kind of live and die with

00:13every game. Last night was a good one. Last night was fun.

00:16Yeah. I mean, nothing better than the walk-off and this team is hanging around and still in it.

00:25And so, a quick question about when it comes to the subject of Tyler O'Neal,

00:32that guy is on a one-year deal here. I'm assuming that's somebody that you guys will

00:37look to talk to postseason and would like to see stay around here.

00:44Yeah, you know, we'll obviously start to engage in those conversations, but I think we've all

00:52acknowledged that right-handed power plays really well at Fenway Park, and he's been

00:56a great fit. He's been a really productive hitter when he's been able to stay on the field. And,

01:04you know, I think we're seeing that right now. He's been on quite a hot streak,

01:07and he has the ability to carry this team and change games with a single swing.

01:11Craig, when you look at where you are right now, 16 games left in the season,

01:15you're four games out of that third wild-card spot. I understand you were able to win one last

01:23night with a walk-off, but what's the morale like in that clubhouse with the players, with Alex

01:28Corr? What's the message that you guys are pushing kind of with this last little stretch?

01:35Yeah, you know, I think Alex all season has done a great job of keeping the group focused on the

01:42field and, you know, ignoring the noise, the adversity, the injuries. I think that's one of

01:48the benefits in a lot of ways of a young team. You know, guys that kind of show up every day

01:53don't really know any better, and, you know, I think Alex's message has been these games matter,

01:57right? Let's, you know, let's try to play our best baseball. Let's keep winning games, and

02:02we can't control what happens around us, but, you know, we've got a chance to make this

02:07interesting, and we're going to do that by continuing to play good baseball.

02:10Craig, in the same breath of talking about Tyler O'Neill, the future of Nick Pavetta

02:14seems up in the air with him and the Red Sox. What do you hope to see out of him,

02:18because he has come up big for you guys this season?

02:22Yeah, he's been a really effective pitcher in this league for a long time, someone that I have

02:28a tremendous amount of respect for and someone that I think he has talked about, you know,

02:32he's talked about how much he's enjoyed his time here. So, you know, another guy that we're

02:37obviously going to have conversations around, and, you know, he's got a bit of a unique profile

02:42in the rotation as it's currently constituted because he's got so much swing and miss to his

02:47game, which we saw last night and we've seen time and time again can, you know, is the most

02:52effective way to get out, you know, his ability to generate swing and misses with his fastball

02:56and his breaking ball is something that we really, really value, and he's been a really

03:01good starter for us all season. We love Liam Hendricks on this show,

03:06and I know he had some soreness after the rehab starter, or I guess the two starts in Worcester,

03:13and Alex Cora said the other day that it's getting close to time to make the decision

03:21that he won't pitch for the Sox this season, as he had hoped. A little bit about what you've

03:28seen from him as he's tried to come back from that surgery.

03:32Yeah, so super competitive, outspoken, great personality, really a great guy to have around

03:40the clubhouse and have around the team, and, you know, he was adamant that he wanted to get back

03:48in 2025 and felt like he could kind of push the timeline, and in a lot of ways he's done so. He

03:54didn't recover quite as well as I think he would have hoped and the medical staff would have hoped

03:59coming out of a couple of those games, so we just wanted to press pause and catch our breath a

04:03little bit. You know, the good news is that there's no structural issues with the elbow,

04:10with the graft. We just want to make sure that we're balancing being responsible and thinking

04:15a bit about the longer term with the potential for him to impact our team in 2025. So, you know,

04:21I think we'll continue to monitor that, check in with him, check in with the medical staff,

04:25and make a determination as to, you know, kind of what's best for him.

04:28Craig, why do these teams led by Cora have good first halves and then every year have a massive

04:36swoon following the All-Star break or the deadline? Why does this keep happening? You were

04:4211 games over 500, now you're back down to two. You've been back down around 500. What is the

04:48common thread? Yeah, I think it's a fair question. It's one we need to answer, though. I

04:55don't think that this is an Alex Cora thing. I think this is, you know, something that requires

04:59us to look at the composition of the roster, to look at the workloads, to make sure that I and

05:07we in the office are, you know, bringing in enough depth that we can weather injuries, bumps, and

05:13bruises, that we're still pushing development so that guys are better in the second half than they

05:17are in the first. And those are all the questions that we need to be asking. I think, you know,

05:22one good example here would be pitching, right? You know, where we came out of the gates pitching

05:27really, really well, largely built on the back of heavy spin usage, heavy secondary usage and

05:33avoiding fastballs. And then there was a period of time where, you know, it seemed pretty obvious

05:39that the league had adjusted, that our mistakes in the zone were getting hit, particularly our

05:44breaking balls. And maybe we, you know, we didn't adjust as quickly as we should have. That's,

05:48you know, that's something as an organization we have to make sure we're staying on top of,

05:51is identifying these trends and trying to be a little bit more proactive. But those are questions

05:56that we are asking of ourselves and will continue to ask. You know, at the end of the day, though,

06:03I would just, you know, reiterate that, like, I don't think that's an Alex Cora thing. I think

06:07that the responsibility falls on all of us. Would you say then was it on you for not doing

06:11more at the deadline? I mean, you know, I suppose in some ways, the answer to that could be yes,

06:21it's impossible to forecast, you know, what the performance or health will be of, you know,

06:28of guys that you bring in. But, you know, at the time, given the information that we had,

06:33we executed what, you know, what we thought was a successful deadline in terms of wanting to add to

06:37the bullpen, wanting to add to the rotation, wanting to add a right-handed bat. You know,

06:41obviously, unfortunately, three quarters of that group, you know, ended up on the IL. And that's

06:49something that, you know, we couldn't have predicted. Well, Craig, with that being said,

06:54I know we're still in the season, but is there going to be a big push by front office and

07:00ownership to really be big players in the, I don't want to say free agent market just

07:08necessarily, but going after maybe elite players this off season?

07:14Yeah, you know, I think I said it last year, I'll say it again, we have to be open to all paths

07:21to improving the team. Obviously, we've still got 16 games and hopefully more left. And that's where

07:26our focus is right now. But I think regardless, one thing we can take from 2024 is the development

07:34on the field of a core group of players that we should be building around. And the recipe for

07:40success here for a long time has been drafting and developed homegrown talent while also

07:46supplementing that, you know, being free agency and trade. And I don't see a reason for that to

07:51change. Craig, we didn't get the opportunity to ask anybody about this last week for the front

07:56office report. But Raphael Devers made headlines last week when he didn't talk to media. I just

08:03was wondering your feelings behind that. I know Alex Cora is standing behind his decision not to

08:08talk to media. But is there a policy within the Red Sox organization for players to talk? And what

08:13is Raphael Devers reasoning for not wanting to talk to members of the press? Yeah, no, I mean,

08:21I think it would be unfair for me to speak on behalf of or for Rafi. What I can say is, you

08:29know, I know this is a guy who goes out there and plays every day despite not feeling 100% despite,

08:36you know, not wanting to make a big deal out of the fact that, you know, he probably would benefit

08:41from or would have benefited from some time away. He's a guy that wants to be out there on the field

08:46competing for his teammates. And, you know, there are times when, you know, there are frustrations

08:53or disappointments in performance, either individually or as a team. And, you know,

08:57some people in those moments choose to stand in front of the media and answer questions and

09:02others don't. And I don't know that, you know, this is kind of quite the story that it became.

09:09You know, I think we accept, you know, that Rafi is a phenomenal player who has the chance to,

09:16you know, to have a Hall of Fame career. And there are days where he's going to answer

09:20questions and there are days where he isn't. And, you know, I'm not sure that that has,

09:26you know, kind of this outsized impact that others would maybe believe it to have.

09:31James Paxton told our guy Rob Bradford that he plans to retire at the end of the season,

09:36as he shared that with the organization as well.

09:40Yeah, so we had talked about that kind of in, you know, in the aftermath of the injury and,

09:47you know, how that was not the way that he or anyone else, you know, wanted to stare down

09:53retirement. And so as a credit to him, he's still showing up every day and going through

09:59rehab, you know, with the hopes of coming back in the postseason and helping us. You know,

10:04I think that's a great motivation. Hopefully we can do our part and we can kind of realize

10:08that together. He'll probably get Rich Hill back again next year, if necessary.

10:18Oh, I don't get it. Not even a chuckle on that one.

10:24I gave it a chuckle.

10:25All right.

10:27You better ask him his top three bands.

10:29Oh yeah, speaking of that, Pearl Jam, Sunday and Tuesday. I'm going Tuesday.

10:35Are you going either or both nights? That is your favorite band.

10:39It is my favorite band. I am definitively not going on Sunday. I'm actually going to head down

10:44to New York, Tuesday TBD. And so I feel like this moment has been building for the last six months

10:51and I'm disappointing so many people if I don't actually end up going, but I will figure that out.

10:57I mean, you and I, maybe we hang out in the pit Tuesday night.

11:03Yeah. I couldn't think of anything else that I'd rather be doing.

11:07Greg will be there Tuesday and Wednesday. If you don't make it Tuesday,

11:10he'll be there for Post Malone Wednesday.

11:15All right, Greg, thank you.

11:18You're welcome. Have a good morning.

11:20All right. There he is. Craig Greslow.

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