00:00And good morning, Craig Breslow.
00:02How are you?
00:04I'm good, thanks.
00:05How are you doing?
00:06Well, you won the week this week with your gift for shine.
00:09I mean, really, honestly, out of nowhere, it's his wedding week.
00:14And it's just, we can't thank you enough for making the guys week.
00:21Glad to help out.
00:22It's a big week.
00:23Now, how often, this may be just a one-time occurrence,
00:27or maybe it happens all the time,
00:29handwritten notes.
00:30How often are you now signing them Bresbot?
00:36It depends on the target audience.
00:38Okay.
00:39All right.
00:39Are you okay, though, if fans encounter you at the Starbucks or whatever,
00:43if they're like, hey, what's up, Bresbot?
00:47Sure.
00:48You know what?
00:49Given all of the things that they could call me, yeah, I'll take that.
00:54When you text Alex Cora, line up ideas, do you sign at Bresbot?
01:00Because that's more the analytical bend?
01:03No, actually.
01:05Actually, I don't.
01:06We try to have those conversations in person.
01:09Well, this, I don't have to tell you this, this baseball team is struggling a little bit here.
01:15And I find myself, when I'm frustrated, trying to weigh how much frustration I should have,
01:23and then an understanding that we are early in the baseball season.
01:29Where are you currently when it comes to frustration level?
01:34Sure.
01:36There's frustration in terms of the inconsistency to the play,
01:41and there's frustration in terms of the results.
01:44And we all do this, right?
01:46We try to balance frustration because we want to win games.
01:49We know that we can't go back and reverse the outcomes,
01:53but also recognize that we're 18 games into this.
01:56So I think it's a better use of our time to try and understand what's actually happening
02:03and are these trends that we think might reverse over the longer term,
02:09or are there real challenges, real problems that we need to work through?
02:15Well, what have you guys been able to determine when you've gone back
02:19and looked at Garrett Crochet's outing this week?
02:23Sure.
02:25You know, so I think there's a few different things going on, obviously,
02:29giving up the number of runs that he did, and that short of an outing was uncharacteristic.
02:33It was unprecedented for him.
02:36And you can look at the execution.
02:38You can look at a really good game plan from Minnesota,
02:42the stuff being down a tick and not being quite as sharp.
02:46But even at that, just given how talented he is, I think if you go out there with that stuff
02:5110 times,
02:53one of them ends up with 11 runs in an inning and two-thirds or whatever it was.
02:58And it happened to be the one that played out a couple of days ago.
03:03So Andrew, Garrett, the rest of the pitching group, they were back to work the next day.
03:08He insists that he's healthy.
03:09My medical staff agrees, so I'm confident that we're going to get the version of Garrett
03:14that we're used to when he takes the ball against Detroit.
03:17Craig, Jaron Duran shared with reporters in the clubhouse the other night
03:22that a fan in Minnesota, he said, taunted him about his mental health,
03:26and we saw the reaction that he had in the moment.
03:30Is that the kind of situation with fans either at Fenway or even at other stadiums
03:37that the team looks into, investigates in terms of, you know,
03:42what is crossing the line when it becomes really like harassment of a player?
03:49Yeah, it was a really terrible and unfortunate situation.
03:58Jaron said that he should not have reacted the way that he did,
04:01but also there's no place in our game for comments like the one that was directed at him.
04:05So we give Jaron our full support.
04:08We've reached out to him to make sure that he knows that.
04:11He's been really open about his mental health challenges through the years,
04:15and I think that's had a very positive impact on a lot of people.
04:19But in terms of how those things are handled, you know, at our park,
04:23I think there's a long history of taking, you know, swift and decisive action
04:28to make sure that players feel safe.
04:31And, you know, Minnesota worked with us,
04:34and we're appreciative of how they handled that situation as well.
04:38But was the reaction by the player disappointing to the organization?
04:45You know, Jaron said that that's not the way to react.
04:49Of course, you know, the response is not representative of how we wish that would have played out.
04:59But I think it's impossible to project how any of us would have responded in a similar situation.
05:02And the most important thing is that Jaron knows that he's got a network of support within the organization.
05:09Craig, when you look at this team, I saw a stat, and you guys are 7-0 when you get
05:15quality starts,
05:160-11 when you don't.
05:17What do you think is leading to the fact that there's been so many games
05:23where you're not getting these quality starts?
05:28I think we're now three-plus turns through the rotation,
05:34and every starter has given us a really good performance,
05:38and every starter has gone out there and, you know,
05:43performed in a way that was not indicative of what we believe they're capable of doing.
05:46And I think some of this is just the natural variance of baseball.
05:52But I also think that there are things that each of these guys is working on.
05:56We saw a good bounce-back start from Connelly yesterday.
05:59He was able to work deep in the game.
06:01And even though, you know, maybe his overall –
06:04like we talk a lot about first pitch strikes,
06:06and through the first couple of innings, he was pretty consistently ahead.
06:11But later in the game where he wasn't as efficient in terms of getting strike one,
06:17he was able to use his off-speed pitches to get back in accounts,
06:19and that was a really important adjustment.
06:21And so, you know, I think our starting pitchers and the pitching group
06:26are constantly assessing the performance,
06:28but also thinking about the adjustments that are necessary to make in-game
06:31so that poor starts, you know, we can make the pivot
06:36and still give ourselves a chance to win.
06:37Yeah.
06:38Craig, Alex Cora – I've got Clay Buchholz on the mind.
06:44Alex Cora made comments with Ken Rosenthal that –
06:48Ken Rosenthal brought to air that enraged Alex Cora regarding the rewarding
06:53of young players and the manner in which you are to instruct them
06:57and coach them as Cora has been doing with the way in which the Red Sox
07:01have changed their salary structures.
07:03Do you agree with the underlying comments that building a team where you're rewarding
07:09all the young guys with long-term contracts may not yield the best results
07:13in terms of a motivated roster?
07:17Well, I would push back on that being kind of the undertone or underpinning of the comments.
07:23I'm not sure that that was the case.
07:25And I think Alex spoke at length about that not actually being what he was hinting.
07:29I think he said something along the lines of the dynamics change.
07:33And, you know, I think each of these situations is individual to the player.
07:37There are players who perform best.
07:40And history has shown this when they're kind of going into contract years
07:44and they feel like they have something to prove.
07:45And there are players who perform best when they have the certainty
07:49and the ability to know where they're going to be for a really long time.
07:54And, you know, our hope is that with all of the work that we do on players,
07:58how well we know the players that have come up through our system,
08:02we're identifying the guys who are able to thrive in the situations
08:06where they have that certainty and they know they're going to be here
08:09for the next five to ten years.
08:13I think the point that Alex made about development needing to continue
08:16in the big leagues is absolutely critical.
08:18Whether players are under long-term contract extensions or not,
08:24the reality is players are getting to the big leagues younger
08:27and more quickly.
08:28And there's continued growth and development that needs to happen
08:32at the big leagues so that guys continue to get better.
08:35Do you think that the organization fully accounted for the absence
08:40of the leadership of a guy like Alex Bregman this year?
08:45Yeah, I think that going into any season,
08:50it's really difficult to know exactly where leadership is going
08:54to come from.
08:55But I think that's part of the growth and maturation of a team.
09:01You know, I can think back to 2013 when I was here,
09:05and there was no question that we had leaders,
09:07but I don't think on opening day anybody would have said it was the backup
09:11catcher, the platoon outfielder, the fifth starter,
09:14and the fourth option for closer that were going to emerge
09:16as the leaders of the team.
09:18And, you know, so I think that there's an opportunity for guys to step up,
09:22and we've seen that.
09:23We've seen Trevor and Wilson and Garrett in their own way step up
09:27and step into leadership roles.
09:29Can you clarify, because we spend a lot of time talking about spending
09:33and different perspectives from Wiggy and Curtis and me and everybody,
09:38so is the reporting, and I know you can parse this up, however,
09:43you know, which way it looks best depending on which side you're on,
09:45but is the reporting accurate that opening day payroll-wise the Red Sox
09:52are not in the top 10 in Major League Baseball,
09:54and so from a spending level really are at number 12 when it comes
09:59to Major League Baseball.
10:00Is that accurate?
10:03There are a bunch of different ways to – different accounting measures
10:08for payrolls.
10:09I'm not going to talk about any of them.
10:13All right.
10:14Well, then when it comes to balancing, there are penalties when it comes to CBT,
10:20and how important for you is it to balance that with what the expectation is
10:29for the baseball team and where the baseball team is just currently early
10:34in this season?
10:36Sure.
10:37We – I feel very confident we have the resources to build the best team
10:42that we can, and that is inclusive of payroll and CBT implications
10:50and all of those things.
10:52And further, and I've said this before, I've never been in this organization
10:57approaching the trade deadline with a chance to compete and make a run
11:01and not felt the full support of ownership to be aggressive in adding to the team.
11:06So that's the state right now.
11:09We have talked about prioritizing 2026, and that's what we're doing.
11:14That's what we'll continue to do.
11:15Obviously, my job requires that I have some eye on the longer-term health
11:20of the organization, but right now we are firmly focused on how we build
11:25the best 2026 team and prepare ourselves for a postseason run.
11:29All right, Craig Breslow.
11:31Well, Shine wants to know if he continues during his leads to support the franchise
11:36if he gets the top of the uniform at some point.
11:41Had I known he was getting married this weekend, then we could have – yeah,
11:46we could have made it a full outfit, and it could have been the dual,
11:48like, wedding gift plus necessary uniform.
11:54Well, you know, he has a composter on his registry.
11:58If you like – you're probably – I don't know if you're a composter or not,
12:02but he certainly is.
12:03He also has a power-hitting corner infielder on there.
12:06I don't know if you guys have that.
12:10All right, Craig Breslow.
12:11Thanks for taking the time, and we'll talk to you again soon.
12:16Sure.
12:17All right.
Comments