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Red Sox CBO Craig Breslow joins live! Alex Cora, Anthony, ABS, and more!
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00:00good morning craig good morning how are you doing doing well and nice to be on i'm sure this morning
00:06after that win last night sure um you know obviously it's just one and we've got a lot of
00:12work to do but it was nice to see the offense uh start start to roll maybe continue to roll
00:17a little
00:17bit um and then a great outing from from connelly last night after the difficult change that you
00:24told us yeah you uh how difficult it was to make the change with alex cora um you continue to
00:31have
00:32belief in this team when it when it comes to a playoff run do you still based on what you've
00:37seen the last month or so do you still feel that way i do yes i still have a lot
00:42of confidence and
00:43a lot of belief in the players that we have in the clubhouse and in the staff and the work
00:47that
00:47they're doing um we've got we've got to win games there's there's no question about that and we've
00:52got uh plenty of of work to do ahead of us but when you look back at the last month
00:57um you know i
00:58think the the bats are starting to to come together um you know some guys are getting going we've seen
01:03what jaron can do at the top of the lineup when he's getting on base a couple times a game
01:07and
01:07starting to swing it and and some of the guys that have come up whether it's soggy or mickey have
01:11lengthened the lineup out a little bit and uh you know i think we're going to continue to pitch really
01:15well do you still think you made the right decision in firing alex cora a month out
01:21you know made the made the decision a month ago and um you know felt like it was the right
01:26the
01:26right one for the boston red socks it was incredibly difficult um but you know that's that's the
01:32commitment that i made to the organization was to do everything that i could to help us turn our
01:35season around you brought up mickey where are you on the stash and is there could there be a rally
01:40could there be a craig breslow rally stash coming at some point this season
01:45if that's what it takes uh sign me up um but i i feel like uh any effort i would
01:52make to grow a
01:53stash would fail in comparison to what mickey brings to the field every day
01:56mego are you a fan of it i'm not really a stash gal i i i mean i don't want
02:01to get personal with
02:02anybody it's just not my taste gives you like a 70 porn star look very much so yes craig i
02:09know you
02:09said that you still have confidence in this team that you guys can make a run and you you you
02:14can
02:14continue and you can do that the question that i think i have and a lot a lot of fans
02:19have is how
02:21can you say that and believe that when you look at this team and you've only been able to have
02:27a three game winning streak okay i haven't been able to do more than that
02:33sure well i think uh it starts with what we think the potential of the group is and um
02:39you know if we were sitting here and saying hey up and down the lineup guys are are playing like
02:44we
02:44think they're capable of and uh you know we're getting consistent pitching every night and playing
02:48great defense and we're still losing games um you know i think that that could change uh you know
02:53that would that would force me to rethink that position or if there was no signs that we might be
02:59starting to come out of this that would be another thing that i'd have to um you know reconsider but
03:04we have a lot of talent uh on our roster and we have some guys who haven't performed up to
03:09that talent
03:09but are starting to and it's like i said if you look back over the last month and maybe even
03:13more
03:13particularly over the last two weeks or so and what we're getting out of jaron and the way sedan has
03:18been swinging the bat and wilson has consistently been really good and willier um you know and then
03:24more recently sogy mickey uh izzy um and you start to say okay like i can see how how the
03:31offense gets
03:31going here and as a team that the at-bats are getting better and i think we're going to pitch
03:36uh you know we pitched excellently throughout the season specifically over the last month i think
03:41that's going to continue we're going to get healthier and guys are going to settle into their roles
03:44with roman um some news coming out about him taking dry swings maybe swinging off a t now
03:51i know this seems to be like it appears to be a moving target about when his return would be
03:57but
03:58how long of a process are we looking at at least ballpark wise for him getting back to being out
04:04there
04:05in the major leagues sure uh understand the question and it's it's tough um to to put a timeline on
04:13these things um for for a few reasons one is um you know it's impossible to to know exactly how
04:21quickly things will heal up and pain will subside and two because as soon as you do and you don't
04:26meet that there's questions about uh you know why why that was the case but i thought i thought chad
04:32um
04:33you know explained the situation really well i think it was yesterday when he was talking about roman
04:38where i think when you say hey you know the the the rate at which he returns is going to
04:43be driven by
04:44his pain tolerance it's open it opens up to criticism that you know someone isn't tough enough to to play
04:50through discomfort that's not what we're what we're talking about um you know if if roman could go out
04:56there and perform at a high level and be the guy that we know he's capable of being and it
05:01would hurt
05:01he would do it the issue is when the discomfort prevents you from going out there and playing the
05:07way you're capable of so that's what we're working through but the last couple of days have definitely
05:11been really good progress i guess i would ask last week uh your boss drew the short straw and had
05:16to
05:16come on the front office report and sam said that when greg had reported that roman anthony had a tear
05:23in his ring finger that it was a sprain not a tear it's something that sam i think reiterated a
05:28couple
05:29times when asked directly about what greg heard about the injury roman anthony sustained what's
05:35the purpose of trying to minimize it in that way if the organization is not trying to say roman anthony
05:40should get on the field sooner i'm i'm not actually sure what what the question is what's the purpose
05:47of minimizing i don't think anybody's trying to minimize he kept correcting it saying it's a sprain
05:52sprain not a tear is what he said and you can actually the medical definition i'm far from a doctor
05:56says that it's basically the same uh yeah i suppose it becomes like a question of severity right um
06:05but yeah i still like i guess what what i think we're what we're trying to do is just just
06:11be
06:11honest um you know and and this is kind of the the information that that we have about what the
06:17injury is and trying to present that and like i said as as honest and transparent a way as as
06:21possible
06:23hindsight being 20 20 i don't know how you look at deals that you did i know so hindsight being
06:292020
06:29um do you go back and look at you know you said all offseason that you wanted to add uh
06:37right-handed
06:38power bat um weren't able to do that do you look at you know do you regret trading kyle harrison
06:47do you
06:47regret um not being able to get that done because it's a clear need for this team
06:54i think that there's there's maybe a little bit of a difference between like do you regret making
06:59decisions and do you kind of go back and look at how you arrived at a decision information that you
07:05had the perspectives that you that you took um so that if you're in a similar situation you're you're
07:11making the best decisions uh i i the advice that i've gotten from a number of people have done this
07:16this job successfully for a really long time is when you you start to kind of re-trade players and
07:22think through those transactions that it can paralyze you and and you know ensure that you'll
07:27never make another one um now do we go back and look at uh all of the transactions that we
07:33made the
07:33trades and and you know kind of question if we had all of the best information and and we're in
07:38in
07:38a good position to make those absolutely um because i think that's that's part of the job and i think
07:42that's how you grow in this position speaking of having the best information i hate to i don't
07:47hate it it's just the reality you guys are very driven by analytics you're an incredibly smart
07:53front office and you uh are viewed that way outside you know the city and elsewhere how are you dead
07:59last
07:59in abs challenges how is that possible what's going wrong with your organization and how you're not
08:05able to maximize especially with the manager who had been in worcester where they had been activating
08:11this far before it got to the big leagues sure it's it's a it's a good question because it's
08:17something that we we wrestle with and and try to address and um you know i i think we we
08:25got caught uh
08:26maybe in a situation where we were very focused on the right situations to challenge those were that
08:32was what a lot of the conversations were about in terms of making sure that when we use the challenge
08:38we're we're kind of getting the most bang for our buck um and i think what that did is it
08:43left a lot
08:43of opportunities to challenge on the table um you know there's kind of two buckets of situations where
08:48you want to challenge there's the ones where maybe you aren't so sure um that a strike is going to
08:53get
08:54turned into a ball or ball into a strike but it's worth the risk just given how how high leverage
08:58the
08:58situation is it's late in the game it's a close game it's a two strike or three ball count and
09:03so you take
09:03the chance but the other situations are the ones where balls are clearly strikes or strikes are
09:08clearly balls and you have to trust your instincts and your knowledge of the strike zone um in order
09:13to to pull those i think those are the ones that that we've been lacking with just the overall number
09:18of challenges that we've made is too is too low are you sam kind of alluded to this last week
09:23but
09:23just to be clear from you are you aggressively looking to add a bat to this to this lineup
09:31we are aggressively trying to improve our team um and and certainly adding a bat uh you know and
09:37adding offense is is one way to do that uh we're not gonna be closed off to other ways um
09:42you know
09:43and and i think the the possibility that that that could be in addition from outside the the organization
09:48is is real um but when we're having conversations with with other teams as as all teams do um there
09:54aren't too many that are in a position to commit to a path in in 2026 because uh there's not
10:01a ton
10:01of separation across the teams in the american league right um there's four above 500 and there's
10:06a bunch of teams that are sitting around saying we haven't played very well but you know this thing
10:11hasn't gotten away from us yet craig and to kind of let me just put one quick follow-up i
10:16know you
10:16won't mention names specifically but um in in the pursuit of making the team better as as you describe it
10:23uh is there is there are there players on this roster currently that are untouchable or is uh everybody
10:31an option when it comes to improving the team yeah um there are there are players that we think are
10:39going to be uh a part of this organization for a really long time and be uh you know either
10:46continue
10:46to be or become cornerstones to to championship teams um now like i don't know that you say
10:52hey this particular player is untouchable because if there's an opportunity to make the organization
10:58better we have to be willing to listen but typically what happens is just the way that you value a
11:03player
11:03is so high relative to uh you know anything that you could get back that that those deals just never
11:09actually happen craig i was just going to ask about the abs kind of take us uh behind the scenes
11:16a
11:16little bit because we were talking about trying to figure out is it a player's decision or is it
11:22are there kind of tips from the manager and coaches to say okay we should challenge or is this something
11:28that is independently done by the player whether it's the catcher the pitcher or the batter
11:33yeah so there's um i would say it is it is a decision driven by uh you know in order
11:39of priority
11:39catcher batter pitcher um just based on uh success rates from from each of those groups of players uh
11:46but there's definitely like an education component where you want to you want to to try and teach the
11:52players to kind of understand leverage and when when the right situations are even if they're unsure
11:58about their uh whether or not the the call is going to get overturned um versus the ones where
12:04they should just rely on their baseball instincts and say you know i know that pitch was a strike it
12:09was
12:09called a ball i'm going to challenge it um but we also you know i think it's we've seen that
12:16when
12:16you fill someone's heads with too many thoughts it becomes impossible to react instinctively so it's
12:22a really difficult balance to strike um but trace having had experience with it in the minor leagues
12:27is certainly helpful and i know that he talks to the guys about it and we we have conversations with
12:33uh with with parker when our catching coach and and he relays that to catchers um to try and just
12:38free them up you know that often the penalty when you especially when you have multiple challenges
12:43remaining the penalty of being wrong is not so big that you know when we're confident that a mistake
12:47has been made we need to take our chances there all right craig well you got one and let's see
12:52if uh
12:53if you guys can string a couple together here and we appreciate you taking the time and we will talk
12:58to
12:58you again soon my pleasure thanks
13:01you
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