Craig Breslow’s Freshman Year as CBO

4 minutes ago, Maddie Landis said:

Breslow took over the organization with a mandate to improve the organization's pitching and lead it back into postseason contention. How did his first year go?

Reviewing Craig Breslow’s Freshman Year as CBO 

The 2024 baseball season is over, along with Craig Breslow’s first season as Chief Baseball Office for the Boston Red Sox. Hired on October 25, 2023, Breslow’s primary tasks were to build a pitching pipeline and help the team become a legitimate contender again. Breslow inherited a strong farm system that lacked pitching depth. He took the initiative to revamp the organization’s pitching infrastructure and add roster flexibility and depth. Overall, his moves indicate progress toward sustained success.

The Red Sox have consistently failed to produce homegrown pitchers. Does anyone remember the Henry Owens, Felix Doubrount, Allen Webster, and Brandon Workman experiments? The cornerstone of a successful pitching program is rooted in its coaches. Getting rid of pitching coach Dave Bush was one of the best things Breslow could do for the Red Sox. Breslow completely overhauled the team’s pitching infrastructure, hiring Justin Willard as director of pitching, Kyle Boddy as a special advisor, and Andrew Bailey as pitching coach for the Red Sox. Unfortunately, these moves were obscured by the team’s lack of spending in the offseason.

Before joining the Red Sox, the three had an extensive track record of developing major-league pitching talent. Willard was poached from the Twins, where he worked as a pitching coordinator. Over the past couple of seasons, the Twins pitcher development has flourished with the emergence of Bailey Ober, Pablo López, Joe Ryan, and Jhoan Duran as elite arms. 

Kyle Boddy is the founder of Driveline Baseball. He also served as Cincinnati's director of pitching from 2019 to 2021. In both 2019 and 2020, the Reds were a top-10 team in baseball in terms of strikeout rate, ERA, FIP, WHIP, and fastball velocity,

As a pitching coach for the Giants, Bailey revitalized the careers of Logan Webb, Kevin Gausman, Carlos Rodón, and Camilo Doval. Since 2022, Webb has been a perennial Cy Young candidate. Under Bailey’s direction, Gausman and Rodón tweaked their pitching mechanics. After finishing in the top six for Cy Young voting, they cashed in with massive free-agent contracts. In 2022, Gausman signed a five-year, $110-million contract with the Blue Jays and Rodón signed a six-year, $ 162-million contract with the Yankees in 2023. Last year, Doval's 39 saves were tied for second-most in baseball.

Fans expected it to take longer for the team’s revamped pitching infrastructure bear fruit, but several pitchers had breakout seasons in 2024. Tanner Houck and Brayan Bello raised their ceilings. Garret Whitlock showed glimmers of hope before injury ended his season. Down on the farm, David Sandlin and Quinn Preister look like they could be legitimate starting rotation depth. This pitching development success bodes well for the future both at the minor and major-league levels. 

Vaughn Grissom 

Yes, it stung to see Chris Sale pitch his way to a Cy Young Award in an Atlanta uniform while Vaughn Grissom was injured for most of the season. Sale’s “resurgence” with the Braves isn’t an anomaly. He’s always been a good player, but he never managed to stay healthy with the Red Sox. Keeping Sale healthy was a Sisyphean task for the Red Sox, but the Braves have managed to do so for an entire season. If Sale stayed with the Red Sox, he probably wouldn’t have been able to achieve the same level of success. The verdict is still up in the air for Grissom, He’s just 23, with six years of team control remaining. His September slash line of .286 /.313 /.357 could use some more walks and extra-base hits, but it points in a positive direction.

Lucas Giolito and Liam Hendriks 

Giolito and Hendriks have yet to pitch for the Red Sox. Assuming Giolito exercises his player option and Hendriks and the team agree to the mutual option in his contract, these signings will be revisited in 2025. Here’s to stellar comeback seasons for both pitchers. 

The Alex Verdugo Trade: Greg Weissert and Richard Fitts

In 2023, a slew of injuries and a shallow starting rotation left the Boston bullpen overtaxed. Breslow aimed to solve this problem by trading outfielder Alex Verdugo to New York in exchange for relief pitchers Greg Weissert and Nicholas Judice and  starting pitching prospect Richard Fitts. Judice struggled at the complex and in Single A, but it's fair to say the Red Sox won the Alex Verdugo trade both over the short- and long-term. Fitts were worth 1.2 bWAR for the season while Verdugo put up 0.8. bWAR. Weissert and Fitts have six remaining years of team control, whereas Verdugo walks as a free agent after this season. 

Weissert finished the 2024 season on a strong note. He led the team with 61.2 innings, recording an impressive 3.21 ERA and striking out nearly a batter an inning. Fitts came to the Red Sox as swingman with a four-seamer slider repertoire. This year, he incorporated a sweeper and splitter into his repertoire, and he impressed in a September call-up. Fitts posted a 1.74 ERA with 9 strikeouts, across 20.2 innings. He certainly has room for improvement. His 10.6% K-rate indicates that he lacks a true put-away pitch, but if the contact-suppression skills he's showed this month turn out to be real, he could be fighting Quinn Priester and David Sandlin for a rotation spot next year.

Player	G	GS	IP	ERA	K/9	FIP	Chase %	Barrel %	bWAR
Greg Weissert	61	0	61.2	3.21	8.17	3.80	30.1	6.1	0.6
Richard Fitts	4	4	20.2	1.74	3.92	3.31	32.0	1.4	0.6

Justin Slaten

Justin Slaten looked as sharp as a Japanese steak knife out of the bullpen. He was one of the team's most reliable bullpen arms. Slaten racked up chases and whiffs at an elite level with a blend of cutters (37.9%), four-seam fastballs (28.8%), sweepers (25.2%), and curveballs (8.2%). When batters did make contact, they hit it softly and on the ground. No matter what Slaten’s future bullpen role is, he’ll be a key contributor going forward. 

Player	G	GS	IP	ERA	K/9	FIP	Chase %	Barrel %	bWAR
Justin Slaten	43	0	54.1	2.98	9.61	2.60	35.1	4.0	0.9

Cooper Criswell

Criswell had a relatively inconsistent season. On August 16, he gave up six earned runs against the Orioles. Three outings later, he was perfect through for innings against the Tigers. He looked better as a reliever than as a starter. Criswell is a groundball pitcher, running a 49.5% groundball rate (82nd percentile) for the season. Sadly, the Red Sox defense did little to help him. Criswell remains pre-arbitration eligible and under team control for another five years. He provides additional bullpen and rotation depth. It’s extremely beneficial to have interchangeable depth arms like his in Triple A. 

Role	G	IP	ERA	HR	WHIP	K/9
Starter	18	85	3.49	10	1.24	7.1
Reliever	8	14.1	7.53	0	2.02	3.8

Tyler O’Neill

The Red Sox picked up O’Neill from the Cardinals via trade in December. He wasviewed as a replacement for Alex Verdugo, and his 2024 performance constituted an immense upgrade.

Despite being injured for a third of the season, he posted 2.5 bWAR. O’Neill led the team in home runs and provided balance to the team’s lefty-heavy lineup, hitting 16 homers and running an astonishing 1.179 OPS against lefties over 156 plate appearances. Among batters who got at least 100 PAs against left-handed pitchers, his 214 wRC+ made him the third-best in all of baseball.

O’Neill’s inability to stay healthy and his high strikeout rate made him frustrating to watch at times. However, Breslow made the right move to trade for a cheaper outfielder (O’Neill: $5.5 million, Verdugo: $8.7 million) with higher upside while receiving two pitchers who made immediate contributions to the team.

Romy Gonzalez

Journeyman utility players seem to flourish under Alex Cora’s management and Romy Gonzalez is no exception. Gonzalez was an awesome pickup. He had a breakout season in 2024, slashing .269 /.310/.425 for a wRC+ of 100. His defensive versatility and much-needed right-handed bench bat kept the team afloat. Even more encouraging was his contact quality, he ran a 92.3 average exit velocity and 50.7% hard-hit rate, both of which would have put him in the 90th percentile. Speaking of the 90th percentile, Gonzalez's sprint speed of 29.0 ft/s allowed him to join Ceddanne Rafaela, David Hamilton, and Jarren Duran as elite group of speedsters who wreaked havoc on the basepaths.

Danny Jansen

As the season progressed, Connor Wong’s poor defensive metrics became an ever-growing concern. Picking up Jansen wasn't the sexiest move, but it provided a defensive upgrade and allowed the Red Sox to offload a Rule 5 eligible prospect in order to continue Kyle Teel’s development in Triple-A. 

Quinn Priester

Given the team’s need for starting pitching depth and faith in Vaughn Grissom as their future second baseman, it made sense to trade Nick Yorke for Quinn Priester. Priester’s overall 2024 MiLB stats are lackluster. However, Priester showed promise in his last four starts with the WooSox, running a 2.45 ERA and striking out nearly a third of the batters he faced. There’s additional potential for Priester to develop in the offseason and he could be on the major league team sometime early next season.

Lucas Sims and Luis García

Breslow traded for Sims and García in an attempt to bolster the bullpen for a potential playoff push. Spoiler alert: these trades were a bust. Both pitchers got pummeled, and about a month after the trade deadline, both were placed on the IL.

Player	G	IP	ERA	K/9	FIP	WHIP	K%	bWAR
Lucas Sims	14	13	6.92	6.23	6.09	1.54	16.1	-0.4
Luis García	13	13.1	8.78	8.10	5.49	1.65	19.0	-0.6

The team’s 36.2% playoff odds around the trade deadline didn’t warrant emptying the farm for rental pitchers. Matthew Lugo, Niko Kavadas, Ryan Zeferjahn, and Nick Yorke are eligible for the Rule 5 Draft this winter. The Sox probably wouldn’t have added them to the 40-man roster, so trading them for much-needed bullpen help and starting pitching depth was a practical solution. 

So far, Breslow has demonstrated that he’s a competent major-league talent evaluator. His deadline moves deadline didn’t pan out, but Breslow showed he was a man of action and tried to address the team’s needs. That’s better than doing nothing. 

The team's new pitching program nurtured success and will continue to develop effective pitchers. Their starters' 3.78 ranks second in baseball, though their 4.11 FIP ranks 17th. These stats mark a substantial improvement from 2023. Moreover, the team drafted 13 college pitchers, an all-time high, in the 2024 draft. College draftees typically climb through the minors faster than high school prospects, so fans might see some of these pitchers sooner than expected at Fenway. 

In his first offseason, Breslow supplemented the roster with several depth players. The organization now has more quality pitching depth than it did last year. Cooper Criswell, Quinn Priester, Richard Fitts, and David Sandlin yield replacement-level pitching at the very least, but their ceilings indicate greater potential. Justin Slaten, Luis Guerrero, Garrett Whitlock, and Greg Weissert appear to be a legitimate bullpen core to build upon next season. 

Breslow confronted the team’s lack of right-handed bats, adding Romy Gonzalez and Tyler O’Neill. Gonzalez is a reliable right-hand bat off the bench. (O’Neill’s future with the team remains uncertain.)

The Red Sox are one of the most historic and valuable franchises in the league. The phrase “outperforming expectations” sets a low bar for the organization, and it’s frustrating to hear it repeated year after year. This offseason's success hinges on whether the front office is willing to invest in addressing key weaknesses, particularly in front-line starting pitching depth, additional relievers, and a right-handed power bat. With logjams in the outfield and at the back end of the rotation, there are multiple opportunities to address these needs. They risk wasting time and money on aging reclamation projects.

Breslow could consider trading a combination of major-league players and prospects for a starting or relief pitcher, or he could pursue big-name signings like Corbin Burnes or Max Fried. In essence, Breslow is tasked with cooking a three-Michelin star meal (building a championship-caliber team), but at the moment, the pantry is stocked with Spam, Velveeta, and Entenmann's donuts. He needs the right ingredients to create a championship-caliber team. Let Craig cook.

 

View full article

 

The 12th pick in the 2024 HOBO draft Brez the Prez made the Red Sox worse off around, and during the trade deadline. JH ran DD off, and has replaced him with 2 Nerd Clones, and it has shown in the standings. 🤮

1 hour ago, Bellhorn04 said:

As far as the major league team is concerned, Brez took a thoroughly mediocre team and...

kept it thoroughly mediocre.  

If keeping the major league team mediocre was his objective then he aced it although in hindsight he made the major league team worse with the Sale trade, and his great work at, or near the trade deadline. If his objective was to make the major league team better to make the postseason he flunked his first test, and gets an F. I don’t give him any pass for being a low pick to be the HOBO of the Boston Red Sox whom Sam said anyone would want to be. I don’t give him a pass for having to work under JH, and I don’t give him any pass for his inexperience. ALL of Baseball Ops failed for the third year in a row.

9 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

I do still have hopes for Breslow.  And I'm sure he's feeling pretty motivated about next year.  I think he has some competitive fire based on his playing career.  But he has to know a lot of Red Sox fans are really sick and tired of the results of the big league team the last 3 seasons.

I don’t have any hopes at all for Baseball Ops, and that includes Cora too. The Red Sox needed  a competent experienced guy in charge, which Brez wasn’t. The reports was when the Sox hired him that he had done most of his work from home with the Cubs, so he has less experience than Bloom did. As has been said just another nerd clone. The way that he hemmed,and hawed before the trade deadline was telling to me.

I definitely blame Breslow for dumping Sale--along with $17M for his salary--and picking up Grissom, but I think the OP makes some points about positive things Breslow has done.  

Plus the word is that no experienced or highly qualified CBO wanted to work for an owner who right now seems directionless.  We know why JH hired DD--to spend money and make the Sox real contenders, which happened in 2016, 2017, and especially 2018.  But in 2019 the Sox still had the biggest payroll in MLB, didn't make the playoffs, and it was obvious DD needed even more money to keep Mookie, etc.  

So out went DD and in came Chaim Bloom, fresh the Rays, who seem especially good at developing good players while keeping the payroll in the bottom 10 or even the bottom 5 of MLB.  CB had four years, which wasn't nearly enough to fix the Sox system, but during those years one thing was clear:  no more big contracts for top of the line starters like Price, Sale, and others before them.  

The OP is dead right in giving Breslow tons of credit for bringing in Bailey as a crucial first step to fixing  Sox pitching.  Moreover, it's also obvious that JH decided 5 years ago to stop spending big for starters developed elsewhere.  

Old Red seems to think that fixing this team is just the easiest thing in the world, and he is dead wrong.