Will the Red Sox be buyers at the MLB trade deadline? Craig Breslow weighs in on his latest radio appearance
There’s a lot of baseball left to be played between Friday night’s series opener against the Brewers at Fenway Park and the trade deadline at the end of July.
Boston sits in fourth place and eight games behind the Yankees for first place in the American League East, and they sit just a half game for a Wild Card spot.
With all of the injuries the club has sustained during the spring and regular season, Alex Cora has the Red Sox in the playoff hunt for almost two months of the season.
While on WEEI’s The Greg Hill Show on Thursday, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow was asked if the Red Sox would be buyers at the trade deadline.
Breslow, in typical fashion, wouldn’t directly answer the question and danced around it with a lukewarm answer that seemingly sounded like it would take a lot to be a buyer.
“The importance of winning seasons and competing through September and into the playoffs is not lost on me by any means,” Breslow told WEEI. “But I have to make what I believe are the best decisions for the organization., and that’s always what I’m going to anchor myself to. At times, it’s difficult to balance short- and long-term views.
“Investing in the team can take a few different paths. I recognize the value of a competitive team and one that has the potential to make the playoffs; that’s what I want, the team wants, the fans want, and that’s what ownership wants. These decisions can’t be made in a vacuum, though, because we alone don’t control fate necessarily. We have to look at what’s happening around the league. The AL East is incredibly tough, so we’re thinking about what is the probability that we’re making the postseason.”
There are a lot of different ways the Red Sox can invest in the team over the course of the regular season without disrupting what they want to do in the future. Boston has a lot of potential free agents in the winter, including the likes of Kenley Jansen, Chris Martin, Nick Pivetta, and Tyler O’Neill. The Red Sox could buy and sell to remain in the playoff hunt; seemingly, Jansen is the only one of the four to truly be on the trade block the rest of the way.
Breslow not answering the question head-on is nothing new; he has been talking in circles since he was hired. If the Red Sox are in the mix, there is no excuse not to help this team and see if they can make the postseason. Red Sox fans have been accustomed to this approach the last handful of years with Chaim Bloom leading the front office. Breslow who has been active in improving the team’s depth early on has an opportunity to set his own course as the leader of baseball operations this season with a team in the playoff mix.
