Red Sox GM Craig Breslow Says They’re NOT Selling | Full Breakdown

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]Craig Breslow just spoke in pretty great detail, and what he had to say was extremely telling in my opinion.

[00:00:09]>> [applause] [cheering] [applause] >> What is going on everybody? Welcome back to Red Sox Radio. My name is Corbin, and thank you very much for clicking on this video. And to be fair to Craig Breslow, it's not like he's really been avoiding the spotlight, right? It's not like him talking to media is some sort of like national news in and of itself. John Henry sat down with local Boston media, then that'd be a much bigger storyline.

[00:00:35]Craig Breslow's on media pretty decent amount of time. Like I know he does the 3:10 to Left interviews a couple of times. Is it once a week? Somewhere around there. He's on WEEI pretty often, but recently, yesterday, he actually did a little bit of a sit-down-ish type interview with Red Sox beat reporter Chris Cotillo. Now, we are going to link this entire article in the description of this video because it's a really fascinating read if you are a Red Sox fan, but in my opinion, there were a lot of quotes in here that really kind of all meshed together into one sort of relatively scary situation for the Boston Red Sox. So, I wanted to break this down, talk about what's going on with the Red Sox, talk about what's going on with Craig, and ultimately talk about how this could end up impacting the 2026 season, or more realistically, the future of this Red Sox team.

[00:01:20]I think we have to kind of start with the biggest sort of headline quote from this article. Now, normally I do sort of the supplement of quotes and end with the bigger quote, but all of the other quotes in this article also kind of point directly towards this big quote, so that's exactly where we're going to start. The big quote is that Craig Breslow has zero intention right now on selling any pieces of this 2026 team.

[00:01:40]The exact quote was, "Right now, we're focused on doing everything we can to turn our season around. It's a group I've got a lot of confidence in. I know we haven't been playing up to what we're capable of doing. That's the focus." I mean, to be fair here, Breslow making a big move like, I don't know, firing most of the coaching staff, including a manager that in general, maybe not specifically in Red Sox Nation, is considered one of the better managers in the entire sport, and severing ties with a legend in Red Sox history here that may never be figured out. And then, like a month later, saying, "Hey man, we're actually just going to give up on the season, sell, and we'll see what we could do to retool for next year." is a little bit of corporate suicide, right? Breslow was tasked with this being a legitimately competitive team. Totally dismantle the coaching staff, and then totally dismantle the roster before we even get to June, or really more specifically get to the trade deadline. Yeah, it's just simply not a good look for him. So, of course, he's going to sit there and say, "No, we're not selling, guys. We're not going to sell. We want to improve this team." What I think is actually interesting though about this article is, again, once you get into the more sort of in the weeds type conversations, is that Chris did a pretty good job of trying to, you know, get to where Craig Breslow's head is really at. All right, because obviously, as this feels like corporate suicide, the question then becomes, is Craig Breslow job?

[00:02:57]And Chris Cotillo actually asked him that, and his answer is pretty interesting to me. It's quotes, "I worry about making sure I'm doing what I can to help the team. That is the truth, because the second you start thinking about other things, you're not doing what's best for the organization, its players, or our fans." Like, yeah, dude, of course you're worried about your job, right? I like, of course you're worried about your job. But if you're sitting here saying, "No, I'm not going to sell.

[00:03:18]No, we need to win this year." yeah, I think you're a little bit worried about the security of your job. But of course, he's never going to actually say that, right? He's never going to actually come out and be like, "Yeah man, I'm I'm petrified that I'm not going to make it to the trade deadline." Well, because one, that makes you look like a very, very desperate man, and it obviously doesn't make you look good to the fan base. But two, if you're trying to make deals within Major League Baseball, if you're trying to, I don't know, sell a piece or buy a piece or whatever, and other teams know that this dude is doing it strictly to save his job, yeah, that's going to put you in a tough position bargaining wise. Not that the Red Sox are in a good position bargaining-wise to begin with anyways, right? But you're making that situation worse. Of course, he's not going to say he's worried about his job, but like you you you sort of sit there and it's like, "Well, you didn't answer the question, right?" You didn't say, "No, I'm not worried about my job security." Or, "Yes, I am worried about my job security." You kind of just vaguely answered it. And that's obviously part of being a GM, but in my opinion, the avoidance of answering this question is a little bit of answering the question itself, right? And I think it points to the fact that yeah, of course he's worried about losing his job. I think ownership has a big part in that.

[00:04:21]Because in this, he also spoke about what ownership is talking to him about.

[00:04:25]And again, I think it's pretty telling as to what the situation really is. The quote is, "The conversations I've had with ownership are about ideas for helping us turn the season around and any potential opportunities that exist.

[00:04:36]Ownership is incredibly engaged and aware of our performance, our players, and guys in the minor leagues that might be able to help us. That is the content of our conversations." To me, this reads a little bit like, yeah, ownership is not happy with the play on the field.

[00:04:50]And that's not me sitting there saying like, "Boy, golly, does ownership really care about the way of the Red Red Sox are winning baseball games?" Or, "The way the Red Sox look at the public eye?"

[00:05:00]Or, "Their only focus is winning a championship." Right? Because we all kind of know that's not necessarily the case. What I do think is happening here is that I don't think ownership likes being embarrassed. I don't think ownership in in a season where you were supposed to be all in, where you were supposed to be, "Hey, this is the start of a real turnaround into a contention type era for the Boston Red Sox." Is falling directly flat on their face. And I think more so than oh, no, we aren't winning games is oh, no, we look bad publicly. I don't think these guys like being embarrassed all that much. I think that's exactly what's happening here.

[00:05:33]Like, if you go back to when Craig Breslow fired Alex Cora and his coaches, one thing that was incredibly clear was that Craig Breslow spent the entire time saying, "We made this decision. We believe that this is the right move for the organization. We believe that this team could still compete. Well, on the other side, Sam Kennedy sat there and said he believes that he believes all this. So, and the ownership just simply backed him and he's the one making all these decisions, right? They They made a very clear separation in this in this press conference. And so, when you're looking at quotes like this, you have to remember that. You have to remember that ownership essentially set Craig Breslow up to be the fall guy, whether rightfully or unrightfully for how this season goes. If it's a success, well, then they look like a genius for putting their faith in Craig Breslow. If it's a failure, well, then they look like a genius firing this guy because they were able to separate themselves, you know, early on in the season. And so, you take a look at the non-answer to, "Hey, are you worried about your job?" And then you take a look at the answer to, "What is ownership What are your conversations with ownership right now?" And that's sort of being like, "Yeah, ownership is incredibly invested right now in how the team is actually performing on the field." Yeah, to me it points to again, directly back to the idea of Craig Breslow's feet being up against the fire a little bit. And then, you bring in, "Hey, he's not planning on selling any pieces right now." And it looks a little bit and smells a little bit like a bit of desperation from Craig Breslow. So, that means Craig Breslow is being tasked with fixing this thing, right? Writing the ship and getting the Red Sox back on track. So, how is he in like terms of actually being able to do that?

[00:07:04]Well, it sounds like based on despite clearly trying, based on all the reports that we've seen coming out about the Red Sox in their pursuit of basically anything offensively on the trade market, things aren't going incredibly well for Craig right now. The quote he gave in terms of like what he's trying to do on the open market was quote, "We've been aggressive in terms of outreach and trying to identify players that we think can help us. Obviously, we've talked about the fact that the league is very compressed and there's a bunch of teams despite poor performances who are still in it." The other side of that is that there are teams in the league who have not played well that otherwise could think of moving players and are saying, "Hey, we are not that far out of it." Basically kind of saying and again, a lot of this you you kind of have to read between the lines of the Craig Breslow, right? And we've known this for a couple of years now getting to know him as a public facing CBO. He's always going to give you a bit of a word jumble, right? He's always going to try and I don't know if it's on purpose sound like the smartest man in the room, but he's going to try and sound like the smartest man in the room. And so you kind of got to sit there and be like, okay, what does this mean in layman's terms? Basically, what this means, at least in my opinion, is that the Red Sox are a little bit stuck right now.

[00:08:08]They're a little bit stuck in this situation of, "Hey, we want to improve the team, but we don't really have the ability to improve the team because the players that we need to improve them are currently on teams where they are also sitting there saying, 'Hey, we need to improve the team but because we still have a shot at making the postseason or being a contender or whatever it may end up being, right?'" So, that's kind of a little bit of a sickening combination, in my opinion, because what you're doing right now is you're kind of in a spot where you where you don't want to give up any big pieces on the major league roster and admit that what you tried to do at the beginning of the year didn't work. But you also can't really add to this team right now to course correct early enough in the season to see true meaningful change. Basically, what that means, for lack of a better term, is the Red Sox are a bit stuck. And now you're stuck with what appears to be a slightly desperate CBO, GM, whatever you want to call it, in order to fix this team. And that's a little bit of the scary thought here and it kind of goes back to the conversation we had earlier this week when we talked about the little bit of the scary trade report, right? Where Craig Breslow backs himself up against the wall and starts to fight a little bit. Or he doesn't concede or or or kind of bend the knee where he kind of punches back. And a punch back right now could be a little bit detrimental to where the Red Sox end up going in the future. So, I think, despite the fact that these are kind of vague answers and despite the fact that you look at through the headlines here trying to figure out what he's actually saying, what he's actually saying is that his decision-making over the next couple of weeks, over the next month, over the next couple of months here, could end up having a big impact on not only this team, but the future of the Red Sox as well.

[00:09:38]And it scares me because that's a really weird combination, right? What you're talking about is a combination of the Red Sox not really seeing a clear path to a deal anywhere in Major League Baseball right now, and a CBO who really wants to make one. Again, you go back to the reports that we talked about last week, and you sit there and you have a conversation about what that's actually going to take, right? You've got Breslow who could end up being a pretty desperate man right now to end up saving his job. On the other side, you've got a ownership group who could potentially being sitting there and saying, "I don't want pie in my face again." Right? "I don't want to commit to a team and end up having to be in a situation where we have to admit we aren't the smartest front office or ownership group in Major League Baseball. We need to do something pretty desperate right now." And what that ultimately leads to is a bit of an overpay from the Boston Red Sox. And overpaying right now could legitimately be detrimentally harmful to the future of this organization. Okay, if you don't want to give up major league pieces, who are the guys that you are going to end up trading to get somebody in here of legitimate value? Right now, it's essentially two guys, right? It's Franklin Arias and Anthony Iannetta.

[00:10:41]That's really the only leverage right now you have on the free a free open market. You've other guys in the system who could end up being pretty valuable, for sure, but they're either not performing up to what they should be in guys like Keyshawn Weatherspoon, or they're just simply too young for teams to want to trade, especially when you're in a conversation of, "Hey, this team could also compete this season to be impactful." Like a guy like Justin Gonzalez. In a year or two, maybe those guys are the names that you can end up moving on from. But right now, if you only have two prospects that could make a legitimate difference, is it worth giving up both of both of one of those prospects in order to get something done that's going to help this team this year, and put yourself in a position at the deadline where you still end up having to sell anyways? Right? And I think again, that's my biggest fear with these conversations. And again, you've another piece and example of the Red Sox getting close to doing that. If Craig Breslow was a smart man, which, you know, he claims to be and and and for the most part I think people think he is. I don't know, right? I It's kind of interest Is he smart and good at his job I think are two different conversations, but regardless, if he is a smart man, the answer and solution here is you could sell pieces from this Major League team and retool not just for this year, but for years to come, right? Aroldis Chapman's been traded twice. It was for Gleyber Torres and Cole Ragans, who have both become legitimate regular players in Major League Baseball. If you would get that again in the best seasons of Aroldis Chapman's career, basically.

[00:12:02]Like that should be a number one priority, right? You can retool and put yourself in a position to potentially win some more games this year, but more importantly, win a whole lot of games next year without like blowing up your farm system if you really wanted to do that. I don't know that the Red Sox are going to be capable of that because it feels like right in here that both ownership and Craig Breslow are afraid to admit at this point that they're wrong. Afraid to admit that, "Hey, what we did at the beginning of the season, roster construction-wise, isn't working." Because in this article, too, Breslow kind of looks at the players a little bit. He says like, "Yeah, the players aren't performing up to what we need them to perform to." And to some degree he's right, but also to some degree, brother, does that have anything to do with your roster construction, maybe? Like we're not going to we're we're just going to skip over that and say that it's all on the players in order you know, in order to turn the season around, right? This is what scares me the most about Craig Breslow and the situation he's in right now, and it just feels like everything that keeps coming out is in that similar vein and sort of keeps pointing me towards boy, it feels like something kind of dumb that could be exciting for like 3 weeks and then kind of hurts this organization for the next 4 years is coming. And I don't know if there's any preventing it, but that's just my opinion. And maybe I'm a little paranoid, maybe I'm just simply pessimistic at this point in the season.

[00:13:12]So, let me know in the comment section down below, what do you guys think? What do you think about Craig Breslow's latest interview? What stands out to you the most out of this? Let me know all your thoughts. As always, if you made it to the end of this video, do me a favor.

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[00:13:36]It's in the description. Thank you very much for clicking on this one and I will see you in the red seats.