There’s little doubt about Craig Breslow’s aptitude.
As a pitcher who fashioned a 12-year major league career, Breslow, a graduate of Yale, was one of the more cerebral players in the game – as might befit someone whose Ivy League major was in molecular biophysics and biochemistry. In his post-playing career, Breslow has earned raves for his role in leading the Chicago Cubs pitching department, serving as the team’s assistant general manager and director of pitching since 2020.
Not long ago, the Cubs were frighteningly thin in pitching in their minor league system. But under Breslow’s leadership, the Cubs may now boast the most number of elite pitching prospect in the game, in the eyes of at least one respected evaluator. That’s how well Breslow has performed in his role with the Cubs, developing initiatives to help young pitchers progress up the minor league ladder and contribute to the parent club.
One person said Breslow’s ceiling “might be as high as anyone in the game,” in assessing his skill set.
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Breslow, 43, is known to be in the mix for a front office position with the Red Sox, who fired Chaim Bloom last month and are seeking candidates to head their baseball operations department. The Connecticut native, who lives in Newton, Ma., has already interviewed with the club, according to a source.
But a handful others have, too, including current assistant GM Eddie Romero, former Red Sox scouting director Paul Toboni, current assistant GM Mike Groopman, former Pittsburgh Pirates GM Neal Huntington, and current Minnesota Twins GM Thad Levine.
Breslow is highly regarded throughout the industry, and especially for a team which has struggled to develop homegrown starting pitchers for the past dozen or so years, his expertise would be most welcome. Brayan Bello has made great strides in less than a season and a half in the big leagues, but he and Tanner Houck, who has fought inconsistency in parts of the last four seasons, are currently the lone major league starters developed in an organization that last produced a starter of any consequence when Clay Buchholz debuted.
Breslow, however, would not be making a lateral move in coming to the Red Sox. Instead, he’d be moving up in a sizable way, assuming far more responsibilities.
With the Cubs, Breslow is not even the second-ranked baseball executive to president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer; that role is filled by Carter Hawkins, who has the title of general manager and outranks Breslow on the Cubs’ organizational depth chart.
A report in The Athletic Tuesday had Breslow “in advanced discussions” with the Sox, “interviewing for their No. 1 job in baseball operations,” but that may be premature, according to an industry source.
Installing Breslow as the primary decision-maker in the Boston front office would constitute an enormous leap for Breslow. For all the acclaim that has come his way for his work with the Cubs, Breslow has little experience in pursuing free agents, making trades, negotiating salaries, preparing arbitration cases or, in a macro sense, running an entire baseball operations staff.
Indeed, in his work with the Cubs, he’s frequently worked remotely from Newton rather than out of the team’s offices at Wrigley Field.
A more likely scenario, it would seem, would be to hire someone else who has already served a number of years as a major league GM — as both Huntington and Levine have — and install them as president of baseball operations, while bringing Brewlow on board to serve as GM, with an opportunity to learn some of the details of the position and grow into the No. 1 role after a few years.
In the meantime, according to a major league source, the Red Sox are still waiting to hear back on requests to speak with a couple of other candidates. Teams must obtain permission to interview potential candidates currently employed by other organizations.
Additionally, there are indications that another external candidate, whose identity has not been made public, has also already interviewed with the Red Sox about the role.
Still, Breslow remains the most intriguing candidate on the board. It would seem the Red Sox primary focus, for now, is to determine how he might be best utilized, and, perhaps, with whom.
