The Boston Red Sox introduced their new chief baseball officer, Craig Breslow, on Thursday after a highly publicized search that saw multiple top level candidates decline to even pursue the opportunity. Before coming to the Red Sox to take their top job, Breslow was a journeyman pitcher including multiple stints with the Red Sox before joining the Cubs' front office.
Breslow has a bit of a mess to fix and quickly in the wake of Chaim Bloom's firing. Fortunately, he took a lot of questions from the media along with president Sam Kennedy where he provided at least some insight into how he is going to run things.
Here are 8 takeaways from Craig Breslow's introductory press conference
Breslow is only just now getting his feet under him in Boston, so it probably isn't fair to assume that he would have the answers to every roster, prospect, and organizational question right now and he was certainly towing the company line throughout the press conference. There were still some interesting tidbits here and there, though, so here is a quick rundown of some takeaways from the press conference.
Boston's search for a new front office lead was close up until the end
Breslow was adamant during the presser that he was interested in the Boston job opening from basically the moment Bloom was fired. He mentioned several times that his connections to the Red Sox organization were a big, big factor in his decision to pursue it.
However, Sam Kennedy shared an anecdote that is worth mentioning given the trouble the Red Sox had in attracting top level executive talent. Rather than saying that Breslow was a favorite throughout the process, he intimated that it was a very competitive search and it wasn't until the final couple of meetings that Breslow was going to be their choice.
Breslow is not ready to commit to hiring a general manager just yet
Breslow was asked as to whether or not he was going to hire a general manager at some point and he was entirely non-committal. Right now, he wants to focus on getting to know the organization a bit better before making any decisions about top level front office personnel and it doesn't sound like he is bringing in anyone in particular to assist him just yet.
So when the Red Sox sign/don't or trade/don't trade someone early in the offseason, fans can safely place the blame on him (and of course ownership).