On Monday, Boston Red Sox president Sam Kennedy, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow, and manager Chad Tracy sat beside one another and fielded questions from the media during an end-of-season presser.
There were plenty of topics discussed, among them the health status of guys like Caleb Durbin, Garrett Crochet, and Curtis Mead looking ahead to next season. Let's dive into what was revealed about those three players.
Caleb Durbin still has no official diagnosis, Red Sox say surgery is not off the table
Breslow said Durbin still has "follow-up appointments" for his subluxated pinkie finger and that surgery has not been ruled out. If the appointments do indeed reveal a need for surgery, Breslow said that the Red Sox would make another announcement at that time.
Durbin, in his first season in Boston, played with a partially dislocated left pinkie from June 24 on and reaggravated the finger on August 6. X-rays on both occasions showed no fracture, and Durbin agreed with the Red Sox that he'd sort out the injury following the season. His viral quote on the ordeal enhanced his street cred considerably amongst Red Sox fans.
Remarkably, Durbin didn't miss any time due to the ailment, even as his pinkie seemed to worsen as the season wore on. By mid-September, Durbin told Alex Speier of The Boston Globe that the pinkie could not fully straighten or bend.
Red Sox's Garrett Crochet enters the offseason fully healthy
Back in April, no one thought that Crochet's shoulder problem would wipe out pretty much his entire year. That included Crochet himself. On Monday, Breslow revealed that Crochet's shoulder didn't make a ton of progress over the five months that he was out.
Interestingly, Breslow also said that while there was an accelerated path of recovery available to Crochet in 2026, that path would have come with "unnecessary risk", and the Red Sox decided to prioritize Crochet's long-term health — a smart move for a franchise that signed Crochet to a six-year, $170 million extension in March of 2025.
Due to prudently slow-playing Crochet's recovery in 2026, the lefty is now "fully healthy" entering the offseason, according to Breslow. Fans can expect Crochet to begin the 2027 season as the Red Sox ace once again.
Curtis Mead is healthy enough for the Red Sox to talk about him as a starter
Chad Tracy hopes Curtis Mead will be the starting 2B come spring training but wouldn’t commit to anything yet. pic.twitter.com/xO9wiC30sA
— Gordo (@BOSSportsGordo) October 5, 2026
Mead's Red Sox tenure hasn't truly begun yet, seeing as he fractured his wrist in his debut. Of course, before the injury, Mead was in the middle of an awesome season, hitting .254/.352/.500 with 17 homers over 87 games before Boston acquired him by trading Connelly Early to the Washington Nationals.
Per Breslow, Mead was medically cleared for game action at the end of September (he didn't end up getting a look in the Wild Card series). The most striking news in all of this is that Tracy said on Monday that he hopes Mead will be Boston's starting second baseman in spring training. The job is Mead's to lose heading into the new campaign, barring a surprising offseason addition.
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