Craig Breslow seems like he’s in no rush to do much of anything.
That’s a bit worrisome given that baseball’s Winter Meetings in Nashville are finally upon us. In his first meeting of the week with reporters on Monday, Breslow said… well, that there wasn’t much to be said at all.
“Obviously nothing kind of material to report but advancing conversations, still trying to explore every possible pathway to improving the team,” Breslow told reporters, though he added he is “getting a clearer sense of what the free agency and trade markets might look like.”
You’ll excuse Red Sox fans if they are starting to feel a bit of deja vu. While I maintain it is still too early to render a definitive verdict on Boston’s offseason, you can’t help but feel a bit of angst regarding the team’s inaction.
Not much happened league-wide on the first day of the Winter Meetings. The Braves acquired Jared Kelenic and Marco Gonzales from the Mariners. The Brewers gave outfielder prospect Jackson Chourio the biggest contract ever for a player with no major league experience. And the Phillies extended manager Rob Thomson (well deserved, by the way).
Yawn. So much for starting out baseball’s biggest week of the offseason with a bang…
But back to the Red Sox, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Breslow isn’t rushing into things given that he is still new on the job. The fact that he is also a first-time baseball ops boss shouldn’t be overlooked, either. There’s a lot to learn, and not a lot of time to learn it.
Breslow noted that he wasn’t in a rush to hire a new general manager — his No. 2 in command — either.
Perhaps the most interesting thing Breslow said on Monday is that the team isn’t averse to parting with one of their top prospects in a trade. Breslow credited the organization for amassing position player depth (he can’t possibly be talking about the same team that trotted Bobby Dalbec out at shortstop, can he?) and seemed to indicate that is where any trade for pitching help would begin.
That would seemingly put top prospect Marcelo Mayer into play, but I still have a hard time believing that Breslow — who we have zero indication will be anything like wheeler and dealer Dave Dombrowski — would come in and immediately trade one of the most highly rated prospects in the game.
Breslow did note that the team is interested in starters who are under team control, which would probably rule out some of the more high-profile rentals on the market.
Also, Breslow said the team will look internally to fill its third-base coach vacancy… boring.
All told, it was a (probably predictably) uneventful opening day in Nashville. Here’s hoping the Sox finally kick into “full throttle” soon enough as we’ve been promised…