What Craig Breslow said after another underwhelming trade deadline day originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
One hour after the buzzer sounded across Major League Baseball on Thursday night, Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow addressed the Boston media via Zoom to share his side of what happened — and didn’t happen — before the trade deadline.
Breslow swung two deals in the 24 hours before that deadline, acquiring reliever Steven Matz from the Cardinals late Wednesday and getting starter Dustin May from the Dodgers in the final minutes before the actual deadline arrived at 6 p.m. on Thursday.
Boston sent outfield prospects James Tibbs III (who had been acquired in the Rafael Devers trade) and Zach Ehrhard to the Dodgers for May, and they sent corner infielder Blaze Jordan to St. Louis for Matz.
Breslow, leading Boston’s baseball department at a deadline for the second time, made additions but didn’t make any significant additions that will alter the Red Sox’ postseason chances. He even said as much himself.
“We were pursuing multiple impact players,” Breslow said. “And obviously, on the other side, teams that were operating as sellers were trying to juggle different concepts. And for whatever reason, we weren’t able to line up.”
As a result, the Red Sox will hit the home stretch of the season without significant reinforcements as they try to earn a postseason spot for the first time in four years.
Here were all of the major points hit by Breslow in his 20-plus meeting with reporters.
Red Sox were “uncomfortably aggressive,” but teams still didn’t like their offers
According to Breslow, the Red Sox entered the deadline with no untouchables in their farm system. Everyone was on the table, and the team made aggressive deals, but potential trade partners weren’t satisfied with the offers.
“We’re happy with the guys that we brought in with Steven and Dustin, but we also pursued real impact players that we felt like could improve our team in ’25 and beyond. Like I said, we were kind of uncomfortably aggressive in trying to pursue them and the players that we were willing to put into deals,” Breslow explained. “And ultimately, you know, it wasn’t from a lack of effort. Other teams needed to say, ‘Hey, that’s enough [to get a deal done].’ You know, ‘That crosses the line.’ But like I said, it wasn’t about an unwillingness to talk about our whole system.”
Breslow said that the team used the offseason’s Garrett Crochet deal, which saw Boston send top catching prospect Kyle Teel and three other prospects to Chicago, as a model for how to make a trade with a major impact at the deadline.
“That was instructive in terms of how we approached this deadline,” Breslow said of the big swing for Crochet. “But ultimately, we didn’t line up with other teams in those pursuits.”
The major league roster was pretty much off limits
While the whole farm system was in play, the MLB roster was more or less off the table when it came to making trades. After months of public discussions about the outfield logjam and speculation on Jarren Duran potentially being the odd man out, and with Aroldis Chapman being someone who could have had a hefty price tag attached to his left arm, Breslow said the big league club has performed too well for any of the players to be shipped away.
“I think over the last two to three weeks, it became clear that all 26 guys on our roster were contributing to what we were doing, and we weren’t willing to take a hit to our major league team and potentially impact the 2025 season in favor of trying to repackage or repurpose in a way that might have improved the future,” Breslow said. “And there weren’t really opportunities to both trade off of our major league team and improve our 2025 outlook. So we felt like it was best to kind of leave that group as it was and try to use what I think is a strong and deep system to try to improve the team.”
On Chapman specifically, Breslow said, “We recognize what trading somebody like like Chappy would mean, and so didn’t have the appetite to go down that path.”
So is the farm system bad?
With Breslow repeating several times that other teams weren’t interested in Boston’s offers, it begged the question: Were you surprised that the players you offered up in trades weren’t appealing to other teams?
“I don’t know if that is surprising,” Breslow said. “I think a lot of the industry does appreciate the young players that we have in our system. And, you know, we try to work through different combinations of guys and didn’t approach some of these conversations as though any players were off limits, and we couldn’t line up.”
Breslow reiterated: “I do think that there’s pretty widespread sentiment across the industry that we have a really solid group of young players, many of whom are already impacting our big league club. And so I think the outlook is really good, not just for 2025 but beyond.”
The Red Sox do have a number of young players contributing at the big league level, including Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer (prior to his injury), Wilyer Abreu and Carlos Narvaez. Yet with the Red Sox’ unwillingness to move players off the big league roster, the “widespread sentiment across the industry” seemed to be that the rest of the system wasn’t particularly alluring for other teams.
When can Dustin May start for the Red Sox?
The 27-year-old May has been through a lot in his career. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2021, and then went through a Tommy John revision procedure two years later in 2023. He also suffered a torn esophagus in the summer of 2024, forcing him to undergo emergency surgery.
He returned to the mound this year, but he’s struggled. He went 6-7 with a 4.85 ERA for the Dodgers, and his ERA has jumped from 4.20 in April and May to 5.59 in June and July.
With all of that, plus May getting traded to a team 3,000 miles away, Breslow said the team won’t rush the righty to start ASAP.
“I think we’re still working through when the right time is to get him into the rotation, just given a bit of a whirlwind day, I’m sure, for him,” Breslow said. “And sometimes, having to get somebody to travel and settle in and then take the ball in a start could be a hefty ask. But we’ll work through that.”
Breslow also said that May is “a guy who really limits hard contact [and] keeps the ball on the ground at a strong rate.”
“He’s battle-tested, has premium stuff, and a bona fide starter that can take the ball for us every five days,” Breslow added.
Breslow also said that there won’t be any restrictions placed on May, even though at 104 innings pitched, he’s close to doubling his previous career high of 56 innings.
And Steven Matz?
The 34-year-old Matz was a starter for most of his career but has operated almost exclusively as a reliever this season (30 relief appearances, two starts). Despite the history, Breslow sees Matz working as a late-inning reliever in Boston.
“He’s served multiple roles in the big leagues, but it seems like out of the pen, the stuff has ticked up,” Breslow said. “He’s got a really good fastball that plays to both sides. He’s a great strike thrower who’s been in kind of pressure situations before, so we feel like he’s someone that Alex [Cora] can call upon in the seventh, eighth, ninth inning, and get really big outs for us. And if you kind of look at what he’s done out of the pen, he’s been really, really good.”
What about other teams getting better?
The Red Sox are in possession of an American League wild-card spot. But just about every other playoff contender in the AL made bigger moves ahead of the deadline. Breslow was asked if that’s a concern.
“Yeah, we can’t ignore what other teams are doing. At the same time, our focus today was identifying and pursuing the players that we felt like were good fits for our team. And ultimately, we’re all going to be defined by what happens from tomorrow through our last game of the season and potentially the playoffs,” Breslow said.
“I think it’s really easy to sit here today and evaluate the trades that were made and how much better we think teams got on paper. Ultimately, those questions are going to be answered for us. Like I said, we were as aggressive as we could possibly be in pursuits. Some of them worked out and some of them didn’t, and that’s the nature of a trade deadline.”
Did the Red Sox pursue offensive help?
The Red Sox needed pitching help, but they also could have used some pop in the lineup. Alex Cora’s dual move of making Roman Anthony bat leadoff while putting Jarren Duran in the three hole has provided a bit of a spark, but there’s still been a notable lack of thump ever since the Rafael Devers trade.
So … did the Red Sox try to pursue a bat at the deadline?
“Yeah, we spent pretty significant time trying to add a bat,” Breslow said. “But someone, again, that could impact the roster, and represent a meaningful upgrade over the guys that we have, either on our team or potentially in Triple-A that we feel like would immediately improve the roster. We weren’t able to line up.”
Notably, in terms of corner infielders, the Padres acquired Ryan O’Hearn from the Orioles and the Mariners got Eugenio Suarez from Arizona.
Aggressive, aggressive, aggressive…
When Breslow and Sam Kennedy spoke with the media after the Rafael Devers trade, the buzzword was “alignment.” This time, it was “aggressive.”
Despite the tepid moves, Breslow really stressed that he and his fellow front office employees were aggressive in their efforts to bolster the 2025 team. Like … really, really aggressive.
Here are all the times Breslow used the word:
” … it wasn’t from a lack of trying to be as aggressive as possible [or] from an unwillingness to get uncomfortable.”
“Like I said, we were kind of uncomfortably aggressive in trying to pursue them in the players that we were willing to put into deals.”
“None of the deals that didn’t end up being executed, in my opinion, came from a lack of being aggressive or an unwillingness to get uncomfortable.”
“Like I said, we were as aggressive as we could possibly be in pursuits.”
“The decisions that were made at this deadline, they weren’t driven by, like I said, an unwillingness to be aggressive.”
“We were aggressively pursuing acquisitions that could help us in 2025 and they didn’t line up.”
“We tried to put the most aggressive offers that we could in hopes that they were going to end in deals.”
The bottom line: Breslow wants you to know the team was aggressive. Really, really aggressive … even if the end result doesn’t indicate that being the case.
