There’s no shortage of Boston Red Sox fans who are still urging Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow to do more this offseason. Sign Alex Bregman. Add another reliever besides Aroldis Chapman. Potentially make another move that we don’t see coming. Don’t trade Triston Casas. The list goes on, despite this team being markedly better on paper than it was a year ago.
While there is still work to be done in free agency and perhaps on the trade market, though, Breslow and the Red Sox brass do continue to work. There has never been many doubts about that, only about getting to the finish line in some instances. But in their work, they might also be looking to make good on one of the previous regime’s mistakes — specifically the work under Dave Dombrowski.
Dombrowski was uber-aggressive and many fans in Boston miss that mentality. But at the same time, his errors were also present. Most notably, he failed to lock up homegrown talent and rising stars and could very well be most to blame for Mookie Betts being forced to leave the organization.
It seems like Breslow isn’t willing to let that happen.
Craig Breslow trying to lock up Red Sox young stars like Dombrowski didn’t
With Roman Anthony and Kristian Campbell set for their major league debuts this season after being named the No. 1 and 3 prospects in baseball according to Baseball Prospectus’ latest Top 101 update, Breslow and the Red Sox are aiming to try and lock these players (along with trade acquisition Garrett Crochet) up to long term deals, which Alex Speier further unpacked with the Boston Globe ($) after CEO and president Sam Kennedy made as much clear.
“We’re set now with that group for the foreseeable future. That was the goal: To get us into this position, where we’ve got a sustainable group that can be competitive year-in, year-out as we go forward,” Kennedy said on NESN. “There’s a plan for a lot of our guys internally to try and extend. That’s something that’s really important for great organizations.
“In our 24 years, there’s been really important internal extensions that have led to World Series championships. That is a goal and a priority with respect to [Crochet] but also to other guys in our organization.”
Anthony is reportedly willing to listen on negotiations for an extension while Campbell and Crochet are seemingly even more ready to talk turkey.
Obviously in any of these cases, we aren’t talking about ensuring that these players end their careers in Boston. It’s far too early for that nor would any of them really go for that realistically. At the end of the day, though, ensuring that the Red Sox would not lose these players like they did Betts after arbitration and the end of club control would be ideal. Getting more years of their prime is how you start to help build out a new dynasty with a new core.
We’ve already seen Breslow make this work with the likes of Cedanne Rafaela, who signed an eight-year, $50 million extension last offseason. These would be more expensive, without question, but the thought process is there. Breslow undeniably wants to lock up these young guys to help give them what they’re worth but also keep them in Boston as long as possible to begin their career.
So even if there are deserved frustrations with this offseason and more so with last year’s “full throttle” debacle, Breslow has a clear direction for the Red Sox. And the fact that he’s already working diligently to not repeat Dombrowski’s mistakes is a great sign of as much.
