When the Boston Red Sox fired former chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom and promised brighter days ahead the media and fanbase alike were excited for their big-market team to flex their financial power.
Instead, they have run Craig Breslow into a buzzsaw. Red Sox chairman Tom Werner particularly continues to make things harder than it needs to be for the first-time leader of baseball operations.
Werner spoke to MassLive’s Sean McAdam to take back the “full throttle” remark that was an empty premise from the jump. Ownership’s real plan basically was Yoshinobu Yamamoto or bust. Turns out, other clubs liked the 25-year-old ace as well, who would’ve thought?
According to this line, Breslow does not have any budgetary restraints and ownership will back whichever baseball decision the former reliever makes.
Either Breslow truly feels that Teoscar Hernández was not worth more than two years, $14 million and both Jordan Montgomery and Blake Snell are about to be overpaid — or ownership is once again lying.
I’d lean toward the latter, though we do not know the spending habits of Breslow. One thing that should be mentioned, Breslow could have fielded a strong pitching staff while being frugal by adding Michael Wacha, Seth Lugo and/or Shota Imanaga.
Ownership likely is handicapping Breslow but there were some ways to make this team competitive under the luxury tax.
