Boston Red Sox
Breslow once looked like he would thrive in the chief baseball officer position.
Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow made the decision to fire manager Alex Cora and six of his coaches. Stephanie Scarbrough
May 1, 2026 | 8:13 AM
4 minutes to read
For a moment, Craig Breslow looked like someone faithful, frustrated Red Sox fans could trust to make important and savvy decisions.
It was more than a moment, actually. It was a two-month stretch of fleeting high competence, from late-December 2024 through mid-February 2025.
During that span, Breslow — who was approximately a year into his tenure as Red Sox chief baseball officer — brought in three players who would make the 2025 American League All-Star team, which would qualify as a terrific offseason haul for even the most accomplished executives.
On Dec. 10, in the aftermath of lefthander Max Fried forsaking the Red Sox for the Yankees, Breslow adroitly pivoted and acquired massive southpaw Garrett Crochet from the White Sox for four genuine prospects.
A day later, Breslow completed the deal to sign smoke-throwing closer Aroldis Chapman.
The third All-Star arrived in February, when longtime Astros star Alex Bregman signed on, giving the Red Sox a fine all-around third baseman and a player whose leadership was even more essential than we realized until recently.
That was a heck of a roster-building run by Breslow, the kind of stretch that almost made you forget that his first major deal, in December 2023, was to send Chris Sale, and cash, to the Braves for infielder Vaughn Grissom.
And now that we’ve acknowledged that he once looked like he’d thrive in this job, we must pivot to the reality of the past year-plus, and ask one simple question as the 2026 Red Sox collapse like a dying star:
If, as team president Sam Kennedy said, it was Breslow’s call to fire manager Alex Cora and six members of his coaching staff Saturday night (at first saying Jason Varitek was “reassigned,” an obvious save-face tactic), what exactly has Breslow done lately to convince Red Sox ownership he should be trusted with such personnel authority?
Sure, he was Cora’s boss. But he has done nothing lately to warrant having full authority to make such a seismic decision. What has he done right, other than a secondary move here or there, since the Crochet/Chapman/Bregman haul?
I’m sure ownership gives Breslow credit for getting out of a huge portion of Rafael Devers’s contract by trading him to the Giants last June. But even fans who were fine with moving on from the immature Devers have to be livid at the effects the trade has had on the franchise.
The only way Breslow and the Red Sox could have handled the post-Devers situation worse is if they’d given Pablo Sandoval a new five-year deal.
This winter, Bregman opted out of his deal and signed for five years with the Cubs when the Red Sox wouldn’t give him a no-trade clause. Getting rid of Devers and losing Bregman is a master class in roster management, let me tell you.
Breslow’s analytics apparently confirmed that a baseball team does indeed need to have a third baseman. So he traded for Caleb Durbin in a multiplayer deal with the Brewers.
Durbin was the ultimate sell-high player this offseason. He finished third in the National League Rookie of the Year race last year, with a .721 OPS, 11 home runs, and 18 steals in 136 games. But he had been just the No. 22 prospect in the Brewers organization entering 2025, and heading into his age-26 season he probably wasn’t going to get much better.
But the Sox liked something — probably that he owned a third baseman’s mitt — and acquired him, along with infielders Andruw Monasterio and Anthony Seigler, for infielder David Hamilton and lefthanded pitchers Kyle Harrison and Shane Drohan.
It was a foolish trade, just terrible, and I felt that way before Harrison whiffed 12 and allowed just one hit in six innings in his last start. Harrison did not look like much during his brief time with the Red Sox last season, but he was ranked as the No. 18 prospect in baseball by MLB.com before the 2023 season. That is not the kind of potential you give up for an assortment of infielders who are at best slightly above Nick Sogard level.
Adding to the exasperation is that Harrison had come to Boston as part of the Devers trade. Breslow took his return in that deal and made it so much worse, including trading outfielder James Tibbs — one of the hottest hitters in Triple-A this season — to the Dodgers for pitcher Dustin May before the trade deadline last summer. It’s not a Mookie-level debacle, but it’s aiming for a spot on the podium at the Lousy Trade Olympics.
Beyond adding Willson Contreras, Breslow did next to nothing in the offseason to bolster a lineup that needed help even before Bregman departed.
I just don’t get why he has the authority to decide who will — or more specifically, won’t — manage the Red Sox, when his decisions put them in this hopeless spot.
This is not to suggest Cora was flawless. He’s an excellent manager, but his I’m-finally-free response since the firing suggests that he had had it with the machinations of this organization, not to mention having to ask players to be more than they were capable of every day. He’s going to enjoy a fine Instagram summer, I suspect.
It’s a bummer that the best baseball man in the organization is gone, though.
I trust Cora’s player evaluations far more than I do those of the man who fired him. Maybe they should have made him chief baseball officer. He wouldn’t do worse.
Chad Finn
Chad Finn is a sports columnist for Boston.com. He has been voted Favorite Sports Writer in Boston in the annual Channel Media Market and Research Poll for the past four years. He also writes a weekly sports media column for the Globe and contributes to Globe Magazine.
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