Conguration news:Red Sox boss Craig Breslow as ‘perfect marriage’ of intellect, experience
Craig Breslow’s first presentation as a member of the Chicago Cubs’ front office didn’t go quite as planned.
Less than six months removed from a 17-year professional baseball career, one that ended in 2018 with Breslow pitching for Toronto’s Triple-A club, the left-hander transitioned from the field to the front office, recruited by Theo Epstein, then the Cubs president of baseball operations. As director of strategic initiatives for baseball operations, the analytically-minded Breslow was tasked with auditing the organization’s pitching infrastructure from top to bottom
After a full season breaking down the data and video and dissecting the target issues — like why the Cubs had failed to produce successful homegrown pitchers — the Cubs asked Breslow to present his comprehensive findings.
“It was not good,” said Jed Hoyer, the Cubs GM at the time. “It was so dense, it was like being in a 400-level class in college. People’s eyes were glazed over. He knew it was not good.”
Hoyer sat down with Breslow, and offered some feedback to make the valuable information more digestible. Shortly thereafter, Breslow returned with another presentation that perfectly laid out the issues.
“It was so impressive how quickly it happened. I couldn’t believe the change from the first one to the second one, it was amazing,” Hoyer recalled. “I think the most impressive thing to me is I know him and he took that feedback to heart, like ‘OK I need to figure out how to present dense material to a group of people with different backgrounds. I got it.’ I guarantee he read stuff on it, worked on it, rehearsed it — it was really impressive, the metamorphosis.”
That ability to adapt so quickly, synthesizing complex information into usable data, served Breslow well as he rose through the Cubs front office over the course of five seasons, helping transform the organization’s pitching infrastructure and becoming an assistant GM in 2021 after just two years with the team.
As the Red Sox embarked on their search for new baseball leadership, Breslow emerged as a prime candidate. His intelligence, adaptability and relationships within the game, coupled with a lengthy playing career — one that included two stops in Boston, embedding him in the intensity of the market — were traits too attractive to ignore. His ascension to the upper echelons of baseball’s front office world has been swift with his introduction as Boston’s next chief baseball officer coming next week. But it did not come without years of refining his leadership on and off the field.
“He combines a powerful intellect and deep pitching expertise with a real understanding of players and fearless approach to problem-solving,” Epstein said. “With his mind, work ethic and character, there is no limit to what he can accomplish in this game.”
Breslow always seemed destined for a front office job with a cerebral approach to the game, but grinding through a nearly two-decade-long pitching career added a level of grittiness and determination to his resume. A 26th-round pick by Milwaukee in 2002, Breslow cycled through 10 organizations, made seven big-league teams and had several minor league stints along the way as he fought to find his footing.
