The Red Sox major league coaching staff is nearly set in stone, and on Monday chief baseball officer Craig Breslow indicated that the club’s final vacancy at third base coach will be filled internally.
“At this point we’re talking with (Alex Cora) a bunch and we feel really good about the group that we have such that the third base coach is going to come internally, so not looking to make any external additions at this point,” Breslow said. “I think it’s an opportunity to increase accountability across our major league staff to give the group a chance to step up and take additional responsibility.”
After a season in which the Red Sox pitching staff and defense consistently underperformed, the club fired pitching coach Dave Bush and third base coach/infield instructor Carlos Febles. The Red Sox have since hired Andrew Bailey to succeed Bush as pitching coach, and while they seem to have an idea of who will take over as third base coach, Breslow declined to say specifically because the move hasn’t been finalized yet.
By carrying one fewer coach than last year the Red Sox hope fewer voices will help lead to better results. Breslow repeatedly highlighted the need for “accountability,” saying he and Cora hope to build a system that ensures coaches are focusing on the right things and getting meaningful results.
“I think where Alex and I have had a bunch of productive conversations is how do we increase the accountability of our staff,” Breslow said. “I think we can speak in greater detail about specifically the work guys need to take on in order to address some of their deficiencies as opposed to just using generalities about ‘getting better’ or ‘becoming better defenders.'”
In addition to third base, Breslow also confirmed that Red Sox have bolstered their pitching program by hiring Justin Willard as their new director of pitching. Willard previously spent three seasons as the Minnesota Twins’ pitching coordinator and Breslow credited him for the development of Minnesota’s recent crop of standout arms.
“We feel really lucky, really fortunate,” Breslow said. “He spent quite a bit of time with Andrew Bailey so we feel like those two will be in lockstep, and pitching development is something I feel comfortable diving into and I feel like we’ve got the foundation for a really strong infrastructure.”
Breslow said Willard will work with both the big league staff as well as on the pitching development side, saying he’ll oversee the “wing to wing pitching infrastructure” in hopes of producing better arms at all levels of the organization.