SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Less than 15 miles down the road from the Cubs’ Mesa spring training complex, Craig Breslow was plenty familiar with the area around the site for this year’s general managers meetings. But standing in the middle of a scrum of Boston reporters, serving as the voice of the Red Sox front office, he was venturing into new territory.
Amid all the tumult of the Cubs’ hiring of manager Craig Counsell and firing of David Ross this week, Breslow’s presence in the American League baseball operations officials media session on Tuesday served as a reminder of the work the Cubs still have to do filling out their front office in the wake of the Red Sox naming Breslow their chief baseball officer.
“It would be easy to maybe point to the on-field progress that a number of those arms have made,” Breslow said when asked what he was most proud of in his time leading the Cubs’ pitching department. “The more powerful and more meaningful thing for me is the number of players and coaches and people in the front office that reached out just to express some combination maybe of gratitude and excitement for me, recognizing that this was a great opportunity and just generally being happy for me. And the authenticity of those notes is what really struck me.”
Breslow helped reinvent the Cubs’ pitching infrastructure, rehabilitating their reputation for developing homegrown arms. And when the assistant general manager/senior vice president of pitching left to lead the Red Sox’ baseball operations, the Cubs felt good about the health of the infrastructure he left behind.
Breslow echoed that sentiment.
“The organization, I think, is in great hands,” he said. “This is a great opportunity for people to step up and take more influential and greater responsibility in certain roles. I’m excited to see how that goes from afar.”
As the Cubs fill out their baseball operations staff this winter – they’ve lost two assistant GMs in the past two years – they’re not boxed into naming a new AGM with a pitching background. As far as replacing Breslow as the head of the pitching department, the Cubs could look both outside the organization and within.
If the Cubs want to continue along the path Breslow set forth, assistant director of pitching Ryan Otero and senior pitching coordinator Casey Jacobson could be promising internal candidates.
Breslow is also working to fill out his front office staff in Boston, so the Cubs face the possibility of losing more employees to the Red Sox.
“I haven’t really had a chance to think about that,” he said when asked if there was anyone he was hoping to bring with him. “I’m still trying to get caught up to speed here and maybe in due time would entertain those conversations. But I also think it’s really important for those guys to see this as an opportunity for themselves as well.”
Breslow spent five seasons with the Cubs. He started out as the director of strategic initiatives, and by this time last year he was taking the lead on recruiting right-hander Jameson Taillon in free agency. He spoke highly of the guidance and investment he received from the presidents and GMs he worked with – Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins – which paved the way for this new venture.
“It was hard to envision when I first got there that Jed would say, ‘Hey, why don’t you go try to meet Taillon and see if you can make them a Cub,’” he said. “But nonetheless, there we found ourselves. And so I am grateful for those opportunities but mostly for it for that trust.”