Craig Breslow

Chad Tracy gets a three-year contract extension.

Craig Breslow gets, uh, his options picked up.

Um, what's been the, what's been the most surprising thing to you about this Red Sox turnaround?

[laughs] I don't think we have enough time.

into depression now.

The Red Sox took the interim tag off manager Chad Tracy, gave him a three-year deal, and picked up the two years of options for GM Craig Breslow.

You surprised.

They earned it.

And I think that sincerity and that authenticity helps drive the best out of each one.

Craig Breslow today at Fenway Park, where the Red Sox announced that they have picked up the options and thereby extended Craig Breslow and also signed Chad Tracy to a three-year contract and named him as the manager, the next manager of the Red Sox.

I believe it's the 49th manager in Red Sox history.

This is where we start tonight on the Baseball Hour, 617-779-0985.

And I think the timing of this does relate to something you just mentioned.

So think of it.

The Red Sox want Craig Breslow to stay.

They want Chad Tracy to stay.

The owners of this team stepped in and made a decision about the future of this Red Sox team.

Because at the exact same time, the owners announced that they are exercising their club options on Craig Breslow's contract, which we didn't know actually had club options.

So this is new news to most people here.

That's going to be for both 2029 and 2030. meaning he's pretty much going to be under the exact same deal that Chad Tracy is under.

Honestly, I think I still have a little bit of mixed feelings with Craig Breslow, right? I still worry about his communication with the team and over-reliance on analytics to make decisions.

But I also think at this point, it's impossible to ignore the results on the field, right? The Red Sox are headed back to their second postseason run in a row.

That has not happened since the Dombrowski era.

So if you're looking for hey, how do we get this team to the postseason? Well, Breslow's been doing this twice, right? It's not exactly the way that we wanted them to, but they did make it to the postseason.

Chad Tracy has had the interim tag taken off of him as manager for the Red Sox and given a, is it a three-year contract mess? Yes.

And Craig Breslow, who is coming into some option years on his contract, had his options picked up.

Two years.

Two years beyond this one.

So what I do like is that for the first time in a while, I feel like the chief baseball officer of the Red Sox has picked his manager.

And it's been a while since that took place.

So there's been this constant tug of war going on between Alex Cora and Chaim Bloom or Alex Cora and Craig Breslow that I think has helped eat at the organization from within.

They empowered the manager.

He's in.

They've added or ended any suspense over the future of Craig Breslow.

He's been re-upped or his options picked up.

He's not going anywhere for years.

He is the manager.

And they picked up the option, two-year option on Craig Breslow's contract for 2028 and 2029.

Chris Cotillo had reported they actually did this right after the trading deadline.

They just announced it today with the Tracy situation.

Hopefully Bregman can make it back for the playoffs.

That was an ugly situation the other day, but 12 defensive runs saved, he's at least been solid for you.

Gray, if you're looking back at what sort of Breslow did in the offseason, where I'm saying this team is more equipped to compete this year against the Yankees because the moves Breslow made, Gray had an outstanding season.

Suarez, it's been up and down, but overall, the rotation has been stabilized by Craig Breslow.

Someone who is willing to always put the players and organization first.

That was Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow, who also had his club options for 2029 and 2030 exercised by the team.

We have not accomplished ultimately what we set out to do yet, so we know that there's still quite a bit of work to do ahead of us.

But I do think that it's reassuring, it's rewarding to recognize that when you act in what you believe to be the best interests of the organization, the best interests of our fans, that it can be rewarded.