Friday, November 13

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Among the most revelatory things Red Sox president of baseball operations Craig Breslow said at this week’s General Managers Meetings in Las Vegas is that he will lead a thorough review of the team’s medical staff and practices related to it this offseason.

In 2026, the Red Sox lost two of their key players for large chunks of the season in lefty Garrett Crochet and outfielder Roman Anthony.

When Crochet went on the injured list in late April with left shoulder inflammation, the feeling was that he would miss a couple of starts and be back in short order. He didn’t pitch again until Game 2 of the Wild Card Series, the night the Red Sox were eliminated at Yankee Stadium.

When Anthony suffered a right hand/wrist injury in Detroit on May 4, the left-handed hitter said a few days later he felt he would return as soon as his stint on the 10-day IL was over. He didn’t play again until Aug. 31, and then suffered a recurrence of the injury in Game 1 of the playoffs, forcing him off the roster.

“I think the way that I would approach any of the auditing or inventorying that we've done here is to think what a best-in-class kind of staff looks like, right? What does the best kind of medical department and process look like, and then understand where we are and figure out how we bridge the gap between the two,” said Breslow in a group interview in Vegas that included MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo.

“And so, when we think about that, it's having expert practitioners, so that you know the actual hands on our players are the best that we can possibly find. It's about making sure that we're getting the diagnosis right when players are injured. That the communication is really tight between the medical staff and players, medical staff and coaches, medical staff and the front office, front office and the media, so that there is consistency and everybody in the organization understands exactly kind of where things are.

“Without a doubt, there are things that we can do better, and we'll look across all of those. So it'll be a comprehensive look, and then we'll figure out where we go from there.”

Breslow stopped short of saying the Red Sox regressed in medical matters during ‘26.

“Yeah, it's probably unfair, premature for me to say we took a step back. I do feel comfortable saying that there were some really complicated cases this year that maybe surfaced an opportunity to take a look at how we were handling that,” Breslow said. “Whether it's Garrett and talking about feeling like he should only miss a start or two. And at the time that was absolutely our understanding, including having a conversation that required us convincing Garrett that this was the right thing to do was just to kind of skip a start and get on the IL, and then once you start to peel back the layers here, you realize that it's a little more complicated.

“Or Roman [also], right? And so, I think what those situations did is kind of give us concrete examples of maybe where we could do things better, and I guess that became the driver for this [upcoming review].”

Breslow doesn’t envision calling in an independent auditor.

“Yeah, it would be handled internally,” Breslow said. “I don't think we're looking to reinvent how we do everything here. I think it's just looking at the process, being able to walk through kind of like the wing to wing, from injury to getting a player back on the field. How we've handled that, talk to the players, get feedback from them in terms of the communication. Talk to all the people that were involved in the rehab process, and I think through that be able to then kind of map out like, ‘Hey, what is this supposed to look like when it’s operating on a really high level?’”

It wouldn’t be the offseason without Red Sox outfielder Jarren Duran having a place on the trade rumor mill. This has been the case for several years running, not to mention during July’s trading seasons as well.

It has already started, with The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier reporting earlier this week Duran has been a hot name this winter.

“Very available,” one National League evaluator told Speier. “They’re looking to move him.”

As you’d expect, Breslow had a much different take, at least publicly.

“Yeah, I mean we've heard this type of speculation for a number of years. I've heard about the need to move outfielders because we have too many. That isn't exactly how things have played out for the last few years,” said Breslow. “Like I said, Jarren is a really talented player. He's part of our organization, and my hope at this point is he knows how I feel about him and how we as an organization feel about him.”

Over the last couple of years, the Sox never found an offer they liked enough to move a dynamic player with power and speed and above-average defense in left field.

But there are a few things at work that could make this year different. The first is that Duran is coming off the worst full season of his career at the plate, finishing ‘26 with a .627 OPS and a 0.4 bWAR, down from 9.0 in ‘24 and 4.9 in ‘25.

Also, Duran, through the arbitration process, is due to get a sizable raise from the $7.7 million he earned in ‘26. Duran is expected to jump to an eight-figure salary. That is, unless the Red Sox non-tender him by the Nov. 20 deadline. It seems far more likely they would try to trade him then lose him for nothing. If there’s no package compelling enough to Breslow, he could hang on to Duran again, or perhaps explore trading him again after the non-tender date.

For first baseman Triston Casas, 2026 was another frustrating season filled with injuries. This was the worst one yet, as he didn’t play in a single game.

Casas is finally nearing game action. He is in the process of traveling to the Dominican Republic, where he will suit up for the Licey Tigers.

“He's obviously missed a significant amount of time over the last couple of years, so we don't have real workload concerns in terms of total volume,” said Breslow. “We just want to make sure that his body is ready to do all that will be asked of it and what's required by playing in a pretty competitive environment. He is feeling good. I think we'll be mindful of the amount of work we throw at him in a short amount of time. So yeah, I think there will be a bit of a natural ramp up.”

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