Breslow, Red Sox diving deep to improve pitching

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. -- Pitching, pitching, pitching.

It has been the word used over and over since Craig Breslow was named the chief baseball officer of the Red Sox over two months ago.

Over and over, Breslow and the Sox have expressed their desire to improve a rotation that finished 22nd in ERA (4.68) last season.

In Breslow, who built a strong pitching infrastructure in his previous job with the Cubs, Boston’s brass is confident it has the right guy to improve the club’s run prevention.

That said, the Red Sox have made just one significant offseason pitching addition thus far in right-hander Lucas Giolito while subtracting Chris Sale in a trade.

While Breslow hasn’t been able to hit on his top Hot Stove targets, he knows that for the club to be successful in 2024 and beyond, the pitching upgrades will need to consist of much more than the players who take the mound.

“My kind of honest assessment is, relative to position-player development, our pitching development is lacking,” Breslow said during an interview on the Fenway Rundown Podcast.

New pitching coach Andrew Bailey and director of pitching Justin Willard were brought in to correct that weakness, and what Breslow has seen from them so far convinces him that the team is on the right track. Earlier this week, Breslow added Kyle Boddy, the founder of Driveline Baseball, as a special advisor for the 2024 season.

“I think one of the things that I intended to address early on was building out a pitching development infrastructure, and it kind of started with the hiring of Andrew Bailey and Justin Willard,” Breslow said Friday at the team’s annual Winter Weekend event.

“And then I think with another important addition in Kyle, we've brought in a collection of really, really bright, thoughtful, intentional, pitching minds, and I'm really confident in their ability to work together to impact our players.”

For the Red Sox to regain their place as one of the top teams in the game, the improvement of the pitching foundation will be key.

“We're excited about Lucas Giolito coming in here, excited about Craig Breslow and his ability to identify pitching, develop pitching, institute a pitching infrastructure that will hopefully help get us there,” said Red Sox president/CEO Sam Kennedy. “But we recognize we haven't matched up on sort of the big-name high-profile free agents. We're going let this build of our team sort of dictate what we do as we go forward. But you said it: the name of the game is pitching, pitching and more pitching. And that's something that Craig is charged with addressing.”

“One of the reasons we were excited about Craig is because he knows how to build a pitching pipeline, and hiring Andrew Bailey was important,” added Red Sox chairman Tom Werner. “And I think that last year, we were competitive for the first half of the year, and then our lack of pitching depth caught up with us, but we actually like a lot of [our pitchers] and we hope they take a step forward. And we're in sync with Craig's plan.”

The Red Sox are hoping to add another starting pitcher before the season starts, though it seems increasingly unlikely it will be a high-profile free agent like Jordan Montgomery or Blake Snell.

As presently constituted, the Boston rotation consists of the emerging Brayan Bello, top bounce-back candidate Giolito, and veteran Nick Pivetta, who had a strong finish last season.

That could leave Kutter Crawford, Garrett Whitlock, Tanner Houck and Josh Winckowski -- four righties in their 20s -- vying for the final two spots.

With the new infrastructure in place, those are the type of pitchers the Red Sox hope can take the next step.

-- Brian Murphy contributed to this story.