Boston Red Sox
“No one will sit in this seat and say that there’s enough pitching in the organization.”
After watching their season come to a close on Thursday against the Yankees, the Red Sox put a final bow on their 2025 season with a press conference at Fenway Park on Monday morning.
Manager Alex Cora, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow, and team president Sam Kennedy touched on several topics during the presser ahead of what figures to be a busy offseason for Boston after this brief playoff run.
Here are five takeaways from Monday’s press conference:
Identifying areas of need
The 2025 Red Sox might have been a playoff team, but Breslow and Co. still have plenty of work to do if this roster wants to take another step forward and establish themselves as a sustainable contender for the long haul.
At the forefront for Boston is the need to add another established pitcher to slot in after Garrett Crochet in the starting rotation.
“I think what I would say is that we need to figure out ways to improve the team and that could take a number of shapes,” Breslow said. “Every team gets better if you can bring in a starter or develop a starting pitcher that could pitch at Garrett Crochet’s level, right?
“There’s no running from that and we’ll be as aggressive as we can in chasing that down while also ensuring that we’re doing everything we can to develop our players internally.”
Even with the emergence of young starters like Connelly Early and Payton Tolle, the Red Sox need more stability behind Crochet — especially with a starter like Brayan Bello better served as a No. 3 option.
“No one will sit in this seat and say that there’s enough pitching in the organization,” Breslow said. “I think we saw that in the second half and we could list out the pitchers that were on the IL and it just means that depth is so critically important. So, like I said, when we talk about pursuing opportunities to improve the team, bringing in [additional] pitching certainly is one of them.”
Boston was heavily linked to Twins starter Joe Ryan at the trade deadline, while free-agent options include Dylan Cease and Zac Gallen.
The Red Sox also need to add some pop into their lineup, with free-agent targets including Pete Alonso and Kyle Schwarber.
Even though Boston ranked seventh in the league in runs scored this season, they also ranked 15th overall in home runs, including just 64 in the second half.
With Boston only boasting two players on its roster who surpassed 20 home runs in Trevor Story (25) and Wilyer Abreu (22), Breslow acknowledged that the Red Sox need to add some pop to their lineup.
“It would be fair to look at some of those other teams [still in the playoffs] and say that they hit the ball out of the ballpark a little more than we do,” Breslow said. “Scoring runs….this is kind of a zero-sum game, right? And it doesn’t really matter how you score. But in the postseason, a lot of runs come via the home run because the pitching is so dominant. So I think that’s a consideration.”
The waiting game with Bregman, Story
Some of the top dominoes that have yet to fall this offseason for the Red Sox is the future of both Alex Bregman and Trevor Story in Boston.
Both veteran infielders were key cogs in Boston’s clubhouse and were productive stalwarts in the heart of Boston’s lineup in 2025. But, both players have the option to hit free agency this winter by opting out of their respective deals with the Red Sox.
Story, who has two years and $55 million remaining on his initial six-year deal, feels like a safer option to return in 2026. If Story decides not to opt out, the Red Sox also extend his contract by another year for an extra $25 million in 2028.
Bregman, who is represented by super-agent Scott Boras, has two year and $80 million left on his deal. But the 31-year-old infielder could be on prowl for a long-term deal after playing like a potential MVP candidate in Boston before suffering a quad injury in May.
“We’ll let that play out, but the significance [of bringing Bregman back] would be having a great player, a proven winner, a strong defender and someone who fits this market really well on a roster,” Breslow said.
The Red Sox will also have to make a decision on Lucas Giolito, who is expected to hit free agency after posting a 3.41 ERA across 26 starts. Giolito played a key role in Boston’s success this season, but he also missed the postseason with an elbow injury.
“Obviously, we were consumed with trying to perform as well as we possibly could in the postseason and then given the news of Lucas’ injury, really just kind of transitioned to doing everything that we could to help him get healthy,” Breslow said. “He’s a guy that obviously had a significant injury last year, worked really hard to get back on the field and at times alongside Garrett and Brayan was carrying the rotation.
“That’s kind of what our focus is right now. And we’ll make decisions in the future.”
Any regrets?
While Boston punched its ticket to the postseason for the first time since 2021, it was far from a controversy-free season for the Red Sox.
Be it the blockbuster trade involving Rafael Devers in June or an underwhelming trade deadline, a Red Sox season filled with so much promise was undercut by multiple “what-if” scenarios involving the ceiling of this Boston roster.
“I learned a lot,” Breslow said. “Every time there’s a decision to be made, there’s also an opportunity to learn — to learn about each other, to learn about the rest of the baseball operations group, to learn about myself.
“And so I’m constantly kind of reliving those decisions to make sure not necessarily that the outcome was right — that can be really difficult to predict — but that we had a good decision-making process, that we had the information that was necessary to make the best decisions possible.”
While the relationship between Breslow and the Red Sox broke down throughout the spring and early summer, Boston’s inability to add a power bat or proven starter at the trade deadline might have been the most consequential move (or lack thereof) all season.
After the Red Sox struggled to add useful pieces in return for Devers, Boston’s top deadline deal was centered around Dustin May, who posted a 6.40 ERA over six outings before landing on the IL.
“We went into the deadline with a few goals, and it kind of became apparent that some of those weren’t going to be able to be achieved and we pivoted. Sometimes those work out, sometimes they don’t,” Breslow said. “But I think we had a good process, we had good information.
“And our hope is we’re going to find ourselves eight months from now or whatever it is in late July with a really good team that we believe in that we’re looking to bolster all over again.”
Not committing to Casas
For all of the discourse regarding the Red Sox’ potential pursuit of a power bat like Alonso or Schwarber, Boston has a few in-house options for next season if they’re looking for more pop at the plate.
At the forefront of that conversation is Triston Casas, who missed most of the season after rupturing the patellar tendon in his knee at the start of May.
Even though Casas has shown spurts of being a power bat in the middle of the order, his uneven play and injury history had Breslow hesitant to commit to him as the team’s starting first baseman in 2026.
“I don’t think it makes a ton of sense on Oct. 6th to say someone is or isn’t our first baseman and we’ll see how things play out,” Breslow said. “Unfortunately, Triston has missed a significant amount of time over the last two years. We’ve also seen what he’s capable of doing when he’s healthy.”
After a promising 2023 season where he hit 24 home runs and drove in 65 runs, Casas has struggled to settle into a groove with Boston. He missed 98 games last year after tearing cartilage in his rib cage, while he only batted .182 in 2025 before going down with his injury.
Even though Casas has been working his way back on the field, Breslow noted that it’s not a foregone conclusion that Casas will even be cleared for the start of spring training.
“He’s in here every day rehabbing,” Breslow said. “Just kind of watching the progress from the initial surgery to where he is now — he’s moving around really well, load-bearing, squatting. So we anticipate a full recovery. But I’m hesitant to put a timeline on that just because with any of these injuries you want to make sure that you’re not coming too far out front.”
Narvaez to undergo offseason surgery
A Red Sox lineup regular will go under the knife this winter. Breslow confirmed that catcher Carlos Narvaez “is going to have his meniscus cleaned up this week” after dealing with a nagging knee issue this season.
The 26-year-old catcher was one of the top surprises for Boston this season, leapfrogging Connor Wong on the depth chart and establishing himself as one of the top defensive catchers in the game.
Narvaez also generated plenty of pop at the plate with 15 home runs and 50 RBI over 118 games, but his production dipped in the second half due to his knee injury. After batting .273 in the first half of the season, Narvaez only slashed .187/.233/.387/.619 in 45 games after the All-Star break.
“There were a couple times during the course of the season where it flared up,” Breslow said. “One of them, pretty obviously to where he missed a little bit of time. But he deserves a ton of credit for his willingness to play through this, potentially even at a time when others would have maybe bowed out, because he felt that attached to trying to help the group.”
Breslow added that the “expectation” is for Narvaez to be ready at the start of spring training.
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