More than halfway through the offseason, the Red Sox are one of just two Major League Baseball teams who have not signed a single major league free agent. The Colorado Rockies are the other.
But chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said Monday night that’s not an intentional strategy on the team’s part.
“It’s not a deliberate or intentional decision to close off one pathway in favor or another,” said Breslow in a Zoom call with reporters to talk about the acquisition of Willson Contreras. “We’re constantly trying to lay out the options in front of us and make the best decisions. Very rarely are there ‘slam dunk’ decisions in these roles.
“You’re constantly weighing one versus another and you hope that by making a bunch of good decisions, they stack up on themselves and end up being able to create a great roster. We haven’t signed a free agent yet; that’s not because there aren’t free agents that we’ve been engaged in or because there aren’t really desirable targets in the free agent market. We just haven’t lined up yet.”
The Red Sox have made a total of 10 trades this winter, a handful of them of the minor variety, centered around clearing spots on the 40-man roster in November. They also have made three significant acquisitions in the last month, landing staring pitchers Sonny Gray and Johan Oviedo before adding Contreras this past weekend.
But the Sox have been relatively quiet on the free agent front. They lost out on Kyle Schwarber and their offer for first baseman Pete Alonso was said to be far shorter and significantly less lucrative than the five-year, $155 winning bid from the Baltimore Orioles.
The Sox have dealt away six pitchers, including two (Richard Fitts and Hunter Dobbins) with some major league experience, in their three major trades, depleting some of their organizational pitching depth.
Breslow, however, said that doesn’t necessarily mean the Sox will shift to free agency to fill whatever roster needs remain this winter
“It’s hard to perfectly handicap what those chances are until you have the opportunities in front of you,” he said. “That said, my job is to be mindful of borrowing the short-term and the long-term. There’s only so much that you can dig into your system and trade before you start to impact your ability to sustain success over time.
“So free agency is part of the equation here. It’s been part of the recipe for success for a really long time. I anticipate that will continue. It’s just that it hasn’t yet.”