MLB Insider: Red Sox to Sealed a Deal For Two-Time Cy Young Winner
The Boston Red Sox entered this offseason with a plan to bolster their pitching staff, and have failed to do so thus far.
Thankfully for them, it’s not too late. Although many stars have signed elsewhere, the free-agent talent pool is still rich. One insider believes they still have a shot at landing the most talented hurler on the market.
“They (Red Sox) recently traded one ace left-hander (Chris Sale), and Snell could be the guy to replace him, even if the two men have little in common other than both being talented southpaws,” MLB.com’s Will Leitch wrote Monday. “It’s not clear whether Snell’s laid-back Pacific Northwest vibe would be a good fit in Boston, but stranger things have happened.”
Snell posted a league-leading 2.25 ERA, 234-to-99 strikeout-to-walk ratio, .181 batting average against and 1.19 WHIP in 180 innings across 32 starts last season.
Leitch put Boston as the ninth most likely landing spot for Snell which sounds about right. The Red Sox have the financial capability to sign the southpaw and certainly have the need but have pretended to be a mid-market team as of late and appear unlikely to make a strong investment of any kind.
However, even if they do manage to sign the two-time Cy Young Award winner more must be done to strengthen their pitching staff. Snell would be a fantastic addition but would need to at least be paired with a right-handed bat such as Adam Duvall.
Further Reading:
Red Sox make front office change, promote new assistant GM for Craig Breslow
Just a couple months into his tenure as Red Sox chief baseball officer, Craig Breslow has made his first significant change to the upper levels of Boston’s front office.
Paul Toboni, who most recently served as Boston’s vice president of amateur scouting and player development, has been promoted to senior vice president/assistant general manager, multiple sources confirmed Tuesday. Toboni is now one of four executives to hold an assistant GM title under Breslow, joining Eddie Romero, Raquel Ferreira and Michael Groopman. Former GM Brian O’Halloran also has a high-ranking position, holding an executive VP of baseball operations title. No other changes to the senior levels of the department are expected in the near future.
Toboni, 33, was one of the internal candidates the Red Sox interviewed for the chief baseball officer role that eventually went to Breslow in the fall. The California native oversaw the team’s drafts from 2020-2022 and helped draft and sign Marcelo Mayer, Mikey Romero, Roman Anthony, Nick Yorke, Blaze Jordan and Nathan Hickey among others before being elevated to his current role a year ago.
Toboni played at the University of California, and after a brief minor league stint with the Oakland A’s, was hired by the Red Sox in 2015, where he worked as an area scout for a year. He was then moved up to assistant director of amateur scouting before taking charge of the draft after the 2019 season.
Breslow, whose hiring was announced on Oct. 25, has not yet named a general manager to serve as a top lieutenant. That hire may come in time. After being hired, the former reliever said he planned on auditing the front office structure from within before making any significant changes to it.
“I think in certain ways, change is good,” he said. “I think attrition can be good. I think it’s important to bring fresh perspective and new ideas into the fold. I also think it’s important to to lean on people who have been really successful and are continuing to contribute. I think the picture that I have in my head is we want to create an efficient and effective baseball operation, right?And that means that we’re firing on all cylinders, we’re functioning at a very high level, but we’re also limiting redundancy and and narrowing gaps to the extent we can.
In an appearance on NESN after his introductory press conference, Breslow hinted that significant turnover could be coming. Last month, he added from outside the organization by hiring Justin Willard away from the Twins as the club’s new director of pitching and former Yankees hitting coach Dillon Lawson as the organization’s hitting coordinator.
“Certainly, there will be difficult conversations coming,” Breslow said on Nov. 2. “I think it’s important to get fresh perspective and turnover, at times, can bring that. But I also think it’s important to be very deliberate and intentional in how you approach those things. Those are people who have been here for a really long time and have been successful for a really long time. I think the best approach I can take is to try to understand the current landscape before making sweeping change.”
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