Welcome Back Craig Breslow!

I remember when Joe Biden was getting ready to announce his choice for running mate. There were stories after stories speculating about the choice. Would it be this senator, or this congressman, or this random person. Every expert had their own angle and their own reasons why they were predicting the correct candidate. Then, when he selected Harris, the stories came out that she was actually a college friend of his son. They'd known each other for years, and Harris had shared many a meal at the Biden house over the years. I remember thinking...wait, people knew this and were still "wondering" who he would choose? Might the "longtime friend who he almost considers a daughter who is also a very qualified senator from the biggest state in the country" be an obvious choice? Were all those stories...what were they...just to push content for clicks?

Or, remember when Amazon was trying to select the location for their next warehouses or whatever? They put on a "nationwide search" to find the perfect location. Local governments were sending Amazon their master plans to show Amazon why they'd be the perfect fit. There were meetings, and concessions. Finaly after a thorough search, Amazon selected...NYC and Washington DC. Was the big search really needed? I could have picked those myself at the beginning. Why the hoopla? (OK, in Amazon's case, the hoopla was to collect planning information from cities and towns for free in order to resell it since Amazon isn't a retail marketplace. It's actually a GIS firm. But you get the point.)

I feel that way this now about Craig Breslow.

All these months of speculation. All these endless stories about who didn't want to job. All these headlines about where the Sox were headed. After all that searching, they selected the guy that the team president's best friend previously hired, trained under another friend, and then recommended. Oh, and the guy happens to be a former Sox player who has the same team building philosophy as the owners and the rest if baseball ops.

Duh!

I mean, what were we even doing here? Were all those stories just clickbait headlines to make the front office look bad? (Wait, don't answer that. I already know.) How many of the other GMs who "took their names out of consideration" did so because they too knew Breslow was too obvious, and didn't want the "loss" on their resume when they didn't get the job. If I'm the GM of another team, why would I publicly court another job with another team if I knew I wasn't going to get it? I wouldn't. Sure, the guy who already works for the team cn give it a try. No harm there. But, why would anyone else waste their time?

As for the hire itself? I have no idea. I don't know what a Chief Baseball Officer, or whatever they're calling him, does. Sure, they have day to day duties running the staff. But, I'm guessing they're big picture guys. I think he can do that. I remember when Theo was hired as GM one of the comments was that he should be able to do the job since he had negotiated the previous free agent contract the Sox just signed. So, that would imply the actual negotiations and contract stuff are a couple pay grades below Breslow. That leaves him with "here's how we should spend our money, and here's how much of our playroll player X should take." With that job description, the Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer influences seem like a good place to start. 

Let's see how it goes!