Making his pitches from front office
Smart, analytical Breslow has future as baseball exec
The next wave of frontoffice hotshots might have some Oakland A’s DNA, including experience in the greenandgold uniform.
For decades, baseball GMs were nearly all former players. In the past 20 years there was a massive shift, with candidates plucked mostly from Ivy League schools and top business programs. But the next crop of top executives might be a blend of each, leaving former A’s such as reliever Craig Breslow well positioned.
Breslow, known as “the smartest man in baseball” during his playing days, holds degrees in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale, and he’d planned to go to medical school for years. Now he’s pointing at a longterm future in baseball, getting his feet wet as a data
analyst for the Cubs and now as the team’s director of pitching, formulating development plans for Chicago’s minorleague talent.
“It turns out when I was playing, I may have earned this reputation as a smart guy, but I didn’t know very much,” Breslow said on The Chronicle’s “A’s Plus” podcast. “It’s been great, it’s a new challenge. It satisfies my competitive side, as well as an academic pursuit. I’m really enjoying it.”
Breslow, outfielder Sam Fuld (Phillies) and starters Brandon McCarthy (Rangers) and Dan Haren (Diamondbacks) are among the former A’s working in front offices; in addition, onetime Oakland third baseman Eric Chavez has been an adviser with the Yankees and now the Angels, and first baseman Scott Hatteberg is a special assistant with the A’s.
There was little doubt that Breslow would succeed in some arena after his playing days were over, given his pedigree.
“If something interests Craig enough to want to dedicate himself to it, he’s going to crush it,” former A’s reliever Jerry Blevins said. “I think he’s a good buffer between the oldschool approach to scoring and pitching. Because that’s what he’s experienced, but he also saw the beginning of this current analytically driven era and fully embraced it at the end of his career.”
Breslow, 39, considers his time in Oakland — he pitched for the team from 2009 through ’11 — particularly formative. Had he not established himself as a bigleaguer, getting consistent use in the A’s bullpen, he probably would have been out of the game and, by now, doing his medical residency. Instead, he went on to pitch for the Red Sox for 31⁄2 seasons and was a member of their 2013 World Series championship team.
“I definitely look back at that time in Oakland as instrumental in my bigleague career ... crucial in establishing my identity and who I was as a pitcher,” Breslow said. “My time in Oakland I would point to from transitioning to a guy maybe playing with house money, who was going to go on to medical school, to being able to carve out a career as a bigleaguer, and that’s something that’s very special.”
Being with the “Moneyball” team wasn’t lost on Breslow, either. He was better acquainted than most with analytics, and he took an interest in the way they were applied.
“Everyone would point toward Oakland for bringing to the forefront this idea of sabermetrics. Everyone has read or watched ‘Moneyball’ or both,” he said, adding that once competitors followed suit when it came to data and new technologies, “essentially, all teams were collecting the same information, so we all pivoted to get a competitive advantage in how we delivered this information.
“So there was sort of a run on guys with an analytical bent, like myself and Sam and McCarthy, (to liaise) between the R&D department or the front office and what was going on on the field.”
A’s general manager David Forst, a Harvard grad, said it’s nice of Breslow to credit Oakland with any part of his success, but “I’m sure Craig would have found his way into literally anything he wanted to do on his own.
“He was a smart and thoughtful player during his time here, and I have no doubt that has carried over into his postplaying career with the Cubs. Today’s players are lucky to have someone with his combination of majorleague experience and intellectual understanding of the metrics on the development side of the game.”
Breslow also runs his Strike 3 Foundation, which is dedicated to pediatric cancer research; his sister, Lesley, had surgery for thyroid cancer as a teen and recovered. Giants pitching coach Andrew Bailey, a friend of Breslow’s since their time in Oakland’s bullpen and his fellow Connecticut resident, is on the board. In 12 years, the foundation has raised more than $3 million and provided 11 Young Investigator oncology awards. During the coronavirus crisis, Breslow said, the foundation has considered lending support for vaccine research, but he also wants to ensure that donors’ funding intentions are honored.
And, like everyone, Breslow has watched and waited to see what MLB and the players’ union will come up with to get the season under way, if it’s possible to do so.
“My general thoughts are that there’s a ton of challenges to work through, but if sports can resume in the same way that business can be opened, if people can return to some semblance of normalcy and they can do it safely and responsibly without endangering themselves and others, then those things should happen,” Breslow said. “Once we have confidence the players can return safely, and staff and personnel and all the parties necessary to actually make this thing go can fulfill their duties safely, we move on to the next hurdle.”