Craig Breslow explains why Red Sox made ‘incredibly uncomfortable’ Connelly Early-Curtis Mead trade

BOSTON — With the trade deadline more than a week away — and teams around baseball still trying to decide how to approach it — Red Sox chief baseball officer Craig Breslow played the role of aggressor Saturday night. Breslow, not waiting for other dominoes to fall, jumpstarted a dormant trade market with a 1-for-1 deal that sent rookie lefty Connelly Early to the Nationals for breakout star Curtis Mead.

Part of the calculus, Breslow said Sunday, was that the Early-for-Mead move would have made sense for a Red Sox club that has been looking for offense since before spring training. Another reason? Boston’s players deserved help after a torrid stretch in which they won 16 of 18. The primary reason for making the early deal, though, was that Breslow thought it simply made his team better.

“A lot of front offices are looking at very similar information, so trying to find an opportunity to win a trade is not nearly as easy as it maybe it would have been at another point,” Breslow said. “Instead, in this position, I’ve tried to shift to our goal not (being) to win the trade. Our goal is to make our major league team better. Sometimes, the most straightforward way to do that is a need-for-need-type trade.”

class="article__paragraph article__paragraph--left" id="DLHBI3F7RNDDJDOZRMTRNH2G6M">In Washington, Nationals president of baseball operations (and former Red Sox assistant) Paul Toboni told reporters he wasn’t planning to shop Mead — who is under team control through 2030 — before a couple teams got “pretty darn aggressive” in trying to land him. The Red Sox, who had young starting depth due to the emergence of Early, Payton Tolle and Jake Bennett, separated themselves from the pack. Toboni’s familiarity with Early helped push the deal across the finish line on Washington’s end.

“This one came together pretty quickly,” Breslow said. “I think it was a good opportunity for each team to meet some objectives.

class="article__paragraph article__paragraph--left" id="ZMZBU3I6ZRDABNC4ZEVYEA7EDA">“We felt like pitching was a strength of the team and we wanted to boost our offense.”

class="article__paragraph article__paragraph--left" id="D53QYCF6VBE5ZKWX5GUWNOGQ6A">Breslow described it as a “fair characterization” that the Red Sox, even if they hadn’t vaulted themselves back into playoff contention with their recent hot streak, would have been interested in the deal they made because of how it helps balance their roster. Because Mead will be part of the infield mix not just for the rest of 2026 but for years to come, it could have happened at any time. Still, the Red Sox feel as though there’s something to signaling to their players that their recent play hasn’t gone unnoticed.

class="article__paragraph article__paragraph--left" id="4YVJVGBEFBH5JP4QEMFZBQCSFU">“I think the players deserve it. I think the fans deserve it,” Breslow said. “It has been a turbulent path to get here, but as we sit here today a week out from the deadline, the resilience and toughness of this team has become very apparent. The opportunity to upgrade was something we were looking for.”

Entering Sunday, Boston’s pitching staff ranked fourth in the majors with an ERA of 3.57 in large part due to strong seasons from Sonny Gray, Ranger Suarez, Payton Tolle, Jake Bennett and Early (before he injured his elbow in early July). The Sox clearly feel like they can get by without Early, especially if injured arms like Garrett Crochet, Johan Oviedo and Tanner Houck return for the stretch run and/or veterans like Patrick Sandoval and Brayan Bello show something in the coming weeks.

class="article__paragraph article__paragraph--left" id="5SRV2OZJMJGEBHRFLJJDDE2VAQ">The offense, even after recent improvements, still ranks 23rd in baseball with a .392 slugging percentage and 29th in the league with 98 homers. Mead’s 17-homer output so far this season would rank him second on the club, behind only Willson Contreras. Chasing that balance led Breslow to make what he described as an “incredibly uncomfortable” decision to move Early, a breakout star last season and a beloved member of the clubhouse.

class="article__paragraph article__paragraph--left" id="UVL7LG777BC65BZBFBLSL5FLPQ">“You have to be willing to move from areas of depth no matter how much it may hurt if you’re trying to address some other part of your roster,” Breslow said. “We were able to do that. I do think that speaks to the quality of the performance we’ve gotten from the rotation and the development of some of the younger guys that are coming up through the system.

“Any time you give up a player like Connelly Early, it’s really tough. But looking at our roster and looking at our needs, we felt like this was something that makes us better... This one — turning controllable pitching into controllable middle-of-the-order bats — was going to be something that was always going to be worth looking at."

class="article__paragraph article__paragraph--left" id="ELGZOUI3DBFH5KLI2232YGZSSI">The decision to not wait around was also encouraged by the fact the Red Sox can have Mead at their disposal during a key seven-game road trip to Sacramento and Los Angeles, which begins Monday night.

class="article__paragraph article__paragraph--left" id="KMYGZDP63FGRVP72AWBMRKU43Q">“We felt like this is something that makes us better, independent of the alternatives,” Breslow said. “We felt like this made sense for us. The other thing is that getting seven or eight extra games with Curtis Mead in our lineup is real.”

class="article__paragraph article__paragraph--left" id="7FYELBLBYBEXBGCKMWBGRAWYEM">The Red Sox feel as though Mead — who was designated for assignment by the White Sox in late March and is now in his fourth organization in a calendar year after a slow start in the big leagues with Tampa Bay — has the tools to be a consistent big-league producer for years to come. He is expected to see the lion’s share of playing time at second base once he arrives.

“It does seem like there were some meaningful changes to his setup, where he was holding his hands, to his bat path and to his stride to where he’s consistently getting to more damage,” Breslow said. “He’s always had good bat-to-ball skills. He’s never really chased. He doesn’t swing and miss a ton. He has good bat speed, then put it all together — and put it all together in a way we think is real is sticky. We feel like the way he’s performed over the last few months is actually the guy we’re getting."

class="article__paragraph article__paragraph--left" id="IUJK4P4H4JBVBNHDLADMGGKDEE">“What our roster needed right now, we thought, was someone who can hit at the top of the order or the middle of the order. It’s a particularly good fit for our park just given the batted-ball profile and the power.”

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