Craig Breslow Has Insulting Message For Red Sox Fans After Feeble Trade Deadline

Trade deadline grades are silly, especially less than 24 hours after the action concludes. But anyone who wanted to give the Boston Red Sox a failing grade would be justified.

The 59-51 Red Sox are in the second Wild Card spot entering play this weekend, and they're looking to make their first playoff appearance in three years. They'd been playing great baseball leading into the deadline, so how would their front office reward them?

Steven Matz. Dustin May. And a whole lot of disappointment in what amounted to a wild goose chase for Minnesota Twins ace Joe Ryan.

The Red Sox saw every team around them in the American League playoff hunt make bigger improvements than they did, and even if they got close to landing Ryan, who would have been the best pitcher traded at the deadline, there's not exactly a prize for that.

So it was already going to be an upsetting evening when the Red Sox hardly added anything (for the fourth year in a row). But chief baseball officer Craig Breslow's message for the Fenway Faithful took the disappointment and anger to a new level.

“If fans were in the office during this deadline, they would see that guys we didn’t expect to be willing to talk about going into these conversations, we made available,” Breslow said, per Chris Cotillo of MassLive. “We tried to put the most aggressive offers we could in hopes they were going to end in deals.

“I understand the frustration and the disappointment because we’re all looking at the last week right now in terms of the trades that were made and weren’t made. There’s not a lot of sympathy for how hard we tried to get deals across the line. I understand that.”

There was no right thing for Breslow to say, yet he somehow managed to hit all the wrong notes. Admitting you tried hard, failed, and feel disappointment as well is fuel to the fire for fans who already felt that disappointment.

And for all the talk about how this team deserved reinforcements, Breslow's words have to be disappointing as well for the players who are getting ready to tackle the final 52 games of the season.

“The team has been playing well, in a position where the playoffs are pretty firmly in view," Breslow said, per Cotillo. Felt like we needed to do what we could to try and bolster the team. I think I’ve been pretty outspoken about that. We pursued as much as we possibly could. Ultimately, brought in Matz and May."

Maybe this Red Sox team will still make the playoffs. But if they don't, some of these quotes will hang over Breslow's head for decades.