Red Sox's Problems Linked to Alex Bregman's Departure Yet Again

Was Alex Bregman the only force keeping the Boston Red Sox from implosion last year?

The truth is usually more complicated than we make it seem, but it's hard to dispute the circumstantial evidence in Bregman's case. Boston made the playoffs for the first time since 2021 in his only year in town, then started 9-17 and fired manager Alex Cora (who had close personal ties to Bregman) over the weekend.

On Wednesday, The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal, Chad Jennings, Jen McCaffrey, and Patrick Mooney co-authored a story about Craig Breslow's mercurial tendencies as Red Sox chief baseball officer, and some of the anecdotes about Bregman reinforced the narrative we've spelled out above.

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Bregman, Breslow disagreed on hitting coaches?

The most intriguing part of the report for those who might be inclined to side with Bregman and/or Cora over Breslow focused on Bregman's support for the hitting coaches Breslow and ownership fired this weekend: Pete Fatse, Dillon Lawson, and Joe Cronin.

"According to multiple people who were in the Red Sox clubhouse in 2025, each granted anonymity for their candor, the disconnect between Breslow and certain members of the coaching staff was well known last season," the insiders wrote. "Breslow would occasionally ask Bregman for feedback, and Bregman became a consistent advocate for Fatse, Lawson and Cronin, crediting those hitting instructors for helping him return to an All-Star level.

"According to one player, one version of events that made the rounds was that Breslow was ready to dismiss some coaches until 'Bregman stepped in last year and stopped the firings.' Other sources stopped short of saying Bregman saved anyone’s job last season but agreed that his outspoken advocacy for the hitting coaches was well known."

If the hitting coaches had been gone sometime in the middle of the year last season, isn't it entirely possible that the Red Sox wouldn't have rebounded from their first few months of .500 ball to make the playoffs? And if most of Cora's top assistants were gone in the middle of the year, might Cora have been let go in the offseason, rather than the move waiting until late April?

Some might consider Breslow rash for making the decisions when he did. Others might think if change was coming, it should have happened sooner. Either way, the Red Sox are in a place of serious uncertainty, and Bregman's brief tenure and subsequent departure are a perfect encapsulation of the turmoil.

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