For much of the first half, this Boston Red Sox season was looking disastrous. They fired Alex Cora, and the fan base was as irate as any, clamoring for Red Sox owner John Henry to sell the team and for the organization to fire Craig Breslow, the Chief Baseball Officer. The team fell to 32-46 after a disheartening series loss against the lowly Colorado Rockies, and looked to be major deadline sellers.
Somehow, they've gone 32-6 since. I'm not joking. It took them 77 games to win 32 times, and it took them just 37 games to earn their next 32 victories. They've gone on one of the greatest and unlikeliest runs in MLB history, and while sure, players you'd expect on this team to contribute have done that, a big reason they've played so well has to do with moves Red Sox fans hated. These five in particular stick out.
Firing Alex Cora
Breslow choosing to fire Alex Cora after a 10-17 start felt like nothing but a panic move. While sure, Cora made his share of questionable calls regarding lineup construction and bullpen usage, the Red Sox's struggles felt very much like a talent issue more than a managerial one, making Cora an obvious scapegoat to mask the bigger issues at hand. The Red Sox were unable to score runs, and a lot of that had to do with key players simply not performing as expected. That wasn't Cora's fault. Breslow, an unproven and struggling executive, choosing to fire Cora, a World Series-winning manager, was a move few Red Sox fans defended.
For a whille, frustrated Red Sox fans were validated by how the team was playing under interim skipper Chad Tracy. It's not as if Tracy was doing anything wrong, but again, they struggled mightily to score runs, and it's not as if changing the manager somehow woke up the players who weren't performing. Well, it goes without saying now that firing Cora was undoubtedly the right call.
The Red Sox are now 54-35 under Tracy, even with a shaky beginning to his tenure. There's a good chance that if the season ended today, he'd win the AL Manager of the Year award, which is completely unprecedented. He has helped this team turn its season around, and will almost certainly earn the full-time reins as a result.
Caleb Durbin trade
Admittedly, the Caleb Durbin trade still doesn't look the greatest on paper, as Kyle Harrison has looked very good when healthy with the Milwaukee Brewers. With that being said, the Red Sox's rotation is as good as any even without Harrison, and can we talk about Caleb Durbin? He was hitting .163 with a .479 OPS on May 24, looking completely lost at the plate, and since then, he's done nothing but rake.
He's slashed .311/.374./521 with 10 home runs and 38 RBI in 61 games since. His 146 wRC+ in that span is good for 12th among all qualified position players, ahead of Freddie Freeman, Matt Olson and James Wood. He's even stolen 10 bases in that span while playing tremendous defense at the hot corner. Oh yeah, the Red Sox have even gotten sparks from Andruw Monasterio and Anthony Siegler, lesser-known pieces from that deal, at times as well.
Red Sox fans were irate that Breslow refused to go over the top to re-sign Alex Bregman, but Durbin has been not only better but also better while making significantly less money, allowing Boston to upgrade elsewhere. Everything about this move has aged well, even with Harrison looking good in Milwaukee.
Making Willson Contreras the big power bat
To say Red Sox fans weren't thrilled by Willson Contreras being the team's big bat would be an understatement. Red Sox fans wanted to see Breslow go out and acquire a proven slugger, whether that'd have been Bregman, Kyle Schwarber, Pete Alonso or even Eugenio Suarez later in the winter. Instead, Breslow settled on a trade for Contreras, a player who, while productive, had never hit more than 24 home runs in a season, and that came in 2019.
Well, Contreras has been nothing but a godsend for this Red Sox team, even with him being in the headlines for the wrong reasons a couple of times. He's slashing .287/.393/.536 with 23 home runs and 70 RBI. His 156 wRC+ thus far has not only shattered his previous career-high, but is tied with Pete Crow-Armstrong for second among all qualified position players. Yes, that means he's been as good or better than any hitter not named Yordan Alvarez by that metric, which is, quite frankly, absurd.
Red Sox fans were fine with the trade if another bigger move was made. No bigger move was made, but I'm not sure a better move could've been made than this.
Ceddanne Rafaela extension
Breslow made the slightly controversial decision to hand Ceddanne Rafaela an eight-year, $50 million extension early in the 2024 season after he began his MLB career the year prior with a .666 OPS in 28 games. Now, this admittedly wasn't an exorbitant amount of money, and Rafaela's floor was always fairly high thanks to his elite defense in center field, but was he ever going to hit enough to justify any sort of long-term commitment? There were some mixed results in the first couple of years post-extension, but Rafaela has come to his own as a hitter in 2026.
He's slashing .288/.328/.468 with 15 home runs and 60 RBI. He also leads the American League with 28 doubles and has stolen 16 bases. His improved offensive production, in addition to his usual elite defense in center field, has made him one of the most valuable players in the American League. His 4.1 fWAR is tied for ninth among all qualified position players with JJ Wetherholt, Elly De La Cruz and Junior Caminero. He's been worth more fWAR than Shohei Ohtani (the hitter), CJ Abrams and Corbin Carroll.
Rafaela's contract is now one of the biggest bargains in the sport, which helps Boston now, and should help a ton in the years to come.
Jahmai Jones trade
The Red Sox have been starved for offense for much of the year, and Craig Breslow resorted to a player who was DFA'd by the Detroit Tigers to try and help, at least against left-handed pitchers. Red Sox fans weren't thrilled with this move, and understandably so, as Jones was hitting .137 with a .440 OPS with the Tigers this season. Since the Red Sox traded a player to be named later to acquire him during the All-Star break, Jones has been a difference-maker for Boston.
He's gone 9-for-20 with two home runs, four doubles, two walks and three stolen bases. Is that good? Red Sox fans might not have loved the idea of having a guy recently DFA'd leading off for them against lefties, but it's working! They might not love the idea of him pinch-hitting against tough southpaws, but again, it's working! Just like seemingly every other button Breslow has pressed lately.
Jake Bennett trade
The reactions when the Jake Bennett trade was made were relatively mixed. Some Red Sox fans didn't like it, as the deal sent hard-throwing Luis Perales to the Washington Nationals in exchange for Bennett, a pitcher who had better command but whose stuff wasn't on Perales' level. Other Red Sox fans didn't quite understand it, not knowing much about Bennett and knowing that Perales was one of their top pitching prospects. Well, it's safe to say the results thus far are skewed in Breslow's favor.
Bennett essentially replaced Brayan Bello in the rotation and has been as good as anyone could've expected (while Bello has thrived in the bullpen). He has a 3.17 ERA in 13 starts and 76.2 innings pitched, and he's completed five or more innings each time he's taken the mound, allowing four runs or fewer. He doesn't strike many guys out, but he's been remarkably consistent for Boston.
Perales still has upside and has pitched fairly well in Triple-A, but Bennett has been a game-changer at the big-league level. The deal has worked out and then some for Boston, and the longer Bennett keeps this up, the wider the gap will become.
Add us as a preferred source on Google