Craig Breslow

At the same time, given some of the starting pitching depth that we still have, there's always the possibility for somebody to be shortened up and come out of the pen.

We'll have to evaluate those situations as we get into camp and see how things play out.

Yeah, we still feel like starting pitching is going to be a strength of this team, both in terms of the quality that we have and whatever the guys are who make up the rotation coming out of camp, and then also the depth that we're going to have pitching in Worcester.

And then I think the next thing that we think about is kind of, okay, what is the next wave?

And obviously, you know, we're really excited about the pitchers that we took in last year's draft and the previous year.

And so, you know, I think you can start to see a fairly steady pipeline of pitching talent.

And also we've recognized that if you do have kind of good controllable pitching, that's something that other teams seek.

And so it does give us some flexibility to address our major league roster.

Connelly and Payton are guys that we're very, very excited about.

I don't think that's a secret.

I think our fans are excited about them.

Both the performance and just the personalities and the competitive guys that they are and the guys that we wanted to hold on to.

I don't think anybody would say someone is untouchable, but rather that kind of the bar that we're going to hold in the way that we think about those guys is so high that it's just really hard to ever line up on value.

But we're a better team with those guys in our system, and there's no doubt that they're going to contribute pretty meaningfully this year.

Exactly what that looks like, what that timeline is, we'll figure out as we get into camp.

Yeah, we'll evaluate that as we get into camp, but I feel like there are some guys who stepped in last year.

Nate Eaton is one who comes to mind and did a really nice job for us.

The profile is probably a little bit different than Ref in terms of Eaton's game being built on defense and speed, but he also did contribute, especially against left-handed pitching.

And then Christian is somebody who's gotten time in the offseason, in the outfield, and looks really good physically.

And so we want to get a look at him and give him a chance to show what got everybody so excited about in 24 and the beginning of 25.