Craig Breslow

Even going back to November, I think the first time that we talked about our interest in Ranger, negotiated in good faith and partnered with us to reach this outcome.

A number of people in baseball operations who put us in a position to take advantage of this opportunity from scouts to analysts to our leadership team and BOH who ran point on some of the negotiations.

um you know i think there was a there were a number of people who who contributed to such a great outcome here and then lastly anytime you make a commitment of this magnitude you want to have as much information as possible you want to know exactly what you're getting and fortunately because baseball is such a close-knit community it wasn't hard to find uh

mutual friends, former teammates, coaches, front office personnel who could speak about their relationships and experiences with Ranger.

And there were two things that really stood out.

One was just the sheer talent.

A number of people said that Ranger was the type of guy who could roll out of bed and throw a bullpen and not miss a single spot.

And I think our industry has moved away from that type of pitchability and guile.

But as we've seen over the last six years, there's definitely still a place for a pitcher who doesn't issue free passes and can manage hard contact.

And the second thing that stood out was this big sense of humor that people talked about.

And so we're looking forward to your personality really surfacing over the next five years.

And so we want to welcome your family to ours, to the Red Sox family.

And I can assure you that if you pitch like you have over the last six years and you make people laugh, then you will readily endear yourself to the Red Sox faithful.

So welcome.

We're incredibly excited to have you and really excited for what the next five years will bring.

Sure, I can take the first step here.

Obviously, Scott had a number of really talented free agents this year, as the Boris Corp tends to.

And so we expressed interest in a number of them, but from very early on, we felt like

as it related to free agent starting pitching ranger was the guy that we wanted to target um you know really liked what he had accomplished felt like he would be a great fit both for our park for our kind of pitching uh style and and the job that our pitching group does

And then also the way that he would slide into the rotation.