As Craig Breslow heads into his second offseason at the helm of the Red Sox, he has made beefing up the club’s front office a top priority. It appears the club is close to making a step toward that goal by poaching a young executive from a division rival.
The Red Sox are set to hire away Tampa Bay’s director of predictive modeling, Taylor Smith, to a high-ranking role with a focus on analytics, according to multiple league sources. Smith’s exact title is unclear but it is likely a vice president/assistant general manager role. The club has not confirmed the hire of Smith, who is in his late twenties and has been with the Rays for seven seasons. It’ll mark the highest-ranking external addition Breslow has made to the front office since being hired a year ago.
Smith, a 2018 University of Georgia graduate, is expected take over responsibilities related to analytics that are largely held held by assistant general manager Mike Groopman. The Red Sox have been looking to move Groopman to a more centralized role and increase his involvement in player acquisition while hiring from the outside in analytics. If Smith is indeed given an assistant GM role, he’ll be one of five front office members with that title, joining Groopman, Raquel Ferreira, Eddie Romero and Paul Toboni.
Smith was hired by the Rays in May 2018 as an analyst in the research and development department. He was promoted to director of predictive modeling in December 2021 and in that role, “oversees the organization’s player valuation models and provides mentorship and oversight to baseball research and development staff,” according to Tampa Bay’s media guide. Smith was previously an intern for the Dodgers; he graduated UGA with joint bachelor’s and master’s degrees in statistics and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 2018
