On Monday, the Red Sox (89-73) held their annual end of season press conference, with manager Alex Cora, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow and team president Sam Kennedy all on stage to answer questions from the assembled local media.

After a disappointing exit in the Wild Card round at the hands of the Yankees (94-68) - a team now with +1500 odds to win the World Series down 2-0 in the ALDS - Boston’s front office is faced with a bevy of questions as they look ahead to 2026.

The organization was finally able to get over the hump and return to postseason play for the first time since 2021. That’s great! But now it’s time for one of the only real name-brands in all of baseball to start competing like the blue blood they are again.

The Red Sox have all the ability in the world to field a World Series-caliber team every single year.

What will they do this offseason to get themselves back into that echelon for 2026?

One thing Breslow was unwilling to do on Monday was make any sort of commitments at first base.

“Is Triston [Casas] your first baseman, or are you looking to add-or-upgrade that area?” Breslow was asked.

“Yeah, I don't think it makes a ton of sense on October 6 to say someone is or isn't our first baseman,” said Breslow. “We'll see how things play out. Unfortunately, Triston has missed a significant amount of time over the last two years. We've also seen what he's capable of doing when he’s healthy.”

Not exactly a resounding endorsement for a player who ruptured his left patellar tendon, which ended his season on May 2 after the 25-year-old got off to the slowest start of his young major league career.

With a career-worst slash line to start the season (.182/.277/.303) across 112 plate appearances, Red Sox fans were already growing restless with a player in the midst of his fourth season in the bigs. The growing pains were supposed to be behind him. The injuries that led to a bad 2024 shouldn’t have lingered over to impact his 2025. Both fans and the organization were counting on Casas to be the bat he was in 2023, where he finished third in AL Rookie of the Year voting on the strength of 24 home runs and 65 RBI across 502 plate appearances.

Instead, they got someone who looked like they were not only regressing at the plate, but also playing bad defense in the corner infield.

It would be hard to move a player going through this type of rehab process, but it sure sounded like the team would be more than OK watching Casas play baseball elsewhere in 2026.

“He's doing really well,” Breslow said when asked about Casas’ rehab process in a follow-up. “He's in here every day rehabbing, just kind of watching the progress from the initial surgery to where he is now.

“He's moving around really well - load bearing, squatting, so we anticipate a full recovery. But I'm hesitant to put a timeline on that, just because with any of these injuries, you want to make sure that you're not gonna get too far out in front of it.”

A warm answer from Breslow on Casas’ progress after a cold answer from Breslow on committing to Casas in 2026 isn’t all that surprising. He does, after all, have to talk up his guy before putting him on the trade block.

Again - I don’t think he’s getting moved any time soon. But if the Red Sox are able to pull the trigger on one of these big ticket free agents who happen to play first base, moving on from Casas would make all the sense in the world.

Stay locked in to Roundtable for all the latest on Casas’ injury progress.

Tom Carroll is a contributor for Roundtable, with boots-on-the-ground coverage of all things Boston sports. He's a senior digital content producer for WEEI.com, and a native of Lincoln, RI.