Red Sox suffer another front office defection as Mets poach director of pitching

The exodus of officials leaving the Red Sox front office continued Saturday with the news that Justin Willard has agreed to become the New York Mets’ pitching coach, an industry source confirmed.

Willard, who was hired away from the Minnesota Twins by the Red Sox in November of 2023 as one of Craig Breslow’s first hires, spent the last two years overhauling Boston’s minor league pitching program.

On Willard’s watch, the team graduated a number of homegrown starting pitching prospects to the big leagues, including Hunter Dobbins, Payton Tolle and Connelly Early. By some measure, the majority of the organization’s Top 10 prospects are now starting pitching prospects, a big step forward after the team had failed to develop its own prospects for more than a decade.

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