More Thoughts on Chaim Bloom and the Red Sox Future

"The future, Conan?"

“How many wins do you want?”

Chaim Bloom should have asked John Henry that question. Maybe Bloom did ask it, in some fashion or another, and Henry’s answer just changed after the fact. That wouldn’t shock me. But that was unquestionably the problem. Because Bloom did everything else, just about, that ownership wanted. And yet he still got fired last week.

He came in and moved the about-to-be-expensive Mookie Betts, and used Betts’ otherworldly talent to entice the Dodgers to take on a large portion of David Price’s contract as well. He held the line on salaries, focused on improving the team’s talent pipeline, and still put competitive teams on the field. He even ran into one with the Red Sox unexpected 2021 playoff success.

But in the end, ownership wanted the team to win more at the major league level. Bloom either didn’t know that, which goes back to the opening question above, or he did. If he knew it, either he A) didn’t change his approach at all, or B) did change his approach and the 2023 team was his attempt at winning.

It’s that last possibility which I think might have scared Henry. It kinda scares me as well. Bloom clearly did some very good things during his time with the Red Sox. The farm system improved a lot. Certain individual trades. But there were obviously some missteps too. Right field in 2022. Shortstop in 2023. The Christian Vazquez trade while holding on to JD Martinez and Xander Bogaerts. The Bogaerts negotiations.

The question is, as it would be with anyone in charge, did the person learn from their mistakes enough to not repeat them in the future? The similarities between the 2022 Red Sox and the 2023 Red Sox at least throws that question open. You could fairly argue, I think, that the Red Sox repeated some mistakes during the Bloom era.

But then it’s possible Bloom continued operating in the same style because he thought he had the full backing of ownership. He didn’t go all in or anything close to all in because he didn’t think ownership wanted that. Maybe he should’ve read the room better, or decided on his own that 2022 wasn’t acceptable and thus more was needed on the 2023 roster to avoid repeating 2022. Maybe he was in contact with ownership the whole time and they told him some version of ‘you’re doing a great job, keep it up.’

I suppose all that is water under the bridge though. Bloom is gone, for better or worse. I feel badly for him. I think there’s a strong argument for keeping him on, at least for one more season. But that’s not going to happen now, obviously.

What’s more, ownership isn’t changing. They clearly want to win when they want to win and want to only kinda win when they want to only kinda win, and whoever is in charge better know the difference or they won’t be in charge for long. Eh, they probably won’t be in charge for long either way, because, you know, history.

As for the roster, to me at least, the bones of the roster are pretty good. The farm system is set up to begin to graduate some potentially impact talent as soon as late next season, with Roman Anthony, Marcelo Mayer, and Kyle Teel all ending their seasons in Double-A. There are a number of solid-to-good pitching prospects coming up through the lower minors as well. And there’s a few very high-ceiling question marks, such as Miguel Bleis, Nazzan Zanetello, and Yoelin Cespededs, who could take a leap very quickly to top prospectdom. That will all be enticing to potential GMs both for team building as well as as trade chips to improve the major league roster.

The major league roster itself definitely needs work, but there are good pieces. Rafael Devers and Triston Casas should man the infield corners for the next half decade at least. Trevor Story is set to start at shortstop. The outfield has some capable players in Jarren Duran and Alex Verdugo. Masataka Yoshida can hit. Connor Wong can catch and hit for some power. There are a bunch of complimentary players. The pitching staff has some players to start with, such as Brayan Bello, Tanner Houck, and Garrett Whitlock. It’s not nothing. Not close to nothing.

One bit about the Bloom firing that I find difficult to understand is the reaction. Some people are VERY pro-firing, some are VERY anti-firing. I understand the anti-firing crowd at least, but the pro-firing people confuse me. The reason is that if you’re removing Bloom, you’re installing someone else. Maybe you think Bloom is so bad that almost anyone would be better, sort of the GM version of Bobby Valentine, but that’s a silly opinion and not one supported by facts. Beyond that, the success of the Red Sox will depend on the second part of that equation, namely, ‘who is replacing Bloom?’

That’s the unknown. Firing Bloom means you have to hire someone else, and unlike the Dombrowski hiring, there’s nobody with a big name who is walking through that door immediately. They could hire someone with a winning track record as a GM, like Mike Hazen. They could hire someone most people haven’t heard of before. They could hire a total disaster. We just don’t know. It’s for that reason I find it difficult to be excited or upset about the move, beyond that I liked Bloom personally from what little I know about him.

As for the Red Sox, again, it’s difficult to say what will happen or even what should happen. Any person newly in charge is going to have their own ideas on the roster and their own mandate to win. That can take years. Clearly ownership wants to win now. Or at least that’s what they want today. Who knows what they’ll want tomorrow. Or the next day. Or in two weeks from now. Or in… well you get it.

What this change does do is throw open just about everything as a possibility. Had Bloom stayed another year (or longer) Cora would be the manager. The coaching staff would’ve likely stayed largely in place. The minor league operations, drafting and development, and baseball ops teams would’ve all remained mostly the same. Now? Who knows! Everything including philosophy to player evaluations could be on the table.

It makes for an interesting off-season, I guess.

Thanks for reading.