Earlier today, the Red Sox made the decision to dismiss Chaim Bloom, following a disturbing trend that directly has impacted the Red Sox roster.
Chaim Bloom Won’t Reap Benefits of Red Sox Roster
When Chaim Bloom was hired near the end of the 2019 season, he was asked to do something that was hardly going to be easy. The Red Sox roster was a complete mess. Money was thrown around in the wrong areas like a Chris Sale extension that hasn’t panned out, the team was over the luxury tax, and the farm system was abysmal.
That’s where it started to go wrong.
The ownership mandated he get under the luxury tax, and with Mookie Betts saying he wasn’t signing an extension with the Red Sox, it was obvious that he was going to be dealt. In February, Chaim made the impossible, but ownership mandated decision to send Mookie Betts packing with David Price and received Alex Verdugo, Conner Wong, and Jeter Downs in return.
From there, the Red Sox had an abysmal 2020, a stellar 2021, a 2022 that lacked conviction, and a year in 2023 that everyone knew wasn’t going to be going for it once Xander Bogaerts left town.
However, now the Red Sox roster has young stars like Triston Casas, Rafael Devers, Jarren Duran, and Conner Wong ready to play with plenty of talent coming through like Cedanne Rafaela and Wilyer Abreu.
Chaim Bloom built a pipeline, which was needed. He overhauled talent development and the Red Sox have squeezed what they could to bring their farm system rankings up.
However, Chaim Bloom was still handcuffed by his own misfires in an ill-fated 2022 deadline where they remained over the luxury tax, didn’t sell off contracts like JD Martinez and Nathan Eovaldi, which caused them to get under the luxury tax for 2023. This was followed by a spineless 2023 deadline where they neither added nor subtracted from the team.
A Lack of Conviction is an Ownership and Chaim Bloom Issue
The Red Sox roster wasn’t built by one person, but it’s the word conviction that needs to be used here. Outside of Theo Epstein, the Red Sox haven’t let a baseball leader have their fair shake and have seemingly changed directions every few years.
Ben Cherington was brought in after Theo Epstein to usher in a new era. After he couldn’t trade prospects, the Red Sox got tired of waiting and went and got Dave Dombrowski that dismantled the farm and brought a World Series winner that the ownership group wanted. They then decided that that wasn’t sustainable, which it wasn’t, and wanted something like the Los Angeles Dodgers. Enter Chaim Bloom.
Chaim was then let go in the same amount of time that Dombrowski and Cherington got. This offseason is a pivotal offseason for the Red Sox roster, with money not being an issue and plenty of prospects to deal from. The least ownership could have done was given Chaim Bloom his fair shake.
Unfortunately, like Chaim Bloom, the ownership group lacks conviction to see one philosophy through and seem destined to continuously search for the shiny new toy. It’s going to be the downfall of this Red Sox roster, and why they cannot build a sustained winner, like the Houston Astros, Atlanta Braves, and Los Angeles Dodgers.
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