Chaim Bloom Failed

And a (Slightly) Dormant Red Sox Fan Awakens

In 2016 I moved from the Boston suburbs to within walking distance of Fenway Park. My buddy and I joined a giant season ticket package along with hardcore Sox fans who shared these seats since the ‘90s. I had multiple roommates who worked for the team. We went to countless games in the coming years, and the 2016-18 Red Sox featured an extremely satisfying three-year story arc.

Led by a collection of homegrown stars, the early versions of that core were good enough to reach the playoffs in ‘16 and ‘17. Those postseason exits were painful at the time, but there was still a clear sense of building towards something, and the front office kept adding each winter. David Price, Craig Kimbrel, Chris Sale, and finally JD Martinez all became meaningful contributors to the 2018 title.

I went to every home playoff game during the fall of ‘18. Each road game was an event (no, a party) among friends. I was 25 years old. It was my version of baseball nirvana. The Red Sox were among the most important teams in the league. This is how it should be, I thought — a storied franchise as essential to its region’s culture as the Red Sox should be in the championship mix every season, and on the cutting edge of scouting/analytics/player development.

I know this because for most of my life that is what they’ve been. I didn’t fall in love with the Red Sox because of one magical season when I was 10.

I fell in love with them because every season was magical.

Every year had purpose behind it. The franchise was early on the importance of Moneyball concepts. Ownership brought stars to town, and those stars typically performed well while embracing Boston.

When a plan backfired, ownership corrected it immediately (think about the disastrous 2012 season, shipping out Adrian Gonzalez/Carl Crawford, firing Bobby Valentine, and then immediately winning the 2013 World Series).

Every Opening Day was one to look forward to, because every October brought the promise of playoff baseball.

Pedro, Manny, and Ortiz became Lester, Pedroia, and Ortiz some more, which evolved into Betts, Bogaerts, and now Devers.

But somewhere along the way the biggest decision makers lost their way. For as euphoric as 2018 was, it was always clear that group couldn’t last forever. The farm system entering 2019 was barren. Ultimately, Dave Dombrowski didn’t even make it until season’s end.

And since then, ownership has been involved in other projects — including other sports franchises and real estate in the surrounding Fenway area.

I’ve tried hard not to paint them as “bad owners”, because fans of Dan Snyder’s Washington teams or the Wilpon-era Mets are quick to remind you how bad it can get. And they’re absolutely right.

But there’s no way anyone could sell me on the current Sox ownership being as emotionally invested today as they were in 2002-07. To be fair, that’s probably a good thing, because if they were still that involved today we’d be running into a Jerry Jones situation where they’re trying to do too much.

It’s my belief that by the end of the 2016-18 run, ownership wanted to follow “the Dodgers model” that so many other big market teams try to emulate. I think ownership wants the Sox to compete every year via scouting and player development, and every few seasons they’re comfortable pushing the budget if there’s a higher-than-normal chance to win it all.

And that’s a solid plan, but the mistake all these Dodgers-model wannabes make is they don’t have Andrew Friedman. And they don’t have 10+ years of building up their player development system. Steve Cohen seems to be catching on, having recently landed David Stearns and taking a step back, but it took him a few years to reach the conclusion of what needed to be done.

Evaluating Bloom

I’m getting side tracked because I’m still digesting the news, but I haven’t written in a while and I’m enjoying this more “fan-sided” piece as a break from the analytically-heavy fantasy baseball work.

Before last summer’s trade deadline I wrote a piece titled “Evaluating Chaim Bloom.” I tried to be fair, highlight his transactions that went well (cheap deals for Kiké Hernandez and Hunter Renfroe, unearthing John Schreiber) in addition to those that went terribly (the Mookie return, failing to ever plug 1B, never realizing/understanding the pressure/opportunity in Boston).

At the end, I predicted that what happened at the ‘22 trade deadline and during the ‘23 offseason would determine his fate with the Red Sox.

Taking a step back to re-evaluate everything I wrote about his 2020-22 decisions, and including his recent moves, things look even more bleak.

He never picked a direction at the trade deadline (last year or this year), which was confusing. And while the Padres eventually gave Xander a contract Bloom was wise not to match, it never should’ve even gotten to that point.

This is what so many people miss about the Betts/Bogaerts stuff. No, ownership wasn’t helpful in either situation, and signing off on the Mookie trade will ALWAYS be part of John Henry’s legacy.

But once the organization was committed to dealing Betts, everyone in that front office needed to understand jobs were on line. Maybe not the day after, but eventually. They needed to nail the return. Despite some fun Verdugo moments over the years, the return was a catastrophic failure.

Was it helped by including David Price’s contract? No. Did Mookie insist on becoming a free agent before a sudden change of heart once the pandemic hit and he was in LA? Yes.

The decision to trade Betts was a terrible one, but that’s deserving of its own blog one day, and it would need to include analysis on Henry, Dombrowski, and all the short-sided moves that led to it.

But keeping things on Chaim, and focusing on the return package, it’s undeniable that it was bad. And yet Bloom isn’t even being fired just for that. The Mookie trade was a microcosm of everything he did wrong in building a big league roster.

If it was his idea to include Price to lessen the return but create short-term financial flexibility, well he didn’t do a good job of using it. Look at the Mets’ plan for taking a step back this summer — they paid Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander to increase the prospect haul, knowing the short-term budget relief wouldn’t help anyways.

Ugh! I’m going down a Mookie hole when I don’t mean to, but that’s always going to be a part of this story, a wound that has only worsened over time.

And I guess what I’m trying to get to with the Betts analysis and how it relates to Bloom’s roster building is that his wins felt small while his misses felt huge.

Some examples:

• Preparing for Bogaerts’ eventual departure (due to bungled extension talks), Bloom signed Trevor Story to play second base for a year. Despite his elbow issues, Story is moved to shortstop in the same offseason Bogaerts (predictably) leaves. Story then blows out his elbow trying to build it up enough to play short.

• At the ‘22 trade deadline we stayed over the luxury tax, despite not-great playoff odds. Okay, great, that’s fine. But we still pissed off the clubhouse by also kind of selling, and traded away Christian Vazquez to the Astros while in Houston? Then, when we lost Bogaerts, we only got a 4th-round pick as comp instead of the 2nd-rounder we would’ve received had we been under the lux tax.

• One of the most aggravating parts of Bloom’s tenure was how long he stuck with Bobby Dalbec at 1B. It never made sense not to at least supplement him with a veteran/stable presence. I think that in the long run we’ll evaluate Bloom’s tenure similar to Ben Cherington’s, but at least Cherington went all-in on culture in 2013. He had a feel for navigating Boston in that sense, which is something Bloom never came around to — and why it became impossible to defend him when his “analytical moves” weren’t working either.

Closing Thoughts

I usually spend a ton of time smoothing out the edges of these Substack pieces before sharing them, but my entire day has been put on hold and I need to get back to it, and also I want to send this out somewhat raw.

Because I don’t usually get this worked up about the Red Sox anymore. There might be a lot of readers out there who follow me for fantasy analysis without even realizing I’m a Red Sox fan.

2018 was my catharsis. Like I said, I was 25 years old living by Fenway Park. I went to every playoff game that fall, and most of them in the seasons leading up to it. My buddies worked at Fenway and our entire friend group lived in the area. It’ll never, ever be like that again for me.

But I still have these season tickets and I still live in the greater Boston area and there will always be that 10-year-old version of myself buried within, whenever I’m watching baseball.

The news has only been out for a few hours, but one of the most striking takeaways I’ve had is how much passion still lies within this fan base.

My phone has been buzzing for hours. People are EXCITED about the possibilities of what comes next. Others feel VINDICATED. Many are arguing just to argue. We’re fans, after all. Staying rational has never been part of the deal.

When I call myself a (slightly) dormant fan in recent years, what I’m referring to is how unemotional this organization has made me of late. Yes I’ve been pissed off at the front office decisions, losing our homegrown stars and failing to address obvious big league holes.

I’ve been angry at ownership for not acting even sooner, and for not spending enough when my credit card is charged the highest season ticket prices in Major League Baseball.

I’ve been frustrated with how NESN and YouTube TV couldn’t come to a deal, and how shitty the NESN streaming app has been whenever I use my parents’ cable login for it.

I’ve been tormented by not planning my falls around home playoff games.

And yet, this is easily the most worked up/excited I’ve been as a fan in quite some time. If I could summarize the entire Bloom era in one movement, it would be a bit of a shoulder shrug. I haven’t been that invested the past two seasons, because it never seemed like the franchise had a coherent plan or direction.

Some of these problems aren’t going away overnight, but the organization is finally giving us *SOMETHING* to suggest better days are ahead, and that’s really what I needed in this moment.

And before I get to my actual final thoughts, I want to make it clear that nobody should overly celebrate someone losing their job. That isn’t what this is about. And I actually feel quite strongly that Bloom is going to latch on elsewhere and probably be a fine GM for a mid-market team (the Cherington analogy applies here as well).

But I’d be lying if I said today wasn’t huge for Red Sox fans. There’s hope again. Soon there will be a new GM to criticize their every move. And then we’ll get back to cursing out ownership once more.

Hopefully with some playoff baseball mixed in along the way.

Actual final thoughts:

• This story is too funny not to share — I was working from my parents’ house today, and I texted my dad the news when I found out. He happened to be home and, despite recently undergoing dual knee replacements, sprinted to the room I was in to give me a high-five. That’s the sort of reaction so many Red Sox fans, young and old, had upon hearing it.

• It’s fascinating how quickly Sox ownership moves on when things aren’t going right. This tweet from Pete Abraham highlights how each of Cherington, Dombrowski, and Bloom averaged roughly 3.8 years before being let go. Eventually, Henry deserves criticism for not finding a long-term answer, but I at least give his group credit for moving on sooner than so many other organizations would and do.

• I’ve seen a lot of takes suggesting that Bloom was “great with prospects” and just couldn’t figure out the big league stuff. And I’m not sure I agree. The Red Sox have always been successful in scouting and player development. The only time things ever became an issue is when Dombrowski emptied the clip to win a title. Boston has Brian O’Halloran in the GM role plus 3 other assistant GMs! There’s been continuity in the front office for a long time. Bloom also isn’t the one making the picks on draft day. And lastly, so many of the “young players people are excited about” weren’t even brought in by him (Casas, Bello, Duran, Rafaela, Houck). Oh, and Marcelo Mayer was the 4th overall pick. Congrats on nailing that one, though.

• The next big question is where does the club go from here? Because Theo Epstein isn’t walking through that door. It seems clear Alex Cora would eventually like you transition upstairs into more of a front office role, and I’m fine with that, but this franchise needs an experienced GM right now. Cora can work his way into that role over time, but he can’t be given the keys to the entire operation just yet. James Click? Sig Mejdal? Sam Fuld? Henry should have his pick of the litter as anyone incoming GM inherits a robust farm system and (theoretically) money to spend.