Chaim Bloom Firing Reaction

With the Red Sox being so bad, I have been filling a lot of time by rewatching Modern Family. Today's events made me think of one particular episode in which Phil and Claire take the kids on one last adventure in their old Volkswagen. As they get to the top of the mountain, the car begins to roll down the cliff. A desperate Phil make a last-second attempt to stop the car by jumping of the hood, prompting an exasperated Claire to scream “What’s the plan Phil!”

That’s what I feel like screaming right now. In my 14 years of being a Red Sox fan, I have seen it all: World Series championships, epic collapses, last-place finishes, franchise cornerstones traded and shocking firings. The one constant through it all has been the Henry-Werner ownership group, yet even that has been anything but predictable. It seems that every five years they change their mind about how to run the Red Sox, swinging back-and-forth from trying to build a sustainable, homegrown core and pushing all the chips in the middle and going after the biggest free-agent fishes.

The honest truth is that this ownership group should earn the benefit of the doubt with their unrivaled four World Series rings this century. But that’s just not the case. The last four years have shown us that we really don’t know what their priorities are, that we don’t know how much they are willing to commit to the big league team, and we don’t know what they are going to do next.

What we do know is that they didn’t trust Chaim Bloom to be the one to take them to the next stage, and in a sense, I agree with them. Bloom hit gold in 2021 with Hunter Renfroe, Kiké Hernández and others, but his 2022 construction can best be described as “half-baked,” leaving Franchy Cordero and Yolmer Sanchez as everyday players by midseason. 2023 was overall a successful offseason, but counting on Corey Kluber to be a key member of the rotation was a catastrophic mistake that doomed the pitching rotation for the entire season.

I’m not here to nitpick every Chaim Bloom mistake, because every GM makes missteps, and he has as many if not more wins. The reason I began to truly sour on him was because of his organizational philosophy of extreme conservatism and extreme fear of losing a trade. Over his four years, Bloom actions can best be described as passive, and nowhere was that more evident than at this year’s tradeline. For the second straight year, while teetering on the edge of the playoff race, Bloom neither bought nor sold, refusing to pay even modest prospect packages for desperately needed pitching while simultaneously setting the price way too high on his own expiring contracts.

This is not how you run a baseball team. Bloom never seemed to realize that to get players worth value, you need to give up players or prospects you like. Over four years, the best prospect he gave up was probably Aldo Ramirez or Bradley Blalock. The best player he acquired via trade (besides the Mookie Betts trade) was an injured Kyle Schwarber. All signs, both the tangible results and the reports from executives around the league, point to a guy who was extremely difficult to make deals with.

I also soured on Bloom because his words just did not line up with actions. He called Xander Bogaerts ``priority A” before getting outbid by nearly $100 million by the Padres. He said they were looking to add two topline starting pitchers last offseason, and they walked away with one Corey Kluber. He said they needed pitching at this year’s trade deadline, and they got absolutely nothing. Bloom can say that they “were just trying to make the right move with the future in mind” and he didn't want to rob Peter to pay Paul,” but here’s what I say: Those are failures.

Even with all that being said, I have a serious issue with Bloom being fired. While he made his fair share of mistakes, I believe he operated his Red Sox tenure with his hands tied back behind his back. He was dealt a terrible hand from the beginning, with a bloated payroll, a terrible farm system and a superstar who was nowhere close to an extension. The expectation was that he would rebuild the Red Sox from the ground-up, creating a sustainable winner by overhauling the farm system and identifying young, controllable stars. And he did just that, with Triston Casas, Brayan Bello, Jarren Duran and now Cedanne Rafaela at the big league level and Marcelo Mayer, Kyle Teel and Roman Anthony at the minor league level.

Yes, there were plenty of mistakes at the big leagues enough to make you wonder if he was the right guy to take the Red Sox to the next level, but was he ever really given a fair opportunity to build a winner? In every offseason, it felt like Bloom was working under some sort of budgetary constraints, never quite going in the deep end of free agency. This year, it felt like the organization was finally in the point where they could go after the big-name free agents, especially with so much of the offensive core already in place. That may still be the case, but it will be with someone other than Bloom calling the shots.

So then what was the point of this? What was the point of hiring Bloom if you were just going to hire him once he rebuilt the system? It felt like Bloom has spent the last few years building for this offseason, and it begs the question whether he would have acted with more urgency if he knew that his job was on the line.

We’ll never know the answer to that, but that doesn’t matter now. What matters now is where the Red Sox go from here, and that starts with who they hire to take Bloom’s spot as Chief Baseball Officer. Henry and Co. cannot afford to get this one wrong, not with such a strong free agent pitching market and so much talent ready to explode at the big league level. I’m not going to speculate on exactly who they might get, but it simply can’t be a Dombrowski type. The worst thing would be for the new guy to tear everything that has been built the last four years to shreds, sacrificing the top prospects for short-term success. Sure, I want the new guy to be a little more aggressive than Bloom, and getting at least two big-time starting pitchers is a priority, but long-term success is still the name of the game. Teel, Casas, Devers, Mayer Anthony, Rafaela, Bello: If the Red Sox want to do anything over the next five years, it’s going to be because of those guys, with veteran free agents and trade acquisitions sprinkled in.

Let me finish with this. I have no agenda. I don’t care who runs the Red Sox. I just want to win. I devote an ungodly amount of time and energy into this franchise, and I’m sick of the result being mediocrity. The firing of Chaim Bloom doesn’t mean that all the reasons I was excited about the team in the first place, from the young MLB talent to the prospects to the farm system to the payroll flexibility. 2024 needs to be the year. Not the year of a championship necessarily, but of true competitiveness. No more Kyle Barrclough pitching in the sixth inning of a must-win game, or Franchy Cordero and Christian Arroyo starting in the outfield. It may not be time to push all the chips in the middle of the table, but it’s time to realize that the time of treading water and holding back is over.

I have an idea of how I would like the offseason to go, from which free agents I would be interested in to an utterly necessary Alex Verdugo trade. Yet before the most consequential Red Sox offseason of the last l20 years begins, the Red Sox need to hire a president of baseball operations, one who shares the belief that this team is just a few pieces away.

Evaluating the First Half for the 2023 Red Sox

Expectations are a funny thing. Before the season, if someone asked me how the 2023 Red Sox were going to do, I would tell them one of three things:

1. The Red Sox will play competitive baseball

2. The 2023 Red Sox will be better than the 2022 Red Sox

3. 86 wins is the target total

So here we are, 91 games through the season, and the Red Sox are on pace for…. 85.5 wins. That would be seven games better than 2022 and certainly qualifies as playing competitive baseball. So in one sense, I am already very happy with the Red Sox performance so far. In 2019, the Red Sox never really had the pitching to be taken seriously and were completely out of the race after an eight-losing streak at the beginning of August. The 2020 Red Sox were never relevant. The 2022 Red Sox, with the exception of a month and a half stretch from mid-May to the end of June, had bad vibes the entire season and were undone by an 8-19 July. At the very least, this year’s team will be playing meaningful baseball games deep into the summer, and that’s all you can really ask for.

Additionally, while previous Red Sox teams had the impending free agencies of Mookie Betts and Xander Bogaerts looming over the season, this Red Sox team is powered by a bunch of young, exciting players who figure to be a large of part of the future. At the front of the list is Brayan Bello, who has progressed far faster than anyone could have expected and looks like one of the best young pitchers in the game. Then there’s Jarren Duran, the former afterthought that started the season in Triple-A who stepped into the starting centerfield role when Adam Duvall went down, and has batted .320 with an unfathomable 27 doubles in 251 plate appearances. Connor Wong has shown he can be a starting catcher at the major league level with a competent bat and exceptional defense, and even Triston Casas has bounced back from a miserable start with a .274/.357/.444 slash line since May 23.

It hasn’t just been the young guys either. Nearly every outside acquisition this past offseason has met or exceeded expectations. Justin Turner is batting .288 while already matching his 2022 total with 13 first-half home runs. Adam Duvall hasn’t been nearly the same force as he was before his injury, but he has still posted a 124 OPS+ and played solid outfield defense. Though technically signed before last season, James Paxton has been everything the Red Sox could have asked for in his Boston debut, posting a career-low 2.73 ERA and not missing any of his last ten turns in the rotation. The bullpen was a glaring issue before last season but has been completely stabilized by Chris Martin (1.57 ERA) and Kenley Jansen (3.23 ERA, 19 saves).

None of these acquisitions, however, will have the long-term ramifications or create more vindication among Chaim Bloom supporters than that of Masataka Yoshida. The Red Sox inked the Japanese outfielder to a 5-year/$90 deal, with led to reports that other teams thought he was worth roughly half of that. It became clear pretty early that a complete whiff on Yoshida would likely put a death nail in Bloom’s Red Sox tenure, but after a rough start, it was clear we wouldn’t have to worry about that scenario. Over his last 65 games, Yoshida has slashed an incredible .344/.397/.538, making a strong case as one of the best hitters in baseball and proving he was worth the long-term investments.

That’s a lot of things that have gone right for the Red Sox, and I haven’t even mentioned Alex Verdugo (3.2 WAR, 119 OPS+) and Rafael Devers (20 HR, 69 RBI), who are arguably their two best players. Why then are the Red Sox sitting only at a 48-43 record and outside the playoff picture? Here are the five biggest reasons:

1. Kiké Hernandez

If the Red Sox had Trevor Story playing shortstop every day instead of Kiké Hernandez, the Red Sox would be in the second wild card and within striking distance of the Orioles and Rays. It’s that simple because Hernandez has been that bad. His -0.6 WAR is 547th out of 576 players this year, due in large part to .602 OPS and a league-leading 15 errors. This would be pathetic for any player, but even more so for a guy who was the first piece of the puzzle put in place when he signed a one-year extension last September and did quite a bit of talking in the face of the critics before the season.

1. Injuries

Yes, every team deals with injuries over the course of a 162-game season, but few can match the parade of IL stints that the Red Sox have had to deal with so far in 2023. By June, they had already lost their ace (Chris Sale), their All-Star shortstop (Trevor Story), and their primary setup man (John Schrieber), all of whom landed on the 60-day IL. Their starting rotation was decimated by the injury to Sale, three IL stints by Garrett Whitlock, and a line drive that struck Tanner Houck in the face which has already knocked him out for a month. In fact, if you consider Nick Pivetta a reliever, every starting pitcher has spent time on the injured list. The health of the offense has been considerably better, but a never-ending series of injuries at the shortstop position, from Story to Christian Arroyo to Yu Chang to Pablo Reye, has forced the Sox to stick with Hernandez.

1. Defense

Kiké may be the main culprit, but he is far from the only Red Sock struggling on defense. Triston Casas has been so shaky at first base that he has drawn the ire of the coaching staff, while at the hot corner, Rafael Devers has once again been maddingly inconsistent (15th percentile Outs Above Average). On the bright side, Connor Wong has been one of the best defensive catchers in baseball, while Jarren Duran and Alex Verdugo have both been excellent in the outfield (Masataka Yoshida is, as advertised, a poor defender, but thankfully not unplayable). With Yu Chang, Pablo Reyes, and eventually Trevor Story coming back to relieve Hernandez of his duties, defense is not as much of a concern as it was when Enmanuel Valdez was playing every day, but there is no denying it has been a liability so far this season

1. Starting Pitching

There are a couple different aspects of the Red Sox starting pitching struggles. The first is the aforementioned injury bug, which has prevented the Red Sox from having their full rotation besides a couple weeks in late May (where of course the offense was in a slump). The second aspect is the struggles of veteran starters Nick Pivetta and Corey Kluber, which killed the team in April but has since been resolved with the former becoming a key piece bullpen and the latter landing on the injured list. The final and perhaps most overlooked aspect of the Red Sox starting pitching struggles have been the need for the young starters to learn to pitch at the big league level. Garrett Whitlock, Tanner Houck and Kutter Crawford have all shown flashes, but have struggled with consistency and getting through a lineup multiple times, which should be expected of three guys in their first full season in a major league rotation. With all these issues at once, it’s a miracle the Red Sox are where they are, and the bulk of the credit goes to James Paxton and Brayan Bello, who have been two of the majors' best pitchers since Paxton came back in late May.

1. An Inconsistent Offense

Overall, the Red Sox offense has been really good, ranking fourth in the majors in batting average and sixth in runs and OPS. Yet they have gone through their fair share of dry spells, which can be expected from a lineup that features four everyday players in their first full major league season (as well as the giant aforementioned black hole at shortstop). Indeed, Connor Wong, Triston Casas, Masataka Yoshida, and Jarren Duran all look like potential building blocks for the future, but they have each had their moments where they have looked completely lost at the plate

Connor Wong: .182/.244/.331 from May 5 to July 2

Triston Casas: .128/.281/.282 from March 30 to May 1

Masataka Yoshida: .167/.310/.250 from March 30 to April 18 (O.K this doesn’t really apply to him)

Jarren Duran: .133/.188/.183 from May 19 to June 7

Again, this is to be expected from guys seeing a full season of major league pitching for the first time, but given how much the Red Sox count on each of these bats, these slumps often drag down the entire offense, especially with Rafael Devers having inconsistencies of his own. For istance, Duran was considered an afterthought entering this season, but in the 18-game stretch where he was a non-factor as the plate, the Red Sox averaged just 3.6 runs a game.

Another issue is that the Red Sox don’t hit a lot of home runs. Their 94 long balls rank just 22nd in the majors, with only one of the teams behind them (Miami Marlins) having a winning record. This forces them to string hits together to score runs, which they do more often times than not, but makes them susceptible to cold streaks when the BABIP gods aren’t on their side.

So here’s where are, ending the first half with a talented, interesting, and competitive team. But before we preview the second half, let’s take a bigger look at the Red Sox organization as a whole. And yes, this means talking about Chaim Bloom. No GM (or Chief Baseball Officer, whatever) has drawn more widespread criticism, in large part because no GM was asked to trade a future Hall of Famer in the first few months on the job. Look, I am not immune to Chaim criticism. In his three and a half years on the job, the Red Sox have been a .500 team. With the resources at his disposal, that is simply unacceptable. There have been far too many misses, from the Corey Kluber signing, the persistence on making Ryan Braiser and Hernandez key pieces of the team, the Renfroe/Bradley Jr. trade, the half-cooked mess that was the 2022 roster, and the fiasco trade deadline where they somehow didn’t get under the luxury tax.

Yet as I always say to Bloom critics, there is no perfect GM. The Dodgers spent the exact same amount of Noah Syndergaard, who has been every bit as useless as Corey Kluber. The Rays got rid of Hunter Renfroe right before he became a perennial 30-home-run hitter. Bloom was brought in to build a sustainable winner, a phrase that in itself stresses patience. Nothing great was built overnight. Rebuilding the 30th-ranked farm system in baseball with a bloated big-league payroll was not going to be easy In many ways, 2022 marked the end of the Dombrowski era, where Xander Bogaerts, J.D Martinez, Nathan Eovaldi, Christian Vazquez were on the way out, replaced by a group of young players either brought in or developed by Bloom.

You want to criticize Bloom for the aforementioned missteps? Fine. But then you have to give him credit for the development of Brayan Bello, who has a 5.43 ERA in Greenville in the season before took over. You have to give him credit for being patient with Jarren Duran, who many fans were ready to give up before the season. You have to give him credit for being aggressive with Masataka Yoshida and sticking to his guns with Xander Bogaerts, a swap that looks great now and will look even better in the future. You have to give him credit for closing the deal with Rafael Devers at a reasonable price in an offseason when signing guys until their age-40 season was the norm. And as tough as it may be, you have to give him credit for getting Connor Wong and Alex Verdugo in the Mookie Betts trade. The Rockies got nothing for Nolan Arenado. The Marlins got nothing for Giancarlo Stanton, Christian Yelich, and J.T. Realmuto. The Diamondbacks got nothing for Paul Goldschmidt. Not only did the Red Sox not get nothing, they got two of the best defenders in baseball who are also above-average hitters at their position.

And that’s just at the major league level. None of his draft picks have made it to the majors yet, but the system has been overhauled with players who look like, at worse, big-league regulars. Bloom’s first draft was the shortened, bizarre 2020 one in which the Red Sox didn’t have a second-round pick, yet Bloom selected three players (Nick Yorke, Blaze Jordan, and Shane Drohan) who look like future-big league contributors. In 2021, he selected Marcelo Mayer, who is a consensus top-ten prospect in the game, and in 2022 he selected Roman Anthony in the second round, who has arguably been the biggest breakout prospect in baseball this season and is beginning to find himself high on top 100 prospect lists. He also oversaw the signing of Miguel Bleis, who was a top-25 prospect in the game before a season-ended shoulder injury. With Kyle Teel drafted early this week, the Red Sox now have six position player prospects (Mayer, Anthony, Yorke, Teel, Cedanne Rafaela, Bleis) who frequently land in the top 100 prospect list, and while the pitching depth is admittedly weaker, Luis Perales and Wikelman Gonzalez have both dominated the lower minors on their way to mid-season promotions.

O.K, here’s the point to all of this. Regardless of what happens this season (more on that in a bit), you have to feel good about the future of the organization. There is an abundance of talent as both the major and minor league levels, and with the luxury tax being reset this season, the Red Sox will have plenty of room to add this offseason. I am confident in saying that most of the key members of the next great Red Sox team are already within the organization, and that is a really exciting prospect. So even if the Red Sox tail off and finish with a .500 record, even if they finish in last place again, I am not going to be calling for Bloom’s head. He has built the foundation, and now you have to let him finish the job.

As bright as the future is, I, like many of you, am impatient and am not interested in waiting until 2024 or 2025 for the postseason. This year’s team SHOULD make the postseason. Now, that doesn’t mean I am necessarily predicting them to make the postseason, but with the pieces they have coming back in just a few weeks, there is no excuse for them to fall out of the race.

The term I’ve frequently used since Trevor Story went under the knife in January is “tread water”. “Tread water until Story comes back. “Tread water until Adam Duvall comes back.” “Tread water until Chris Sale comes back.” Well here we are just a couple of weeks away from Story and Sale’s return, and the Red Sox are right in the thick of the race. If the reports are true that Story is just days away from starting a minor league rehab assignment, then August 4- the beginning of the homestand against the Blue Jays- seems like a reasonable expectation for his return. The Red Sox have 17 games until them: 3 at the Cubs, 3 at the Athletics, 3 hosting the Mets, 2 hosting the Braves, 3 at the Giants, and 3 at the Mariners. If they JUST go 9-8 in those games, they are sitting at 57-51. That’s all I'm asking. Just be perfectly mediocre over the next three weeks, and wait for the cavalry to arrive.

The approach at the trade deadline depends entirely on the next few weeks and the health of the returning players. If all the aforementioned players are set to return by early August and the Red Sox are either in a postseason position or just a game or two outside, how can you pull the plug on the season? How do you not add to the existing roster and show the clubhouse you believe in them? And it’s not like we’re talking about huge additions in which you need to sacrifice key pieces from the future. The offense with Trevor Story is set. The bullpen looks fine too, especially if they add Tanner Houck or Kutter Crawford to the mix and Joely Rodriguez builds upon his first outing back from the injured list. All I’m asking for is a little help in the rotation. You’re telling me you can’t throw a Branner Boanici and a Hunter Dobbins, two players having excellent years in the minor leagues, at someone for a mid-rotation starter?

There is, however, the possibility that the Red Sox continue their trend of following two steps forward and two steps back and fall out of the race in the coming weeks. In that scenario, you have to believe that impending free agents James Paxton and Adam Duvall are gone, as well as seeing if anyone can free the Red Sox of Kiké. Where I hope the Red Sox draw the line is with players who are free agents after 2024. If the Red Sox are serious about competing in 2024, they’re going to need Kenley Jansen, Chris Martin, Justin Turner, and Alex Verdugo. Selling any of those players for down-the-line prospects would represent a massive and unnecessary step back.

The most likely scenario is that the Red Sox don’t necessarily all-out buy or all-out sell but rather rearrange the chairs. Hernandez will be on the way out, likely by way of DFA. Duvall should follow if only to free up well-earned, everyday at-bats for Jarren Duran. On the addition side, it's unlikely they make any needle-changing moves, but a couple of depth arms and potentially a right-handed bench bat with some power seems like a safe bet.

Honestly, I’m just excited that we have a baseball team worth getting invested in. Sure, we all want championships and dynasties, but being able to talk about a talented, relevant Red Sox team this deep into the season is pretty awesome. I can’t wait to see what the next few weeks hold/

Red Sox Prediction: Alex Verdugo

When I first started these predictions and was working on Verdugo’s preview, I was all set on claiming Verdugo was a player who would never quite live up to expectations. No doubt, Verdugo’s raw hitting ability will always earn him a place on a roster, but it seemed certain that he would never be more than a good role player. Then came a tweet from his brother Chris, which claimed that Verdugo dealt with a broken toe for the first two months, and when you look at his season splits, it all starts to make sense:

Opening Day through May 31: .227/.263/.335 .598 OPS 3 HR 24 RBI

June 1 through the end of the season: .302/.355/.434 .789 OPS 8 HR 50 RBI

That’s the good news. The bad news is that Verdugo has been showing flashes of brilliance for years now. When he’s on, there are few prettier swings in the game. He can hit any pitch from any pitcher to any part of the field. On the flip side, when he’s off, there are few more frustrating hitters in the game. Verdugo’s bat-to-ball skills frequently work against him, as he expands the zone on pitches he can’t do anything with. This results in a whole lot of weak ground balls to second and lazy fly balls to right, and very few extra-base hits.

There is an enormous amount of pressure on Verdugo to be on a lot more often then he’s off, because his value is tied entirely to his bat. He is a poor defender (-5 career OAA) and doesn’t make much of an impact on the bases. Furthermore, because Verdugo hates to walk and, despite the occasional moonshot, doesn’t consistently hit for power, he basically needs to hit .300 to have any positive value whatsoever.

The thing is though, Verdugo is one of the rare hitters these days that has the capability of reaching this benchmark. Over the last four seasons, Verdugo has posted a batting average of .289, and with the banning of shifts and a healed toe, there could be even more the tank. Yes, Verdugo is flawed. He’ll never win an MVP, and he may never even be an All-Star. But he can hit. He can really, really hit.

Stat Prediction: .297/.355/.473 152 games 14 HR 71 RBI 1.8 WAR