Red Sox Fire Chaim Bloom
On September 14, the Red Sox announced that they fired their Chief Baseball Officer, Chaim Bloom. Bloom was hired in October 2019 to fill this position. As Chief Baseball Officer, he was in charge of signing and cutting players, drafting, scouting, and getting people into their farm system. Being in a highly competitive division like the AL East means teams must make constant adjustments to keep up. Bloom caught the Red Sox’s attention after his success with the Tampa Bay Rays. In 2019, he was hired to replace Dave Dombrowski. In his almost four seasons with the Sox, the team made it to the postseason once. Two years ago, the Red Sox were last in the AL East and currently sit in last place for the 2023 season. Here is a rundown of his rocky time with the Red Sox.
2020
Bloom started his career with the Red Sox in a tough spot, having to make a decision on what to do with their star right-fielder, Mookie Betts. Betts was one year away from free agency, and they couldn’t strike a deal. Bloom made a controversial decision to trade Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers, gaining Alex Verdugo and prospects Jeter Downs and Connor Wong. In the end, the trade didn’t pay off. Since joining LA, Betts has won four major awards (the Gold Glove Award and the Silver Slugger Award; earning both in 2020 and 2022). Jeter Downs was the big prospect the Sox received from this trade, and they DFA’d him last season after he was underperforming.
2021
2021 was the Red Sox’s strongest season under the watch of Chaim Bloom. Before the season started, Bloom was able to pick up Hunter Renfroe (Tampa Bay Rays) and Kiké Hernández (Los Angeles Dodgers). At the trade deadline the Red Sox also snagged Kyle Schwarber (Chicago Cubs). All of these players proved to be a big factor in their 2021 postseason run. The Sox finished the regular season with a record of 92-70. They beat the Yankees 6-2 in a Wild Card game before moving on to the ALDS to beat the Tampa Bay Rays in the series 3-1. The season ended when the Sox lost to the Houston Astros in the ALCS 2-4.
2022
Coming off such a crazy postseason run, the 2022 season went downhill for the Red Sox. During the offseason, Bloom traded Hunter Renfroe to the Brewers in exchange for Jackie Bradley Jr. and two prospects. The team failed to re-sign first baseman Kyle Schwarber, who was a key player in the success of the previous season. Throughout the season the team struggled, ending with a record of 78-84, putting them in last place in the AL East. The team was unsuccessful in keeping All-Star player Xander Bogaerts, who had been with the team for ten years.
2023
Once again, for the 2023 season, Bloom and the Red Sox made questionable decisions. With shortstop Xander Bogaerts gone, Bloom decided to not fill the position and rely on Trevor Story. After elbow surgery early in the year, Story missed more than half the season. With no other backups, manager Alex Cora had to use Kiké Hernández (previously outfielder) as the main starting shortstop. Hernández was the starting shortstop for 46 games, and led the league with the most errors in his position with 14. He also was below the average fielding percentage (.972) for shortstops at .925. Near the beginning of June Cora made the decision to remove Hernández from shortstop since him being there was hurting the team.
Around the trade deadline, Rafael Devers and others expressed their hopes for changes they wanted for the team. At this time the Red Sox were 2.5 games back from being in a Wild Card spot, and players hoped that they could turn the season around. They shared their concerns about the pitching, which had been a big problem for the team. By September 13, the Red Sox starters had pitched the second-fewest number of innings since the All-Star break (236 ⅓ innings).Bloom did nothing major to fix their pitching problem, and have since had a losing record.
Despite making questionable decisions for the Red Sox, Bloom has made major advances in the team’s farm system. The team’s farm system was ranked last out of every team by FanGraphs in 2020. In July of this season, FanGraphs re-evaluated the Red Sox’s farm system, ranking them as having the 5th best. Under Bloom’s watch, the Red Sox have gained many young prospects, including Marcelo Mayer who is a top-five MLB prospect. Sam Kennedy, the president of the Red Sox, nodded to the success of the farm system when he spoke to the press after Bloom’s firing. He mentioned, “We have gotten glimpses of this emerging new core of the Boston Red Sox . . . I think there’s a lot of great things to build on here . . . But we owe it to our fans to be decisive, aggressive, and clear about the mandate, which is to get back to playing baseball in October.” At the moment, general manager Brian O’Halloran and assistant general managers Eddie Romero, Raquel Ferreira, and Michael Groopman will help cover Bloom’s position.