How long will Chaim last?

Overall, I think Bloom has improved the depth of the farm system and he has drafted, I think most would agree by luck, a potential superstar in Mayer. There’s more useful players on the 40 man roster.

However, most of these improvements are on the margins. It’s hard to get a fanbase excited, or to argue that someone definitely needs to keep their job, because 27 year old Kutter Crawford looks like a good long man or Yu Chang looks like he’s a really good defensive SS who might be able to hit enough to have a 90 OPS+.

As others have pointed out, Yoshida looks to be a great get but even he is 29 years old.

These are useful players but I don’t begrudge anyone looking at this team and thinking that there aren’t many legitimate building blocks.

This could be a function of being the crash test dummy for the owners but I also think Chaim hasn't done himself any favors in how he's presented himself or his plan to the media and fans. There were the multiple reports that looked like he had seen a ghost when he realized X signed for the Padres, the Dermody incident, the fan expo where he got booed off of the stage, and the wine bottle thing.

Bongorific said:

I never quite follow the “fans in Boston will never accept a rebuild” whether it’s the Sox, Patriots, whoever. The Sox have finished last 3 of 4 years. It couldn’t have been much worse. If they were trying to remain competitive while building long term stability, they have failed miserably.

Are the team’s fans, money, and facilities holding them back from building a competitive team? If only we were the Kansas City Royals…then we could really commit to building a winner!

Click to expand...

I 100% agree with this. I mean, they already are mediocre. I think it's almost easier to sell fans on a plan of "Hey, we won't be good this year but we are going to get a high draft pick and you can come to the park and watch some young players grow and be a part of this team for multiple years".

Going to the park and watching the team lose with mediocre old players on short contracts is the worst of both worlds

astrozombie said:

I appreciate your post, but disagree with the bolded part. Most fans in this area can accept accept rebuilds; the ones who can't are the ones who think the Sox should have signed Verlander/de Grom/X/Judge this offseason and traded a couple minor leaguers for Trout and Ohtani - in other words, unrealistic anyway. I can appreciate discounting that part of the fanbase, but I think that is a small portion of it. Where I struggle with Bloom is that if you're going to have a fallow period in a big market, you need to use that time to get under the cap, as well as acquire and develop assets. No one is going to care about 2022 and 2023 if this team is good in 2025 like the Bloom people believe. But I just don't see that trajectory happening with the team as currently constructed because Bloom didn't fix the cap problem last season when he could have, seems to prefer acquiring average prospects in quantity and can't seem to consistently develop pitching prospects (I like the current crop well enough, but I don't think any of them are future aces - obviously this is open to a ton of debate).

Click to expand...

Well sure, the team isn't going to be successful in 2025 "as currently constructed." But the 2025 team is going to look almost nothing like this year's team. Sale will be gone and his massive salary will hopefully be allocated to someone who provides much more value. In fact, Bello might be the only pitcher in this year's rotation on the 2025 team.

In terms of the offense, the core (assuming no trades) will be Devers, Story, Yoshida, and then maybe Verdugo, Mayer, and/or Casas (plus hopefully other prospects, etc.). Everyone else is on short-term deals. Now, that does put a ton of pressure on Bloom to nail the assembly of a team around those core players, but he at least hasn't done anything to hurt the team's flexibility in that regard and I'm not going to judge on signings and trades that haven't happened yet.

As far as this year's team goes - yeah, they're not very good and they are in a very good division so this season kinda sucks. But looking at the offseason, what do people think Bloom should have done differently? I find it interesting that, as far as I can tell, not a single poster here has identified what they think Bloom should have done differently over the past few years to improve this year's team to either make them a true contender this year, or while simultaneously not mortgaging the future. The worst case scenario for this year would have been if they had a made a bunch of knee-jerk long-term signings that marginally improved the team from around .500 to something like a second wild-card team that still doesn't stand a chance against the true contenders in the AL.

As annoying as it is, when the farm system was as bare as Dombrowski left it, there's not really a ton a team can do other than just wait until it gets restocked. The reason the Yankees haven't gone through the down years the Sox have since 2018 is because the Yankees never stripped their farm system bare and did a hell of a lot better drafting than the Sox did in the DD years. The one legitimate criticism you can make of Bloom, I think, is that he didn't go far enough in rebuilding - e.g., trading X at the deadline last year, etc. But I think that's more of an ownership decision.

Smiling Joe Hesketh said:

I mean, it's June and the team is unwatchable. They're not even a trainwreck, they're merely boring and flawed and never improve. Their defense is horrible, their team IQ low, they're playing guys out of position and they are losing series at home to awful teams.

Who as a fan wants to see that?

I echo others in saying Bloom does not have a plan that is defined enough. What exactly is he selling here? The farm system? Not elite. The big league club? Mediocre. Promise for the future? We've been hearing that for years now.

Click to expand...

It is kind of amazing how shit the farm system is after trading an MVP and having some of the highest draft picks in a long time. It is also amazing how Bloom takes low value assets and turns them no value whatsoever.

Connor Seabold and Jay Groome were givewn away for nothing. Neither guy is a world beater but both had some value which went to no value right quick. He traded Jeffery Springs for nothing, You are telling me the Sox could not use Jeffery Springs?

Honestly I can't think of a single trade Bloom has made besides grabbing Pivetta where Bloom got the better end of the deal.

Smiling Joe Hesketh said:

Ownership doesn't seem to realize that getting a 78 win team while letting stars leave via FA isn't helpful either.

I find it ironic to read all the chortling in the X thread about his offensive troubles this year while his defense has been the bulk of his value; the Sox' biggest problem by far is the little league level defense they are currently receiving at the SS position which is both destroying their season and could be eating away at the confidence of their young pitchers. The plan to replace X with a previously injured Story and now a Hernandez playing grossly out of position wasn't well thought out in the slightest.

Click to expand...

Agree with the first part.
And the 2nd may only be partially true. I *think* they were ready to bail on Hernandez at SS pretty quickly with Chang, which worked for awhile until *he* went down, too. As for Mondesi, I'm not sure if the team just simply underestimated his recovery time, or if he just had an extra-ordinarily bad recovery.

The things that most rankle me about Bloom are the things that could've been done to at least make an honest effort at fielding a real team without compromising this longer term project and that simply weren't done.

#1 on this list was signing a major league caliber SS going into this season. Not saying we should have signed Turner or Correa or Swanson; an actual warm body who can play SS would've sufficed. We did not do that. We put a CF at SS and prayed it would work instead. Trevor Story had surgery in JANUARY. Bloom had time to figure this out and basically just punted on it. That's malpractice.

There's a very good chance that Bloom doesn't have the flexibility many believe/wish he had. I could be wrong about this, but it needs to be considered. The problem is owners can't be fired, so we look for someone else to lose their head. I said in the Cora thread that I'd be happy to see both of them go, but I also acknowledge that there are no guarantees this does anything constructive for the team.

John Marzano Olympic Hero said:

Right. But there is not just one way to build a team, right? There are at least three that I can think of: through trades, through the farm system through free agent acquisitions plus you can take a bit from column A, combine with a bit from columns B and C. I know that the Sox system wasn't great when Bloom got here, that seems to be the rallying cry of Bloomers. And while it has proven to be better than anticipated: Ballo and Casas, there are ways around that deficiency. When Epstein came to the Sox in 2003, the Sox were in worse shape than they were in 2019.

Are Mets, Padres and Phillies fans happy? Probably not. But, and I keep hammering this home, you don't have to build a team through free agent acquisitions. Signing two 40+ pitchers to spearhead your rotation is not the way to go. The Pads are playing better and I think that they'll be in better position by the end of the year. Who knows about the Phillies.

Chaim Bloom is supposed to be smarter than the guys running SD, Philly and NY(N). He's in the same position as those guys, only he's doing it cheaper. So yay?

Click to expand...

I think I'd rather be a Padres fan than a Red Sox fan. They've been struggling but they have a ton of talent and should be able to turn it around.

Yaz4Ever said:

There's a very good chance that Bloom doesn't have the flexibility many believe/wish he had. I could be wrong about this, but it needs to be considered. The problem is owners can't be fired, so we look for someone else to lose their head. I said in the Cora thread that I'd be happy to see both of them go, but I also acknowledge that there are no guarantees this does anything constructive for the team.

Click to expand...

This could be true. But, if that was the case, wouldn't they have mandated that he trade salary to get under the cap at the last trading deadline?

mikeford said:

The things that most rankle me about Bloom are the things that could've been done to at least make an honest effort at fielding a real team without compromising this longer term project and that simply weren't done.

#1 on this list was signing a major league caliber SS going into this season. Not saying we should have signed Turner or Correa or Swanson; an actual warm body who can play SS would've sufficed. We did not do that. We put a CF at SS and prayed it would work instead. Trevor Story had surgery in JANUARY. Bloom had time to figure this out and basically just punted on it. That's malpractice.

Click to expand...

I *think* Hernandez was supposed to be short-term, because of Mondesi. And then they got Chang in February. One could argue they suck, too, but it would be wrong to say they had nothing. When a no-bat SS gets hurt, and it tanks the team, that doesn't say much for the team, but I continue to believe that -- in the context of the way the season was going at that point -- Chang's injury really fucked the team up. (Duvall's too; but in hindsight I think that was less significant).

TomRicardo said:

Honestly I can't think of a single trade Bloom has made besides grabbing Pivetta where Bloom got the better end of the deal.

Click to expand...

Then you're not thinking hard enough. Just off the top of my head:

1. Getting Ottavino from the Yankees for essentially just cash.
2. Getting Kyle Schwarber for the 2021 postseason run for essentially nothing.
3. Getting Reese McGuire for Diekman (who currently has a 5.82 ERA and 5.03 FIP this year).

I mean those aren't like history-making fleecings or anything, but how often do those happen? And more importantly Bloom hasn't lost any trades really either. Mookie was an ownership directive and it's hard to argue Bloom didn't get good value under the circumstances. Other than that, what is there to criticize? Trading Benintendi, who sucks now, and who brought back Winckowski who is an important part of the bullpen? I guess the Renfroe trade was bad, but that's about it that I can think of.

Edit: Valdez for Vazquez was a solid return, and Bloom also got Reyes for essentially nothing. Again, these aren't massive trades for a star but there were no circumstances where that would have been on the table given the state of the farm system anyway.

joe dokes said:

I *think* Hernandez was supposed to be short-term, because of Mondesi. And then they got Chang in February. One could argue they suck, too, but it would be wrong to say they had nothing. When a no-bat SS gets hurt, and it tanks the team, that doesn't say much for the team, but I continue to believe that -- in the context of the way the season was going at that point -- Chang's injury really fucked the team up. (Duvall's too; but in hindsight I think that was less significant).

Click to expand...

If the idea was that an always injured guy was magically going to be healthy, that is a bad idea. That is poor planning. And you know what, you're probably right that was the plan because Bloom did the exact same thing with the pitching staff every season he's been here.

At a certain point constantly relying on oft injured players is not bad luck, it's bad management. We are firmly in that territory.

mikeford said:

The things that most rankle me about Bloom are the things that could've been done to at least make an honest effort at fielding a real team without compromising this longer term project and that simply weren't done.

#1 on this list was signing a major league caliber SS going into this season. Not saying we should have signed Turner or Correa or Swanson; an actual warm body who can play SS would've sufficed. We did not do that. We put a CF at SS and prayed it would work instead. Trevor Story had surgery in JANUARY. Bloom had time to figure this out and basically just punted on it. That's malpractice.

Click to expand...

I disagree that planning to use Kike at SS was "punting" on the position. He had over 600 major league innings in over 100 games at the position before this season started. He demonstrated no signs of having throwing issues from the position (2 career throwing errors at SS). He was a short-term fix (to be followed by Mondesi and/or Story). That he has been so poor at throwing accurately to 1B wasn't entirely predictable.

It hasn't worked out in the worst possible way, but I don't think it's because Bloom "punted".

John Marzano Olympic Hero said:

We're not allowed to criticize ownership. They gave us four titles in 20 years. They are complete infallible for anything that they do from now until the day that they all die.

Click to expand...

I'll be honest in saying that I've often said something similar. What that afforded me and, more importantly, my father before his passing is invaluable.

tbb345 said:

This could be true. But, if that was the case, wouldn't they have mandated that he trade salary to get under the cap at the last trading deadline?

Click to expand...

I have no idea what constraints they may have put on him, if any. We also don't know how many teams/players rebuked offers from us that may have helped us this year.

Yaz4Ever said:

There's a very good chance that Bloom doesn't have the flexibility many believe/wish he had. I could be wrong about this, but it needs to be considered. The problem is owners can't be fired, so we look for someone else to lose their head. I said in the Cora thread that I'd be happy to see both of them go, but I also acknowledge that there are no guarantees this does anything constructive for the team.

Click to expand...

I think the ownership contraints may be more towards "no white flags if we're within 5 games of the WC on deadline day" rather than a really limiting payroll ceiling. To the extent they are sensitive to criticism, its not about not spending money. They do spend it and have spent it, so the charge is pretty easy to disprove. I *do* think, as SJH alluded to above, that they dont want to be seen as *really* tanking for some kind of future payoff. Even though, in that regard, The Punto Trade can be like "4ringz!!!!" as a defense.

TomRicardo said:

Honestly I can't think of a single trade Bloom has made besides grabbing Pivetta where Bloom got the better end of the deal.

Click to expand...

I mean, this last deadline alone he got McGuire and a prospect for Jake Diekman and got two legit prospects from Houston for two months of Christian Vazquez. He got Pham and Schwarber in two consecutive years for almost nothing. He got a prospect from the Yankees for taking on Ottavino. And I think the book is far from closed on the Betts and Benintendi trades, especially if Wong and Winckowski continue to be legit assets. But you're right, the Springs trade was a whiff. It happens.

Smiling Joe Hesketh said:

The plan to replace X with a previously injured Story and now a Hernandez playing grossly out of position wasn't well thought out in the slightest.

Click to expand...

I thought it was pretty well thought out. Story had an injury history but also a history of being a top-flight two-way shortstop. Hernandez at SS was a gamble, but I don't think anybody predicted he'd be this bad. Mondesi was supposed to be back by now. Chang was better than anyone expected. And all of this was just to cover a year and a half until Mayer was ready. It hasn't worked, but it's not like there was no plan.

John Marzano Olympic Hero said:

Right. But there is not just one way to build a team, right? There are at least three that I can think of: through trades, through the farm system through free agent acquisitions plus you can take a bit from column A, combine with a bit from columns B and C. I know that the Sox system wasn't great when Bloom got here, that seems to be the rallying cry of Bloomers. And while it has proven to be better than anticipated: Ballo and Casas, there are ways around that deficiency. When Epstein came to the Sox in 2003, the Sox were in worse shape than they were in 2019.

Are Mets, Padres and Phillies fans happy? Probably not. But, and I keep hammering this home, you don't have to build a team through free agent acquisitions. Signing two 40+ pitchers to spearhead your rotation is not the way to go. The Pads are playing better and I think that they'll be in better position by the end of the year. Who knows about the Phillies.

Chaim Bloom is supposed to be smarter than the guys running SD, Philly and NY(N). He's in the same position as those guys, only he's doing it cheaper. So yay?

Click to expand...

Wasnt Sox farm system ranked DFL by multiple scouting orgs in 2019? I can't imagine they were in worse shape when Epstein came on board...That said, wasn't it easier back then to sign FAs at whim without worrying about long term consequences for going over the luxury tax threshold?

John Marzano Olympic Hero said:

We're not allowed to criticize ownership. They gave us four titles in 20 years. They are complete infallible for anything that they do from now until the day that they all die.

Click to expand...

Yeah agreed, they deserve criticism. I mean...a lot of this is on ownership. They seem to never stick to a certain type of plan and it's lead to a lot of up and down results over their 20 years. I'd still prefer to be a red sox fan this millennium than a fan of any other team, but the wide variance in results is a negative aspect to whatever legacy they leave behind. I get frustrated with these convos on the whole because people tend to make it a zero sum game - it's all Bloom's fault, it's all DD's fault, ownership sucks, ownership is terrific, etc etc etc. When in reality it's obviously a huge mixture of all of the above.

Smiling Joe Hesketh said:

The real problem was planning on Story to replace X at SS. His arm is shot, he cannot and will never be able to play the position. Even without his current injury, such a plan was flawed from the beginning and should never have been considered. Story was a superior defensive 2Bman last year and should have been kept there while a real major league SS was acquired; Story's subsequent injury would thus have led to a replacement for 2B which is much easier to find.

This team is obsessed with putting players in poor positions for them.

Click to expand...

There's some logic to your point, but very few people with a valuable opinion seem to agree with that take on Story's future at SS.
Besides, IIRC, wouldn't he be nearly as likely to have the same injury if he was preparing for a season at 2B? I dont think his workouts were *that* dissimilar.

mikeford said:

The things that most rankle me about Bloom are the things that could've been done to at least make an honest effort at fielding a real team without compromising this longer term project and that simply weren't done.

#1 on this list was signing a major league caliber SS going into this season. Not saying we should have signed Turner or Correa or Swanson; an actual warm body who can play SS would've sufficed. We did not do that. We put a CF at SS and prayed it would work instead. Trevor Story had surgery in JANUARY. Bloom had time to figure this out and basically just punted on it. That's malpractice.

Click to expand...

Again, people are making arguments in a vacuum without considering reality. What "warm body" should the Sox have signed? Elvis Andrus, who currently has a 48 OPS+? Aledmys Diaz, who currently has a 53 OPS+? Those are the "warm bodies" you're talking about and I don't think anyone here would be calling those great signings.

Smiling Joe Hesketh said:

There was bigtime concern about the velocity of his throwing arm which had been declining for years.

Click to expand...

I know. That's why my question about his suffering the same off-season injury regardless of what the plan was for 2023. His elbow was just ready to go. And now, the medical consensus seems mostly optimistic for SS.

OurF'ingCity said:

Again, people are making arguments in a vacuum without considering reality. What "warm body" should the Sox have signed? Elvis Andrus, who currently has a 48 OPS+? Aledmys Diaz, who currently has a 53 OPS+? Those are the "warm bodies" you're talking about and I don't think anyone here would be calling those great signings.

Click to expand...

They signed Chang and Mondesi, warm bodies both.

Smiling Joe Hesketh said:

Story had been experiencing a decline in arm strength for years when he was signed and it was one of the biggest caveats to the signing AT THE TIME IT WAS MADE. The expectation was always that he'd have to move off the position sooner rather than later. And indeed he was so good at 2B last year that it turned into something of a bonus for the team. Instead they decided to move him back to SS where they already knew his time would be limited at best.

Shades of moving Youk back to 3B in 2011 instead of keeping him at 1B and keeping Beltre at 3B. Clever stupidity.

Click to expand...

Too soon, way too soon. Sidenote I cant believe that name hasn't been dropped in the Cutting the Cord Early thread!

OurF'ingCity said:

Then you're not thinking hard enough. Just off the top of my head:

1. Getting Ottavino from the Yankees for essentially just cash.
2. Getting Kyle Schwarber for the 2021 postseason run for essentially nothing.
3. Getting Reese McGuire for Diekman (who currently has a 5.82 ERA and 5.03 FIP this year).

I mean those aren't like history-making fleecings or anything, but how often do those happen? And more importantly Bloom hasn't lost any trades really either. Mookie was an ownership directive and it's hard to argue Bloom didn't get good value under the circumstances. Other than that, what is there to criticize? Trading Benintendi, who sucks now, and who brought back Winckowski who is an important part of the bullpen? I guess the Renfroe trade was bad, but that's about it that I can think of.

Edit: Valdez for Vazquez was a solid return, and Bloom also got Reyes for essentially nothing. Again, these aren't massive trades for a star but there were no circumstances where that would have been on the table given the state of the farm system anyway.

Click to expand...

The Ottavino trade wasn’t really a good one. They paid like $8M for 0.6 fWAR. Of course, the prize was buying a “prospect” in German who put up -0.2 fWAR and was dumped in the 40 man crunch.

Saying “I guess the Renfroe trade was bad” may be the understatement of the year.

Getting McGuire, who is probably a bit above replacement level, for Diekman was a solid move. (Of course, signing Diekman wasn’t. But the strategy to sign pitchers who throw strikes came a year later).

Bloom doesn’t really seem to make all that many trades, though, for whatever reason.

joe dokes said:

They signed Chang and Mondesi, warm bodies both.

Click to expand...

Precisely, and they also got Reyes, another "warm body" and one who hits better than the Andruses and Diazes of the world anyway.

tbb345 said:

This could be true. But, if that was the case, wouldn't they have mandated that he trade salary to get under the cap at the last trading deadline?

Click to expand...

I’m not sure that Henry does the mandate thing. I think he gives his GMs broad objectives and then lets them do their thing (punting Mookie perhaps being the exception to that).

Honestly, I think that’s precisely what led to DD being jettisoned. He went all in on bringing the 2018 gang back, including the extension of Sale. I get the sense that Henry was thinking “OK, but if this fails you’re out”. It did and he was.

mauf said:

I’m with you. This particular cake was baked way back in 2019.

Perceptive fans have known for years that we would have a gap from 2021-24 or thereabouts when our good, cheap players were no longer cheap, and our rebuilt farm system wouldn’t yet be producing a steady stream of major-league ready talent. I expected ownership to spend well over the CBT threshold to bridge the gap; such is the penalty one pays for letting the farm fall into disarray the way it did during the DD years. They haven’t stepped up. That’s not on Bloom.

I’m not a full-fledged Bloom booster. He might be the right person for the job in the long run, or he might not be. But most of the ire directed Bloom’s way is for things that aren’t his fault.

Click to expand...

The trouble with the bolded is that the penalties (specifically the draft and international signing bonus penalties) for exceeding the CBT for however many years it took to bridge the gap would have had made the farm rebuild more difficult. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

John Marzano Olympic Hero said:

Not to pick on you, but people are so quick to punt seasons. "We might suck today, but we're going to be a powerhouse in 2025." There is no guarantee that the Sox will be good in 2025 or 2026 or 2027 if they play bad baseball today. This is not some sort of purgatory walk where if we deny ourselves pleasure today, we'll be better later. That's not how sports works. If it did, the Pittsburgh Pirates would have two dynasties in the last 30 years. Bad baseball sucks. Bad, boring baseball is worse.

Let me ask a simple question to the Bloom backers, are you enjoying this season? How about last season?

Click to expand...

I'm not punting--or not punting--a season. I am watching how the Red Sox have proceeded and saying, "It's obvious what they are up to." To my reading, your post indicates that you do not support thir plan. And what I'm saying is, that's fine! But it's absurd (in the absurdist sense of things, not in the judgemental sense of things) to evaluate Bloom based upon how he's executing a plan others want him to pursue rather than on how he's executing the plan he is actually pursuing.

Bloom is planting crops to be harvested at the end of a growing season. Some fans want him to spend his time shopping at the grocery store instead. Again, that's a debate worth having, as is just how well Bloom is executing *his* plan. But "are you enjoying this season?" is the equivalent of asking "are you enjoying not eating crops that have yet to be harvested?"

For my part, I agree that parts of this season have been very frustrating to watch. I wish the Sox were winning more. I predicted 85 wins, which looks like a stretch. But I have thoroughly enjoyed watching Bello emerge as a very good young pitcher. I am loving Wong's work behind the plate, and Casas's emergence, and I see good things out of Crawford and Winckowski. I am loving the Yoshida signing. I'm happy Devers is here long term. Verdugo looks like he may be an above-average everyday ball player. I'm also happy with the development in the minors of Mayer, Yorke, Anthony, Perales, and Drohan. One or two of them have a chance, as do a few others in the system. So I'm seeing what I interpret as the beginnings of a team that will be good in time. It's a bumpy road to success, but by and large I am enjoying it.

Bongorific said:

I never quite follow the “fans in Boston will never accept a rebuild” whether it’s the Sox, Patriots, whoever. The Sox have finished last 3 of 4 years. It couldn’t have been much worse. If they were trying to remain competitive while building long term stability, they have failed miserably.

Are the team’s fans, money, and facilities holding them back from building a competitive team? If only we were the Kansas City Royals…then we could really commit to building a winner!

Click to expand...

What I can't follow is how you believe that their performance over these past four seasons has been met with acceptance. Is that your position?

EDIT: It occurs to me that I may have misconstrued your point, and if so, my apologies. Perhaps you are saying that it would behoove the Sox to ditch the stealth rebuild and just tear it down and do it right. If so, I agree with that approach! And I do agree that fans would accept it.

joe dokes said:

I think this is about right. The irony being that, as opposed to "not caring about winning," ownership doesn't want a 65-win team to help them rebuild faster.

Click to expand...

Thank you for highlighting this important point, which I should have been explicit about. My guess is that Bloom--like Theo all those years ago--would vastly prefer bottoming out for two to three seasons in order to maximize the results of a rebuild rather than this attempt at a balancing act, which requires more time.

tbb345 said:

I think I'd rather be a Padres fan than a Red Sox fan. They've been struggling but they have a ton of talent and should be able to turn it around.

Click to expand...

If Bloom/ownership had shelled out numerous massive contracts and largely emptied their farm system to assemble a team that, since 2019, has yet to crack 90 wins and is currently 2 games under .500, I guarantee you people here wouldn't be saying "it's ok, we have lot of talent, we'll be fine." The grass is not always greener.

IMO, this is not a one-person problem, so all of it cannot/should not fall on the shoulders of any one person, be it Bloom, Cora, any given player, etc. The organization at the majors level seems to be caught in a mediocre cycle with multiple variables playing a role (players leaving, player injuries, ownership perceived apathy, front office choices, and so on).

From a fan's perspective, it can certainly feel like a lack of urgency to patch the sinking ship. And, yes, Bloom and the front office have far more power than most others to affect some type of change, it just doesn't feel like that change will be dramatic or noticeable for some time. I am just unsure what removing Bloom does to improve the current state of this organization on the MLB level.

Smiling Joe Hesketh said:

I mean, it's June and the team is unwatchable. They're not even a trainwreck, they're merely boring and flawed and never improve. Their defense is horrible, their team IQ low, they're playing guys out of position and they are losing series at home to awful teams.

Who as a fan wants to see that?

I echo others in saying Bloom does not have a plan that is defined enough. What exactly is he selling here? The farm system? Not elite. The big league club? Mediocre. Promise for the future? We've been hearing that for years now.

Click to expand...

Their pitching is highly watchable. They are actually 8th in OPS even including an extended hitting slump. Their bullpen is middle of the road even without Strahm and Joely. We are having this conversation in the middle of a bad luck streak of insane batted ball luck and hit sequencing that has made me want to gnaw the top off a coke bottle. The only part of the team that truly sucks is the defense, but even there, it's attributable to the depth at middle infield being undermined by injuries and might improve? Dunno.

I don't think we talk enough about how few stupid teams there are nowadays. This site seems to skew toward my age (older) and we all remember when the top teams could just rebuild on the backs of the cheap or dumb ones. How many of those teams are there now?

tbb345 said:

I think I'd rather be a Padres fan than a Red Sox fan. They've been struggling but they have a ton of talent and should be able to turn it around.

Click to expand...

Going back how far? Ask a Padres fan if they have ever preferred watching their team to ours in the last 25 years, or 50 or whatever. Last couple years, sure. Is that fanhood, just seeing who's good right now?

I will say this though: the league is stacked with talent, really high end talent, that is very very fun to watch. I won't begrudge anyone saying they enjoy watching any number of teams.

chrisfont9 said:

Their pitching is highly watchable. They are actually 8th in OPS even including an extended hitting slump. Their bullpen is middle of the road even without Strahm and Joely. We are having this conversation in the middle of a bad luck streak of insane batted ball luck and hit sequencing that has made me want to gnaw the top off a coke bottle. The only part of the team that truly sucks is the defense, but even there, it's attributable to the depth at middle infield being undermined by injuries and might improve? Dunno.

Click to expand...

Once again, not on this team any more. He's in Philly. Live in the now. He sucked anyways.

OurF'ingCity said:

If Bloom/ownership had shelled out numerous massive contracts and largely emptied their farm system to assemble a team that, since 2019, has yet to crack 90 wins and is currently 2 games under .500, I guarantee you people here wouldn't be saying "it's ok, we have lot of talent, we'll be fine." The grass is not always greener.

Click to expand...

They made the NLCS last year without Tatis. Their issues this year are that Tatis missed 3 weeks and legitimate stars in Soto/Machado/Bogaerts have significantly underperformed. I would much rather watch a struggling team with stars than the 2023 Red Sox that has no elite talent beyond Devers and Yoshida, if you count him.

johnnywayback said:

I mean, this last deadline alone he got McGuire and a prospect for Jake Diekman and got two legit prospects from Houston for two months of Christian Vazquez. He got Pham and Schwarber in two consecutive years for almost nothing. He got a prospect from the Yankees for taking on Ottavino. And I think the book is far from closed on the Betts and Benintendi trades, especially if Wong and Winckowski continue to be legit assets. But you're right, the Springs trade was a whiff. It happens.


I thought it was pretty well thought out. Story had an injury history but also a history of being a top-flight two-way shortstop. Hernandez at SS was a gamble, but I don't think anybody predicted he'd be this bad. Mondesi was supposed to be back by now. Chang was better than anyone expected. And all of this was just to cover a year and a half until Mayer was ready. It hasn't worked, but it's not like there was no plan.

Click to expand...

So the plan is just bad? The results are awful. This is the worst four year stretch of baseball the Red Sox have seen 91-94. The last time they were this close to back 2011-2015, they had a cost controlled Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Christian Vasquez, Jackie Bradley, Eduardo Rodriquez, and legendary Brock Holt.

Their top five in the system Moncada, Benintendi, Dever, Margot, and Kopech. The team had just cleared payroll and were a couple of years away from a world series.

If you are trying to say this team is even close to as in good shape as the 2015 Red Sox you are out of your mind.

Mueller's Twin Grannies said:

Once again, not on this team any more. He's in Philly. Live in the now. He sucked anyways.

Click to expand...

I suspect that he meant Shreiber. Perhaps I'm stepping on the joke, however?

OurF'ingCity said:

If Bloom/ownership had shelled out numerous massive contracts and largely emptied their farm system to assemble a team that, since 2019, has yet to crack 90 wins and is currently 2 games under .500, I guarantee you people here wouldn't be saying "it's ok, we have lot of talent, we'll be fine." The grass is not always greener.

Click to expand...

Outside of Meyer the farm is way worse than it was 2019. They probably around the same now