With Chaim Bloom’s expected hire, this should be an exciting, if possibly painful, offseason. In contrast to the news and notes thread, I’m hoping this can be a place to discuss strategy and potential paths in roster construction to get back in contention, including and beyond questions about Mookie and JDM.
The latter’s opt-out is the first domino, then it’s probably the decision to extend or trade Mookie — and I happen to think the Bloom hire signals an intend to extend, as one of Bloom’s strengths is finding cheap production elsewhere, and tasking Romero/Ferreira/O’Halloran/Scott with trading him would have scattered the blame.
As I see it, replacing Dombrowski with Bloom could foretell two distinct shifts.
1. The Rays have been one of the more active front offices in baseball the past few years. Under Dombrowski, the Red Sox have made some big moves, but have otherwise been one of the least active. The current Sox roster is obviously more static, but I’d still wager that we’ll see more transactions overall — which is exciting, because the Rays have “won” trades for Pham, d’Arnaud, Pagan, Choi, Anderson, Diaz, and Meadows/Glasnow in the the last 18 months.
2. We could see a pivot away from traditional starters and toward the ‘opener’. The Sox toyed with that in some Eovaldi starts late last year, but I could see the team targeting once-through-the-order pitchers, as Boston’s starting pitching needs don’t seem fill-able in this winter’s particular starting pitcher market.
The Rays have excelled at finding incredible value in free agents, particularly the bullpen, where they’ve coaxed useful years out of scrap heap guys like Oliver Drake and Colin Poche.
What does Bloom do with the Sox roster? Who stays? Who goes? Who are the targets?
Free agents
Porcello
Holt
Moreland
Pearce
Chacín
Centeno
(Sandoval)
Options
Martinez (3/$62.5m player opt-out, $2.5m buyout)
Cashner ($10m team option)
Non-tender candidates
León ($2.8m proj. arb)
Travis (FA 2025; one option remaining; limited utility)
Hembree ($1.6m proj. arb, potentially lingering elbow issues)
The latter’s opt-out is the first domino, then it’s probably the decision to extend or trade Mookie — and I happen to think the Bloom hire signals an intend to extend, as one of Bloom’s strengths is finding cheap production elsewhere, and tasking Romero/Ferreira/O’Halloran/Scott with trading him would have scattered the blame.
As I see it, replacing Dombrowski with Bloom could foretell two distinct shifts.
1. The Rays have been one of the more active front offices in baseball the past few years. Under Dombrowski, the Red Sox have made some big moves, but have otherwise been one of the least active. The current Sox roster is obviously more static, but I’d still wager that we’ll see more transactions overall — which is exciting, because the Rays have “won” trades for Pham, d’Arnaud, Pagan, Choi, Anderson, Diaz, and Meadows/Glasnow in the the last 18 months.
2. We could see a pivot away from traditional starters and toward the ‘opener’. The Sox toyed with that in some Eovaldi starts late last year, but I could see the team targeting once-through-the-order pitchers, as Boston’s starting pitching needs don’t seem fill-able in this winter’s particular starting pitcher market.
The Rays have excelled at finding incredible value in free agents, particularly the bullpen, where they’ve coaxed useful years out of scrap heap guys like Oliver Drake and Colin Poche.
What does Bloom do with the Sox roster? Who stays? Who goes? Who are the targets?
Free agents
Porcello
Holt
Moreland
Pearce
Chacín
Centeno
(Sandoval)
Options
Martinez (3/$62.5m player opt-out, $2.5m buyout)
Cashner ($10m team option)
Non-tender candidates
León ($2.8m proj. arb)
Travis (FA 2025; one option remaining; limited utility)
Hembree ($1.6m proj. arb, potentially lingering elbow issues)