Do people honestly believe Chris Sale would have approved a trade to Texas while he was on the IL recovering from his finger break? Honest question because people are often leaving the part out about Sale’s 10/5 rights.
The Red Sox have fired Chaim Bloom
- Thread starter Smiling Joe Hesketh
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Maybe not, but it terms of process, it's just as much a failure to not at least put it in Sale's hands.
I would assume the fact that they have incredible pitching has a lot more to do with it. Generally speaking you're going to have a better chance to win a game when you have a decent starting pitcher facing the other team.
FWIW, if the Sox had 5 starters ranging from "excellent to really darn good", I don't think they'd have fallen apart after the deadline either. Of course, Seattle's 5th best starter (Woo) is better than anyone the Red Sox have or had not named Bello, but if the Sox had that starting rotation, I'd have said not to punt either last year or this year also. Of course, they don't, and here we are.
Which, not for nothing, but both Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo were taken in the 2021 MLB draft. Miller in the 4th round (8 picks after Elmer Rodriguez Cruz). Woo in the 6th (8 slots after the Sox took Daniel McElveny).
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If you listened to Millar and O'Brien last night, you'd think they were the mouthpieces for big market fans: Go all in and ravage the farm system! Field a team of all-stars! SMH
They needed to throw some red meat to the Shaughnessy crowd, and not be so obvious about it (since they have a rep for doing this now). Credit to Henry for at least being clever about it instead of just claiming he had a problem with his medications.
My more serious Mariner friends didn't think much of Miller even this spring. Their hit rate on pitching right now is kind of incredible. Buuuuut...
https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/statcast-park-factors
Having moved the walls around, T-Mob is still the most pitcher friendly environment in baseball, by this stat-blob anyway. And Fenway trails only Coors for hitters. So those Mariner pitching successes may be fueled by subtle differences generating confidence and everything falling nicely into place.
Generally speaking, and I don't care to take the numbers to look this up, I think we all agree that Fenway is one of the more hitting friendly parks in the game. I remember looking up recently that after the walls were moved around in Camden, Fenway is now the only AL East part with a multi year favoring toward hitters over pitchers in the AL East, which is nuts when you think about it (BBRef has multi year park factors at 107 / 107).
That said, I know ERA plus at least attempts to adjust for park impacts, and Miller and Woo are both at 106 and 105, respectively. Though truth be told, if forced to guess, I'd lean toward them producing more in line with their 4.28 and 4.18 xFIPs at Fenway Park, and facing the AL East line ups vs the AL West line ups. However, both of those would be very nice to have locked in for the next 5 or 6 seasons at low cost.
However, it was more meant to be "the reason Seattle went 20-4 is their stupid good and deep starting pitching" as opposed to saying "Bloom passed on these guys?!?!" (because to be fair all MLB teams passed on them for 3 and 5 rounds, respectively). However, it does show that saying the Red Sox couldn't possibly have been expected to find starting pitching in the last 4 drafts that could be helping now is a bit of a strawman; plenty teams, including contenders, have done just that (probably why they're contending).
Woo and Miller for Seattle in the 2021 draft; Bobby Miller at the end of the first round in 2020 and Emmett Sheehan in the 6th round in 2021 for LAD; Atlanta with Strider in the 4th round in 2020 and Elder in the 5th round of 2020; Clevalend with Gavin Williams 1st round of 2021, Logan Allen 2nd round of 2020 and Tanner Bibee 5th round of 2021. I don't know what the "secret sauce" is to what those teams are doing relative to their drafting and development operations, but I'd really like the Sox to get in on THAT along with their financial resources. Houston belongs in here too the way they've developed pitching out of nowhere - but it has admittedly taken them longer.
Honestly, I find the way those franchises have developed pitching to be incredibly impressive and would be focused on someone from one of those trees.
*It's also why Click appeals to me, why I totally get the appeal of Gomes and am surprised that Sestanovich and Fast aren't getting more pub; not that "pub" really means anything in terms of the search.
Yeah. I do wonder how much confidence changes things, that pitcher A in Seattle isn't pitcher A in Boston because maybe he doesn't just change uniforms and throw exactly the same. That one can't really be measured, but IMO confidence is a massive factor for everyone in this league.
As to the development, it's been way too long but the Sox have seen lots of very encouraging strides in their pitching prospects this season. Not at AAA, not guys about to pop, more like guys who are a couple years off, but still. We have a right to point at everything you mention and feel disappointed, but maybe not for much longer.
Overall I agree with the majority of your post but there is one fact that you keep repeating that is factually 100 percent wrong. You stated that the Pirates have been rebuilding since Bonds left in 1993. The Pirates did make the playoffs three straight years while Gerit Cole was their top pitcher from 2010 to 2013. Doesn't change the overall facts or tone of your post but just wanted to correct the record.
You're right, of course and this is all very true, though the years were 2013-15. In those years the Pirates finished:
94-65 (second place)
88-74 (second place)
98-64 (second place)
They only advanced to the NL Division series once in 2013, losing to the Cards 4-3. Maybe I over exaggerated a bit that the Bucs have been a complete disaster since 1993, but in the 30 seasons since they played a grand total of 10 post season games. Or one game every three years. The spirit in which I wrote that sentence, I think, is there that the Pirates' constant rebuilding, despite having three good seasons out of 30, hasn't gone very well. I'd like to add the Royals in that mix, but they won a World Series through their fourth or fifth rebuild. So maybe the Process works? Sometimes?
The main point is that just because a team decides to burn down the team in the name of a rebuild doesn't mean that it's going to be a Phoenix rising from Arizona in a four years.
One of the biggest issues with the Red Sox pitching is the defense. The Red Sox are last in the league at -50 OAA (next worst is -30). The Mariners are 8th at +18. It's not just errors that kill pitchers. Not making outs that should be outs extends innings, makes a pitcher throw more pitches, leads to more runs, & shortens starts.
Like if you look at xFIP & other predictive stats, the Red Sox guys are competitive with all these shining beacons of pitching who don't have to play in the AL East in a top 3 hitters park with the worst defense in baseball.
Like if you look at xFIP & other predictive stats, the Red Sox guys are competitive with all these shining beacons of pitching who don't have to play in the AL East in a top 3 hitters park with the worst defense in baseball.
I was completely unaware that O'Halloran got demoted. Too busy focussing on Chaim I guess.
It doesn't matter much but the Pirates got really screwed by the system in that period, losing consecutive 1-0 single game wild card games to peak Madison Bumgarner and peak Jake Arrietta. In 2015, they literally had the second best record in all of MLB but because STL was two games better, they had to play the WC game and lost to CHC/Arrietta, who was in the midst of one of the great pitching stretches of alltime.
I have written and erased about 20 responses to this whole thread. Reading it has been cathartic. I did not like Bloom. I liked him when he was originally hired, but soured on him. and your post (edited) is a big piece why.
Yeah, my point was related to narratives & quitting because your team wasn't a "buyer".
If the Red Sox players quit at the deadline 2 years in a row because they weren't buyers as was posited, it's pretty silly to put that just on Bloom & not literally everyone in the building.
Their memory apparently is selective - this was written after the Red Sox after 2019 trade deadline but it sounds an awful lot like what got Bloom fired:
MLB.com - As Deadline passes, Red Sox confident in team
I'm sure Dombrowski sought to bolster the juggernaut 2018 team, which makes perfect sense, but he seemed to be following the exact same logic in 2019 as his successor would.
Well, no matter what you think of the systems at the time- they certainly had less chips to deal at the 2019 deadline (hence why the big move was Andrew Cashner). They were 5 out on July 31, and 6 out on Aug 31.
The Pirates got screwed but they also screwed up. They didn't make moves to improve the 2015 team, which went into the last day with a chance to catch the Cardinals, because they didn't want to mortgage the future. But three years later, with a much worse team only on the fringe of wild-card contention, they traded away Glasnow, Meadows and Baz for Chris Archer.
If you're going to trade prospects, do it when you have a real shot, like the 2015 Royals.
Bloom served his purpose. He absolutely took the heat for Betts deciding he was going to free agency. The trade cemented his fate. Bloom attempted to finesse a rebuild while the division started graduating prospects.
I admire Bloom for taking the beating like a good company man. I absolutely hate the way he was let go with games left on the schedule. Nothing wrong with firing him the day after the season ends. A real low class move by FSG.
I was never sold on Bloom but buy in to draft/develop/weaponize/spend philosophy of team building. I am afraid the Sox are going to hire someone that is too “decisive and creative” that could demolish the pipeline and saddle the team with bad contracts from high risk acquisitions. I am hoping for the best. Because laundry.
I admire Bloom for taking the beating like a good company man. I absolutely hate the way he was let go with games left on the schedule. Nothing wrong with firing him the day after the season ends. A real low class move by FSG.
I was never sold on Bloom but buy in to draft/develop/weaponize/spend philosophy of team building. I am afraid the Sox are going to hire someone that is too “decisive and creative” that could demolish the pipeline and saddle the team with bad contracts from high risk acquisitions. I am hoping for the best. Because laundry.
Y’all keep saying Bloom took the heat/sealed his fate by trading Mookie but are here defending him a couple last place/.500 years later. Seems he got as long a leash as any Boston GM, including ones who won here.
While Bello, Druan, Crawford and Rafaela were all in the system at the 2019 deadline, I don't think any were regarded as top prospects. I think you can give credit to Bloom and the development people he put in place for helping to maximize their performance in the ensuing years.
But I do think Dombrowski was probably getting offers of immediate help for the 19-year-old first baseman who was a first-round pick and on his way to a 20-homer season in A ball. Good on Dave for not dealing Casas in a push to get a wild card.
Maybe his leash was longer because his mandate to clean everything up made the job less attractive? System is better, finances are reset, assets available to trade. More years removed from Betts and Xander. Seems like the worst is over. Next guy up has a low bar to clear.
Bloom had his chance with poor results. The results that would get executives across all businesses canned. I just think it’s bad FSG is not front and center. Bloom takes much less heat if they fire him after the season. But now we hear about non trades, divided staff and candidates that get out of their offices. Weak sauce.
The last three GM’s were fired during September- I think all may have been during the middle of series against the Yankees. This is nothing new. Mark your calendars for September 2027 for the next one.
Those stories were going to come out regardless, that’s the nature of the beast now. As many other people have stated in this thread, the Red Sox actually did Chaim a solid firing him when they did. He gets a head start on looking for other jobs. Plus, if they knew they were going to fire him, why wait a couple of weeks? That helps no one
I have to admit, the contrast between the whole "he did what they asked him to do" line of thinking and the predictions thread having most people believing they'd have a better record than they'll end up with is a little funny.
In our current world of draft compensation caps, you can't just look at what round guys were picked in anymore; you have to look whether they were overslot, slot, or underslot. I am copying my earlier post about Bloom's 2022 draft - every pitcher taken before round 11 were underslot either by a little or a lot (saving money to pick up a premium (overslot) position player. He did sign 7 pitchers after round 11 but again, none of them were overslot.
Bloom had a clear strategy of trying to save cap money on pitchers to pick up a premium hitter while trying to develop the less heralded pitchers through a development process that Bloom tried hard to improve. It's apparently the same strategy as CLE and I don't know if that's the same strategy as SE, LAD, and ATL but when someone shops in the clearance rank, yes they will occasionally find spectacular value but most often they'll be wearing cheap clothes.
People should stop saying this. Bloom's responsibilities weren't tied to the games left on the schedule. You know what the FO is doing this month? Preparing for the off-season. Evaluating potential free agents and trade targets, deciding which assets in the farm they want to build around and which they're willing to dangle in trade. If Bloom's not the guy who is going to make those decisions, you shouldn't keep him around to lead that work. Oh, and the offseason heats up quickly, so if this is going to be a "broad search" as Kennedy said it would be, the extra three weeks to jump start that search are important.
Despite everything I still feel he and Cora should have been given one more year and that’s it. Playoffs or done for both
Fair point - and for the record I'm not trying to say "Bloom sucks, he didn't draft this guy" but I am pushing back on the narrative that Bloom couldn't possibly have done something differently / better in regards to the minor league system or that it was somehow impossible to have good minor league pitching in the high minors or the majors by this point is a strawman argument. Also, I think it's fair to look at whom he chose at a certain position, and see what picks around that position and at that same bonus slot happened to do and judge him accordingly.
He chose to implement the drafting / signing / development pipeline that he did. It has yielded a very strong farm system, at minimum in terms of the prospect industry complex. It has also exacerbated an issue with the Red Sox having pretty bad starting pitching tat the AA, AAA and MLB levels (and I'll allow that someone might know more about the lower levels than I do and if they want to tell us that our A and A+ staffs are the best in baseball, I'll agree with them).
It's why I don't sit there and hem and haw about him taking Nick Yorke at 17 for $2.7m as opposed to Pete Crow Armstrong (19/$3.4m) or Jordan Walker (21/$2.9m) just because they're far better prospects. However, I will judge him on not taking Bobby Miller (29/$2.2) or even Jordan Westburg (30/$2.4m) if there is an insistence he wanted up the middle players.
Similarly, in 2021 while it's incredibly unfair to say "why didn't he take Bryan Woo in the 3rd round instead of Tyler McDonough" (because Woo was 3 freaking rounds later) it's absolutely fair to question the decision that led to taking Elmer Rodriguez Cruz at 105 for $497k while Bryce Miller went at pick 113 for $400k.
Even if he kept every other move the same, those two changes where if the rotation this year (and for the future) were Bello, Bobby Miller, Bryce Miller, Kutter Crawford and room for one major addition this offseason but we didn't have Nick Yorke and Elmer Rodriguez Cruz; Bloom probably still has a job (and rightly so).
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Listening to Jared Carrabis on Mazz' show last night, it sounds very clear that Cora would make requests of additions to the major league team and Chaim, while being respectful, didn't necessarily follow through with those requests, whereas the comparison made was to Dombrowski,who would go out and fill holes that Cora wanted addressed in the major league team.
Bloom sounds like from all accounts a wonderful person (Mookie couldn't have said nicer things about him), but the idea that the Mookie trade was what did him in is incorrect, IMO. Over the last two seasons he has put a major league product on the field that didn't play significant September baseball, with a payroll north of 200 million, one that in fact exceeded luxury tax thresholds. I would think any executive who spent that kind of money two years in a row and won less than 80 games would have a hard time demonstrating he should come back.
Put a different way - in the last 2 years only 8 of the 28 teams with payrolls in the top half of baseball (according to Spotrac) had below 500 records. Boston and LAA did it both years. We are their equivalent. No one is clamoring for that executive team.
So yes, if Bloom had drafted a pitcher that went through the minors in something like 22 months and became a legit major league contributor, that would have helped quite a bit. That's also pretty rare. I'll note that I knew pretty much zero about Bryce Miller until you referenced him and after reading this - https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/mariners/how-bryce-miller-became-latest-sensation-in-mariners-pitching-rich-pipeline/ (he had a 6.41 ERA in AA in April of this year?), I'll note that even SEA probably wasn't expecting him to move as fast as he did.
As for your last point, it's always been super interesting to me that GMs in all sports are judged in large part by their ability to draft but everything I've heard and read says that drafting is mostly a function of draft position and luck. I know in recent years that teams have seemingly been able to develop in overtly better ways than other teams (TB, LAD, SEA's recent pitching) and I'd be super interested if anyone has studied whether these teams are actually turning drafting/development into a repeatable skill.
If it is, then the one person the Red Sox needs to run their organization is the person who can demonstrate a repeatable skill in drafting/development.
I wonder how much the Barraclough outing played into this. That absolutely seemed like a situation where Cora was put in an impossible situation. A situation that to some extent Bloom has to shoulder some responsibility.
I also wonder if the appalling quality of play in the field (and base paths) made the performance even harder to stomach than the record might indicate. No one was even close to the train wreck they put out there (OAA) and it looked like it was a much of beer league mashers way to often for a $200m team trying to rebuild into something.
With Cora potentially persisting, the organization seems to have clearly laid the blame for quality of play at the feet of Bloom (with actions if not words).
I wouldn't bring him back for one more year because he's a wonderful person.... I just feel like the team (whether DD's drafts picks, fuckups, etc... or not) this is officially HIS team and I can see very clearly where it was going for next year with two additions to the rotation and some decisions at SS/2B and maybe the OF and I could see where he seemed poised to make those moves and decisions.
If I was Bloom, I'd be a little pissed about this. It seems from my POV that he's been doing exactly what the FO required of him over the past 4 years and now they pull it out from underneath him because they're not confident he can finish it??? It seems that he wasn't actually allowed to prove them wrong (I don't buy into any of the TX-Sale or Turner-Miami stuff) or right even.
I have no idea what the FO is doing this month. I do know letting Bloom go with a few weeks left is a distraction to the team and absolutely fills the space with Bloom blame.
Gives Bloom a head start looking? GTFOH
Give FSG room to maneuver? GTFOH
How about a conference with the top FSG guys discussing how they are going to spend and put the team in a position to win? Maybe share just a little of the blame. Maybe Speier can ask why they constantly cycle through GMs. Let them detail their plan… this is what we’re looking for, lessons learned, proud franchise deserves more, etc.
It's probably worth noting that while Seattle probably didn't expect Miller to move that quickly, the organization has a very good reputation for pitching development. Miller, Bryan Woo, Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, and Emerson Hancock were all drafted in 2018 or later and have all made it to the majors; aside from Luis Castillo, their rotation is entirely homegrown. (And part of the package to get Castillo was Brandon Williamson, a 2019 second-round pick who's been a useful part of Cincinnati's rotation.) Compare that to the mixed results the Red Sox have gotten from their own homegrown group of Bello, Houck, Crawford, et cetera. Pitcher development is hard, but it's not magic, and it simply wasn't a strong suit for this FO.
Edit - @TheYellowDart5 said it better one post above.
Which is why anyone (not necessarily you @wade boggs chicken dinner) simply making blanket statements that it's unreasonable to expect the Red Sox to have high quality pitching prospects in the upper minors or breaking into the bigs over Bloom's 4 years is a strawman argument. Had he picked differently, he certainly could have. Would we be better or worse for it - who knows.
I tend to think baseball is different in terms of of luck based on the sheer number of players available and those taken, as well as the prevalence on the international scouting. NBA is certainly a function of position. I follow the NHL or NFL enough to have any opinion whatsoever.
I personally accept that there are teams out there that have a legitimate skill in developing pitching (the three you mentioned, add Miami, Cleveland, Atlanta and Houston to that list, though Houston tends to do more via the international markets) where it is a repeatable skill. Unfortunately, I just think FSG picked the wrong guy from those trees to do it.
It's why I have said many times (mostly starting last off-season when I stopped lurking and started posting) that FSG chose the right strategy but not the right person to implement that strategy. It's why I'm hoping for one of (no particular order) Sestanovich, Fast, Click, Hazen or Gomes (I'd accept Romero, but my preference is admittedly to get someone from outside based on what we know). Not that I've seen him mentioned in the media (for whatever that's worth) but I really like Hollander as well.
It's also why I have no interest in someone like AJ Preller, Billy Eppler or truth be told even Mike Elias (their offense is outstanding, their pitching is nearly as bad as the Sox).
As the article notes, the development coincides with the hiring of Max Weiner, whose job is (according to the article) as follows:
Weiner serves as a bridge in the Mariners’ player-development program. He works with every aspect of the organization — from Jerry Dipoto and Justin Hollander in the front office, to the scouts who identify pitchers with potential, to the analytics department that identifies interesting pitch qualities, to pitching coaches at various affiliates, to Woodworth and Trent Blank on the major-league staff — and pulls all the information together and tries to distill it down into something digestible for each pitcher.
Weiner’s gift is his ability to connect the dots, to bond with pitchers on a personal level, build a plan, build trust and build belief in that individual.
“He really understands his pitchers from a personality standpoint and from a competitive standpoint,” said Mark Lummus, a Mariners scout since 1999. “He’s so good at creating relationships with these pitchers, and they’re able to be the best version of themselves because of the time and investment he puts in.”
A little-used pitcher at Florida International University, Weiner spent much of his time in college learning everything he could about the art and science of pitching. He absorbed books on coaching, obsessed over pitchers’ biomechanics and asked endless questions of coaches and teammates.
That inspired him to start the Arm Farm, his program to develop young pitchers. That caught the attention of the Cleveland Guardians, who hired him to be their minor-league pitching coordinator in 2017. A year later, the Mariners lured him away.
Causation? Correlation? Magic? Luck? Skill? Would be interesting to find out. I'll note that the old adage in baseball was that if a team has "four starting pitchers who are good in the minor leagues, is if [the team ends] up with one good starter and one good reliever out of those four, you’re doing pretty well". By internally developing four starters, they are an unbelievable roll. And if they can keep doing this, they're going to be tough out for years.
I think it's all of the above, luck being the residue of design and all that. But to me it raises the question primarily of what was the Bloom FO doing, and why has it not worked? And the fact that it hasn't worked at all over the course of four years suggests that there's a flaw endemic to the way Bloom et al are doing things, and that the solution is a change at the top.
What Bloom was trying to do was (at least) what CLE is doing. See this article I've posted before: https://www.overthemonster.com/2023/7/11/23790982/the-red-sox-have-a-clear-mlb-draft-strategy-chaim-bloom. Bloom was not alone trying to maximize (spend most money on) drafted position players and trying to develop pitching.
I would guess that Bloom would say that development requires a system in place; that the Red Sox had let their system atrophy; that his biggest priority was to overhaul the development system (which he invested a lot of time, effort, and money - see, e.g., https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/09/17/sports/was-chaim-blooms-reshaping-red-sox-farm-system-success/), but the overhaul needs time to work and was just beginning to bear fruit.
He would also probably say that change isn't always good but at the end of the day, the most important thing for the REd Sox to do is to keep the team's commitment to building the best development system they possibly can.
Because it all added up to a bigger rebuild. Most rebuilds involve losing at the major league level.
The Sox have been losing at the major league level in 3 out of the past four years, haven't they?
I don't recall much Mookie talk in October of 2021. Not much that offseason either.
If the team kept making the playoffs we wouldn't be relitigating the Mookie trade.
Bloom's out because the last couple seasons have stunk. It doesn't need to be more complicated than that. The Henry ownership group has a two-decade standard of that criteria. No playoffs in 2010 & 2011? Bye Theo. No playoffs in 2014-15? See ya Ben. Obviously Dombrowski got the shortest leash imaginable. Bloom hasn't been wronged, and Henry isn't caving to fan pressure or whatever. It's lose for 2 straight years and you're gone.
So, team mouthpiece Carrabis goes on with Mazz to parrot the same narrative that team broadcaster O'Brian and Globe writer Speier discussed on the Sox broadcast the night before? It's pretty evidently an orchestrated campaign to justify the decision and put all of the blame on Bloom. Whether you agree with this move or not, that's shitty behavior. They really make it hard to be a fan sometimes.
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