Bloom gets a bad rap in that many of his critics won't acknowledge how tough a situation he came into. He didn't take over the 108 win World Series champions. He took over an 84 win team with some excellent core players but also with a sky high payroll, some bad contracts, and enough holes that a team with nearly 18 WAR combined from Mookie Betts, Chris Sale, and Eduardo Rodriguez still won only 6 more games than the 2022 Red Sox. As time went on and the holes grew bigger, there was little to nothing in the farm system to cheaply fill them. This was the SoxProspects top 20 at the end of 2019:
Triston Casas
Bryan Mata
Jay Groome
Gilberto Jimenez
Bobby Dalbec
Jarren Duran
Tanner Houck
Noah Song
CJ Chatham
Thaddeus Ward
Ryan Zeferjahn
Aldo Ramirez
Chris Murphy
Matthew Lugo
Nick Decker
Cameron Cannon
Brayan Bello
Antoni Flores
Ceddanne Rafaela
Marcus Wilson
That's it. That's the cost controlled talent the Sox have had to add to their roster for the past 3 years.
This was a hard, hard job. The Angels extended Mike Trout, signed Anthony Rendon to a splashy deal, lucked into the most uniquely valuable player of the last 100 years, and just finished their 7th consecutive sub .500 season. Bloom didn't want to be the Angels. He hasn't been perfect. But given the degree of difficulty, I don't know what approach would have had better results. Keeping the 84 win 2019 Red Sox together would have resulted in $144 million of spending (tax numbers, and that includes the 17.5 figure for Devers) for just seven players -- Devers, Mookie, Sale, Xander, Eovaldi, E-Rod, and Benintendi. With massive long term commitments. And if you want to say "well, I would have kept Mookie but not signed E-Rod and Benny", fine. Tell me how you are going to replace them for less money. And then fill out the rest of the roster for the past three years.