Do you really think that Rafaela starts in AAA? I would think he spends a month or two in AA - hes under 300 PAs there. Thats pretty light sample for a guy who didnt completely tear up the league (though he performed well). Given his zone judgement, it would seem prudent to give him some time - of the three you mention he seems the least likely to get time in MLB next year - Mata is almost guaranteed to and Walter should as long as his neck isnt completely messed up (which it completely could be since he was never able to get back on the field).
His Royal Chaimness or Will the Bloom Come Off the Rose?
- Thread starter Pozo the Clown
- Start date
I just think that this is going off course. It seems that it is has become too acceptable around here to finish in last place. It never used to happen, now it happens quite frequently and when it happens it gets excused because of a Covid, injuries, it doesn’t matter because we won 4 titles, and if it means we win 4 titles then I can deal with last place.
If I am reading the history correctly from 1967 through 2011 the RS finished last once, (1981).
Since 2012, they have finished last 5 times(2012, 2014, 2015, 2020 and 2022. That is a bad trend.
Both can be done, winning championships and not finishing last. They are mutually exclusive.
There has to be more focus on the MLB results and not whitewashing them in the context of “but on the farm,good things,..”
I disagree with the feeling that he can finish last again but gets more time if he is introducing young players who show promise at the MLB level.
if you have a 50-70 million dollar payroll like say Oakland,Pittsburg, KC, you have to play almost all young guys and the results are usually messy.
In Boston where you have a 240 million dollar payroll having young players making an impact at the MLB level means you can spend big money on elite talent elsewhere on the field to likely get you better results. It doesn’t always work that way, but a good GM should be able to pull it off.
Chaim needs to do both, introduce some young guys and then play the free agency market or trade market wisely with his excess cash.
if Bello has a good year, Casas, Whitlock, Houck, or other young guys and they still finish last then he should be gone.
If I am reading the history correctly from 1967 through 2011 the RS finished last once, (1981).
Since 2012, they have finished last 5 times(2012, 2014, 2015, 2020 and 2022. That is a bad trend.
Both can be done, winning championships and not finishing last. They are mutually exclusive.
There has to be more focus on the MLB results and not whitewashing them in the context of “but on the farm,good things,..”
I disagree with the feeling that he can finish last again but gets more time if he is introducing young players who show promise at the MLB level.
if you have a 50-70 million dollar payroll like say Oakland,Pittsburg, KC, you have to play almost all young guys and the results are usually messy.
In Boston where you have a 240 million dollar payroll having young players making an impact at the MLB level means you can spend big money on elite talent elsewhere on the field to likely get you better results. It doesn’t always work that way, but a good GM should be able to pull it off.
Chaim needs to do both, introduce some young guys and then play the free agency market or trade market wisely with his excess cash.
if Bello has a good year, Casas, Whitlock, Houck, or other young guys and they still finish last then he should be gone.
Nobody is saying he shouldn't build the team with a mix of veteran acquisitions and homegrown talent. But the rest of your post suggests that a GM has total control over exactly when prospects develop and how many wins they generate, right now, next year. It doesn't work that way. Also "last place" in a division where every team is in or nearly in the playoffs is a completely arbitrary line. This is how Steinbrenner used to talk. And why for a generation they constantly made trades like Jay Buhner for Ken Phelps. This isn't basketball or football.
Finishing "last" (actually just fifth of five geographically similar but otherwise arbitrarily chosen teams) is a bad trend? Here's a trend: Four world titles in 15 years. In a league with 30 teams. It shouldn't be too hard to understand that you have to reload sometimes. They have overdelivered, big time, but right now they're reloading. Relax.
The fact that people keep saying they "finished last" when they finished with the 14th worst record in baseball is pretty silly. 78 wins isn't that far below their preseason projections, and those projections didn't assume an insane amount of injuries.
Saying the Sox finished last in the AL East is silly? Yes, highlighting that they were “14th worst in baseball” is much easier to comprehend
Finishing last seems important in that you cannot make the playoffs if you finish in last, so it seems relevant to compare the Sox to the rest of the division, no?
And under the current system, it seems like it will be exceedingly hard to make it past the Division Series if you are not a top 2 seed, which means winning the division. The Mets may be in the process of learning this.Saying the Sox finished last in the AL East is silly? Yes, highlighting that they were “14th worst in baseball” is much easier to comprehend
Finishing last seems important in that you cannot make the playoffs if you finish in last, so it seems relevant to compare the Sox to the rest of the division, no?
When was the last time a player had a sample size that large in AA at the end of the season and didn't get promoted to AAA to start the following season? He had more PA in AA than he had in A ball. He spend more than have the season in AA.
I'd be pretty shocked if he didn't start the year in AAA.
edit: 2006 maybe? Ellsbury had 225. He got called up to AAA after 83 PA in 2007.
To give him slightly over 300 PA. That's when they also promoted Mayer and a few other guys. Right around 300 PA. Rafaela is already there.
edit: Rafaela has 313 PA in AA this year. That's not under 300. Change your mind any?
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Based on their complete lack of progress in 2022, I want Sale and Paxton to either be gone, or go up with health!
Edit: Sale had 48 innings in 2021-2022 (of which 43 were in 2021), and Paxton went 2 innings in that time.
So I would be more excited about future than past stars at this point If I had to choose from just within the current organization.
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Not really, because you can also finish 2nd in your division and not make the playoffs. You can also miss the playoffs and not be a bad team, you could even finish last in your division without having a bad team (though it's not very likely).Saying the Sox finished last in the AL East is silly? Yes, highlighting that they were “14th worst in baseball” is much easier to comprehend
Finishing last seems important in that you cannot make the playoffs if you finish in last, so it seems relevant to compare the Sox to the rest of the division, no?
Saying that you were 14th worst in the league is actually much easier to comprehend than saying you were 5th out of 5 random teams without having any other context.
I mean, ok. I don’t really think of a division as “five random teams” but you and I differ on quite a bit.
If the Sox finish first next year but with the fourth best record in baseball, will you adopt that point of reference?
Wouldn't it be impossible not to? Unless you mean they win a bye with the 4th best record in the AL, which I guess would be possible. The first division would have to be totally stacked to have the 3 best records in the league.
Otherwise, winning the division with the 4th best record lands us in the wildcard series, right?
The Cardinals winning the 2006 WS with a record of 83-78 gives a lot of weight to 5 random teams.
Maybe I don't get your point.
If you would finish 5th in one division, but in at least 4 of the 5 others your same roster would have almost certainly finished 2nd or 3rd then yeah it's pretty random.
Pretty sure the Sox will be in the same division next year, so the idea that they would be a playoff team in some alternate reality in which they are in another division seems highly irrelevant.
I will keep checking the Sox website to see when “tied for 17th best record in baseball*” schwag goes on sale (*and would have been better were it not for the random division we’ve been in forever).
Starting in 2002, the Red Sox finished with over 90 wins in 9 of 12 seasons through 2013. Then again reeled off another run 2016-2018. Having 2 of the last the last 3 under .500 is… not good. 2023 is therefore make or break.
29 other teams would trade what the Red Sox have done in the past 25 years with what they have done .
The 60 game season in 2020 matters very little. 2023 isn’t going to be “make or break” unless Bloom does something stupid.
do you think Bloom did a good job in Tampa?
do you think he has lost those skills?
If so, who would you like to be their GM?
Not really. I mistook the AB for the PA number so it isnt really that different (280 v. 313). Id agree that most top guys get promoted in about that time frame, but Rafaela has more questions with his bat than most of the major position players who have come up through the sox system recently (and certainly compared to the Mayer types).
If they think he's ready, then fine, but it doesnt seem particularly clear to me that he's ready (and as a guy who just turned 22 that isnt at all problematic for him to spend some more time at AA).
I don’t think anyone is disputing the Sox history over the last two decades, but it is a results based business and the team has unceremoniously demoted or fired two championship winning GM’s and two WS winning managers really quickly after they achieved the pinnacle of success; do you truly think a poor 2023 will have no bearing on Bloom’s future? Is ownership suddenly way more patient than they’ve ever been?
2023 being a make or break year for Bloom hardly seems like a controversial POV.
2023 being a make or break year for Bloom hardly seems like a controversial POV.
Yeah, last and middle are not the same thing for a discussion like this. If your team is the Nats, over at Sons of Ryan Zimmerman or whatever, they aren't talking about how their GM needs to get them into the playoffs next year. They are hoping to be relevant in five years. The Sox are a LONG way from last.Saying the Sox finished last in the AL East is silly? Yes, highlighting that they were “14th worst in baseball” is much easier to comprehend
Finishing last seems important in that you cannot make the playoffs if you finish in last, so it seems relevant to compare the Sox to the rest of the division, no?
I don't know if it's controversial, but it is overly simplistic. GMs have make or break years when they act like they're fantasy owners and stack the lineup with veterans that they just acquired for top dollar. That's not hard to do, call agents and throw money at them. But teams like that will be getting their asses kicked repeatedly by teams like Baltimore, Tampa, Toronto... to name a few of note, teams that have strong lineups and can keep bringing up talent from their system to plug holes. You need 25 guys, and getting your system to produce takes time. That's what Chaim and Kennedy were out talking about earlier this week. Whether it all happens in 2023 or not is not a very good indicator of whether they are doing the right things. So in that sense, making a single season into a referendum on a long-term organizational overhaul is ... not controversial per se? But it does nothing for me.
Do I think Bloom did a good job in T.B.? I have no idea, he wasn’t the GM. It’s Like asking how Brian O’Holloran is doing running the Red Sox.
The Red Sox have finished in last place 5x since 2012. Bottom of the AL East standings. That is a fact. Doesn’t matter that they had the 8th or 11th or 14th worst record in baseball. They finished last in their division.
The fact that the RS have 4 championships since 04 has no bearing on the discussion of Bloom, and how much rope he should get. He hasn’t won one. My argument is that if he crashes again next year and finishes last three out of four years with the resources available to him, he should get his walking papers. They have the highest ticket prices in the league and a huge payroll. This is a results oriented business.
Stop with the 4 championship. It has no impact on where the Sox are now. It’s like the Yanks and their obnoxious fans beating their chests about their 26 rings in 04
The Red Sox have finished in last place 5x since 2012. Bottom of the AL East standings. That is a fact. Doesn’t matter that they had the 8th or 11th or 14th worst record in baseball. They finished last in their division.
The fact that the RS have 4 championships since 04 has no bearing on the discussion of Bloom, and how much rope he should get. He hasn’t won one. My argument is that if he crashes again next year and finishes last three out of four years with the resources available to him, he should get his walking papers. They have the highest ticket prices in the league and a huge payroll. This is a results oriented business.
Stop with the 4 championship. It has no impact on where the Sox are now. It’s like the Yanks and their obnoxious fans beating their chests about their 26 rings in 04
Pham and Hosmer are terrible, they didn't help anything, and if this team were actually interested in competing, these are not guys that are 25 man roster guys on a competitive team. These moves should be roasted for eternity.
February 4th 2020
Of course they aren’t the Nationals or the A’s, but shouldn’t we take a realistic assessment of where the team is? 10th worst run differential in the league. The team’s best offensive player and two of their top three starters are free agents. They are losing some of the top players on a mediocre team; there’s a ton of work to do. Money to burn, sure, but what teams in the division (the one we play in) are we leapfrogging next year? It’s certainly possible with a good off-season but the current talent under control certainly doesn’t look to be a top team next year.
And of course the guys in charge are more bullish about the talent they’ve brought in than what they inherited, hopefully it starts reaping some benefits next season.
Gonna struggle on my phone to reply in line, and I tried my hand at being a GM yesterday and it didn’t go so well, so I am going to resist the urge to ID future GM or President of Baseball Ops candidates.
Others have responded better than me (PIAB in particular) about how well Bloom & Co are set up for 2023.
And I don’t care whether Bloom was successful in TB; I only care that he’s successful here. Plus I would argue that the skills that make you successful in TB with a small budget / market are maybe not quite as relevant in a big budget / market like New England.
But yes, I do think 2023 is make or break. Very excited about the rebuilding of minor league talent, but the public doesn’t watch the farm teams - they watch the major league team. And for better or for worse the Red Sox fan base has become accustomed to success over the past 20 years. Therefore if the Red Sox are not at least moderately competitive next year lots of people will be arguing that he should be fired. I will be among them.
Odd comment when pretty much every playoff team has a Jackie Bradley caliber player on their roster
Thank you. Division rank means nothing. Overall rank doesn't mean a whole lot outside of that season. The future is determined by the quality of your 40-man roster, your farm system, and your ability to spend. Last year the Orioles lost 110 games but had the makings of an ascendant team. They just made a 31-game jump. Should they have fired Mike Elias? He got hired around the same time as Chaim and his team kept finishing in LAST PLACE!!! Sigh.
Well they had that team this year, if you mean by "moderately competitive" a team that was in wild card contention most of the year. I don't know why that's a big marker for 2023.
Look, if you want to put a referendum on Bloom, then look to 2024. By saying the big club has to win x number of games next year and next year only, you are kind of short-circuiting their plan. They have talent coming up, but it's not all about to burst onto the scene. They have money coming off the books, but they have more in the following year when all the dead weight will be gone. And anyway, saying he has to sign the right guys right now, I mean, there are 30 teams. The Sox don't get to just snap their fingers and sign guys. Thankfully most players are at least intrigued by playing in Boston, so at least Chaim can get his calls returned. But he might not land everyone we want him to get. Players have choices.
Give him two winters at least with real money to spend, and by then, yes, he should have been able to use that to the team's betterment. By 2024 we should start to see the farm system producing. If that's all going nowhere, then maybe he isn't good at his job. But next year, I don't think that's enough time given where they are in their overhaul.
Or Joey Gallo, who with his 0.2 WAR in 126 games made the playoff roster of one of the best teams of all time
I don't think their results this season mean much for Bloom's future. His acquisitions were a net positive and Story is his only major splash so far.
Until Chaim starts making poor and lengthy FA signings like Hanley, Sandoval, Sale, Price etc, or complete whiffs on big trades that set the team back significantly, I think he has a lot of rope. Story at least has a nice floor, but if he isn't producing next year and the Sox aren't making the playoffs, that's one big strike against Bloom.
Until Chaim starts making poor and lengthy FA signings like Hanley, Sandoval, Sale, Price etc, or complete whiffs on big trades that set the team back significantly, I think he has a lot of rope. Story at least has a nice floor, but if he isn't producing next year and the Sox aren't making the playoffs, that's one big strike against Bloom.
The cool thing about what Bloom is doing is that once it's built up & rolling, we should never finish last again.
But hey let's freak out about short-term results in a ridiculously injured season (one where through no fault of Bloom's we paid Sale & Price $46m to pitch 5.2 innings) & put an ultimatum on next year.
Because he's not bold & decisive & didn't make imaginary amazing moves & blah blah blah.
There was a time that one could legitimately message board & be smarter than the Red Sox front office. That time ended a long time ago, but yet people get more & more entrenched with their vitriol & angst.
In this era, you cannot build a sustainable winning MLB team without a top tier minor league system. Period. Handwaving away building up the minors is pretty silly, but yet here we are.
Is every move going to work? Nope. Was I surprised & disappointed that they went into the season without actually replacing Renfroe? Yup.
But it's a process. & I trust it.
But hey let's freak out about short-term results in a ridiculously injured season (one where through no fault of Bloom's we paid Sale & Price $46m to pitch 5.2 innings) & put an ultimatum on next year.
Because he's not bold & decisive & didn't make imaginary amazing moves & blah blah blah.
There was a time that one could legitimately message board & be smarter than the Red Sox front office. That time ended a long time ago, but yet people get more & more entrenched with their vitriol & angst.
In this era, you cannot build a sustainable winning MLB team without a top tier minor league system. Period. Handwaving away building up the minors is pretty silly, but yet here we are.
Is every move going to work? Nope. Was I surprised & disappointed that they went into the season without actually replacing Renfroe? Yup.
But it's a process. & I trust it.
At some point, they would have to give up but 2023 would have to be dreadful. How long he has is a valid question but the answer is probably at least 2 years, which would be the end of 2024.
If the team still sucks in 2025 and the farm has shown pretty much no results, it's hard to see Bloom back for 2026. Yeah, it takes awhile to build a farm but if 2025 comes around and we are putting our hopes in an A+ SS, maybe Bloom isn't the person to build the farm. That would require a ton of failure. Personally, I like what he's doing and think we are going to see some results sooner than people think. Though it depends what they do next year.
If the team still sucks in 2025 and the farm has shown pretty much no results, it's hard to see Bloom back for 2026. Yeah, it takes awhile to build a farm but if 2025 comes around and we are putting our hopes in an A+ SS, maybe Bloom isn't the person to build the farm. That would require a ton of failure. Personally, I like what he's doing and think we are going to see some results sooner than people think. Though it depends what they do next year.
Look at the teams in the playoffs: Braves, Dodgers, Mariners, Guardians, Padres, Astros... all built from the farm system. Even the Yankees have replenished their ML lineup pretty well from the system. The Phillies are probably the only team you can't really say that about.
The Mariners are starting a run that could go for a while. Given the Astros' setup, that's one less WC. The Orioles are obviously on the way up. [Toronto was but they can't seem to get it quite right.] Nobody is going to beat these teams with a fantasy league GM just handing out huge deals to proven veteran guys going into their 30s.
This is underscores what I don't understand about the "If we don't turn it around in 2023, fire Bloom" argument. Fire him to replace him with someone who will do what? What he does only better? There really isn't another approach. Waiting for the best players to hit free agency is going to fail. Trading prospects for veterans only works when you have a stream of prospects attractive enough to trade, and that's before you get into how you field a team of veterans without exceeding the luxury tax every year. This is it. If you don't like his judgement of talent, that's fine, but in my opinion, there is no "other way" of building a team now.
Some folks here seem to be ignoring the fact that Bloom and his team delivered a deep playoff run just a year ago, complete with a satisfying WC defeat of the hated Yankees. That run likely earned Chaim some more goodwill in the ownership suite, on top of the credits he earned by willingly being the public face of 'the Red Sox traded Mookie Betts'. If a few roster missteps last winter and a disappointing finish this season has Bloom on the hot seat, then I hope these owners sell the Sox soon because such a business model would indicate to me that they are not serious about the long-term success of the enterprise. That is not to say that this isn't a results-based business - it is, obviously, and Bloom & Co. need to show progress by scoring a few wins on the free agent front and continue to develop the crown jewels of the farm system into bonafide MLB regulars. I expect they will meet the challenge and the Sox will improve from this point, even if serious championship contention may still be a few years away.
Honestly the alternative is a full teardown like BAL is coming out of now and HOU did before them. I'm not quite sure how the current BOS team would approach/attempt that but if you brought in a new GM, I think BOS would be even less likely to be genuinely competitive short-term.
They aren't ignoring it. They handwave it away as "luck". As opposed to the injuries this year that Bloom should have been prepared for.
Can we go somewhere in the middle of both of these extremes and admit that they did run into some good luck at the right time---- but there's not one team that, in my opinion, doesn't need some of that to win. But I while I'm generally a defender of Bloom... I think there's some legit (and lots of bullshit) criticism of both his pre-season
Yes. Exactly that. If the farm system doesn't produce results four years after he took it over, they should get someone who signs, drafts, and trades for better players. It's literally the job description.
I know people know this, but I also think it's important to keep front of mind how crazy these last few baseball seasons have been between the pandemic-linked uncertainty and the labor strife.
Yeah, this. There are lots of teams that attempt to rebuild via the farm system and fail because they don’t draft and develop all that well. Literally every team is attempting to develop their own talent with varying degrees of success. I don’t think the success of the Guardians and Braves or the lack there of from the Marlins or Pirates or whomever really has anything at all do with the Red Sox or Chaim Bloom.
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Glad to see the cooler heads prevailing in this thread finally after a week of utter nonsense. I would say that last year had very little to do with Bloom, they happened to catch fire at the right time, and some of Bloom's longer(ish) term moves paid off early, particularly Kiké and obviously Whitlock. Bloom's job is 95% about building the talent base and the results of that won't show up at the ML level for another year or two, if then.
I don't think I've read anything about the Sox making changes to their development. We hear a lot about acquisitions but the Braves are the Braves because they know what to do with guys once they get them. No clue at all about whether Bloom is making any impact there.
John Henry’s interview indicated they were making real investment beyond just direct player acqusition.
This comment was widely ridiculed (Sawx can’t sign X becuz fresh vegetables and sleep science!?!) so never went anywhere, but I think it has to mean investment in development.
Good. I mean, how can they not? Given the value of successful ML players, one big hit pays off a few dozen coaching/scouting salaries.
It usually takes more than four years to produce "results." Look at the people they are counting on for 2023 and the years they signed: Triston Casas (2018), Brayan Bello (2017), Ceddane Rafaela maybe (2017), Bryan Mata (2016).
Mayer should be here within your four year window, but let's have reasonable patience please.
Per Speier, apparently Hosmer has full no-trade protection triggered by his trade. This is the first time that I'm really wondering what the hell Chaim is up to.
If Hosmer is going to be on the bench, he'd probably rather be traded to a team that will play him.
Bloom is probably confident he can talk Hosmer into waiving his no trade clause if he decides to trade him.
He gets paid the same either way, but being a starter in, say, Minneapolis beats being third string in Boston.
Thank you guys for talking me down.
More substantively, I am expecting Hosmer to end up in Marlins neon.
More substantively, I am expecting Hosmer to end up in Marlins neon.