He wasn’t hired to “collect prospects”. He was hired to put a sustainably excellent major league team in the field. And he understands that to do that he has to create the system below the major league level to consistently produce major league level talent.The World Series is going to end soon, which means that the Red Sox and Chaim Bloom are going to have to make a lot of decisions that will substantially impact the future of the franchise.
Alex Speier outlines many of them here: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/11/03/sports/red-sox-have-some-key-offseason-decisions-due-soon-here-is-what-expect/
I want to believe in Chaim Bloom's ability to make the right decisions. He seems earnest and bright. And even likable.
But I do not. I know that the sample size is small and that Chaim was arguably hired to be the Anti-Dombrowski...to build the system and collect prospects, while still being competitive year to year. And I also know that John Henry, if he has any sense of fairness at all, is unlikely to fire Bloom any time soon. The latter is seemingly doing the former's bidding. And yes, under Chaim Bloom's watch, the Sox were very close to making the World Series just last season
But I am not all confident that Bloom is going to make the right decisions in order to get the Sox back to the playoffs any time soon.
My reasons are all factors that are well known, and include:
- That he hasn't locked up either Devers or Bogaerts yet. Never mind both.
- The Renfroe-JBJ/prospects trade.
- Not signing Schwarber and getting someone like Julio Inglesias to play 2B or Iglesias himself if he was willing, and instead using his wallet on Trevor Story, who had a down year in 2021 and put up all of his numbers while a member of the Rockies.
- His penchant for picking up mediocre, at best, cast off from other teams.
- The trade of Christian Vazquez as the one "sell now" move when he kept everyone else in order to contend.
I am well aware that there are arguments for each of the moves he made, and that there are mitigating factors. And that he made smart moves like signing Michael Wacha. I also know that the individual decisions I have pointed to have been discussed many times on SoSH, and that prospects like David Hamilton are intriuging.
But for me, the sum total speaks volumes, and things like hating the Renfroe trade, being pissed off that they didn't sign Schwarber and get Iglesias, and being equally pissed that they did sign Story, were all first guesses, with the results being very close to what I expected.
So I don't trust Chaim Bloom to fix my team. To the contrary, I think he will fail miserably.
I would like to be very freaking wrong about that.
Do you think I will be? Do you think Bloom will, in fact, put together a winning team next season or soon thereafter? And if so, why do you think that?
And do you agree that John Henry is going to give Master Bloom lots of leeway?
EDIT: I just remembered that we already have a thread on Chaim Bloom. This new thread may be duplicative and there may not be any need for another thread on essentially the same topic. My apologies, if that's the case! Lock the thread as necessary!
So this has all been step one in the process.
Yes I trust Chaim.