In Chaim Do You Trust?

Do you trust Chaim Bloom to help bring the Sox back to contention?


  • Total voters
    324
  • Poll closed .

BaseballJones

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Oct 1, 2015
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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!
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.

So this has all been step one in the process.

Yes I trust Chaim.
 

Super Nomario

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As an aside, I know Kyle Schwarber is playing the World Series and is an easy guy to root for, but he put up 2.2 WAR in 500+ at-bats this year, while Story put up 2.5 in 350 at-bats. Why would signing Schwarber have been the better move (Other than that he's a fan favorite)?
It's not just Schwarber or Story though. They could have signed Schwarber instead of signing James Paxton and acquiring JBJ.

Without that trade they're probably about 3 wins better (Renfroe's 2.7 WAR, JBJ -0.5), so not really the reason they weren't so good this year on its own.
"The team as a whole was so bad that this one terrible move didn't matter" is a curious defense of Bloom.


Yeah...I have no issue. The return on Vazquez was really nice for an impending free agent & they were able to replace what he was providing by unloading Diekman & getting back a cost-controlled, better defensive catcher who has 3 more arb years. Seems like a win/win.
I agree here. Bloom took a lot of heat for incoherence at the trade deadline but McGuire and Hosmer (at his contract) have value beyond 2022, and they didn't give up much of anything.

I can't believe how many people think that JBJ was acquired to play every day and that injuries didn't wreck their plan.
Who was going to play RF if not for injuries?
 

moondog80

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Sep 20, 2005
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It's not just Schwarber or Story though. They could have signed Schwarber instead of signing James Paxton and acquiring JBJ.
1. They already had a no-field DH.
2. Paxton was more or less an expenditure for 2022 only (2023 was only if the Sox wanted it), which was a big deal.
 

JM3

often quoted
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Dec 14, 2019
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"The team as a whole was so bad that this one terrible move didn't matter" is a curious defense of Bloom.
The team was bad this year for a ton of reasons - most of them beyond Bloom's control.

A lot of Bloom's moves have been necessitated by the payroll/prospect crunch created by the previous regime. When you have huge contracts in place on non-performing players & no cheap major league ready talent waiting to come up, you have to do creative things if you're trying to both contend short term, but more importantly long term.

Explaining that whole worldscape would take hours I don't really have (plus maybe switching to a computer). So it's easier just to go move by move.

The things that Bloom could have done to help this year, but not really long term, are things like keep Renfroe & re-sign Schwarber instead of taking on JBJ/Paxton.

That would add an extra $7m or so of payroll & what like 5 wins to the team?

I liked the Paxton flyer. The chance to land a guy with front end of the rotation stuff for a minimal investment seems like a really good use of not a lot of $ with very little downside considering the reasonable (if he'd gotten healthy) team option for next year.
 

chawson

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Aug 1, 2006
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I'm a solid yeah here. The only move of Bloom's that has worried me has been the potentially botched prospect evaluation of Alex Binelas, but that's hardly settled.

It remains underappreciated that all three of Bloom's offseasons have been under extremely atypical circumstances. That's also true of every other team, but it's particularly tough when you're in a complicated rebuild like ours.
 

chawson

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I feel like this has been discussed a billion times, but read the quotes from when Bloom acquired him - it was all about the importance of having a “second CF” in right and how he thought JBJ would bounce back (He also has the worst substitute / PH stats of all time). . Hell, they broke camp with Arroyo as the backup OF. If Jackie was acquired as a backup, who exactly was supposed to be the starter?

And it was actually a worthwhile gamble- JBJ was still a really goofs player at Fenway. He was just miserable everywhere else, which really makes little sense.
JBJ was acquired not as the backup, but as an easily supplant-able nominal starter with a high defensive floor. In reality, the position was designed for the year as a five-man timeshare/competition between JBJ, Duran, Cordero, Refsnyder and Arroyo.

I think we also have to allow for the possibility that Bloom thought so highly of Refsnyder's bat after his recent swing changes in Minnesota's system that he felt he was roughly as valuable as Renfroe at one-fifth the cost. None of us thought so at the time and enthusiasm for Refsnyder on this board was derided, but it turned out to be true.
 

BeantownIdaho

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Dec 5, 2005
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As an aside, I know Kyle Schwarber is playing the World Series and is an easy guy to root for, but he put up 2.2 WAR in 500+ at-bats this year, while Story put up 2.5 in 350 at-bats. Why would signing Schwarber have been the better move (Other than that he's a fan favorite)?
I like both players, but I'm guessing the thought is 61 million less... more games played....more offense.
 

Sandy Leon Trotsky

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Mar 11, 2007
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Trust with reservations. I think he's operating under two poles that are near impossible to balance- build for long term sustained competitiveness and compete right now- under the team that he inherited. I'm not bashing Dombrowski as he did get some good talent that is just now close to harnessing under Bloom.
They were in a tough spot and I think with reasonable health (the stuff that every team NEEDS to expect) they could have made it in as a wild card where I wouldn't have blinked if Matt Strahm turned into a bullpen ace for two weeks and didn't allow a walk or a hit over 12 post-season innings. Where Trevor Story re-discovers his May swing and can't be stopped and where Bobby Dalbec comes off the bench and clubs a game winning and World Series advancing HR.
His JBJ trade though is the only one that keeps me from fully trusting in him. Time will tell, but Binelas doesn't look like anything. That deal looked suspect at the time and even worse now.
As far as signing Xander and Devers... that has more to do with Henry, IMO, than with Bloom.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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I'm a no.

I think that in a vacuum, Chaim Bloom is a great GM. Like if you were teaching a Baseball Management 401 class in college, Bloom would easily ace the course. I think that he has a lot of theories that make sense in the abstract, but when practiced in the real world, they don't work. And BTW, building up your minor leagues and using this as a low-cost feeder while adding complimenting pieces through trades/free agency isn't a Chaim Bloom original idea. Aside from the free agent part, GMs have been doing this since Branch Rickey. Saying that you want to do this is about as revolutionary as saying that you want five strong starters and a lineup that really hits.

Over the last three seasons, I haven't been blown away by Bloom. He got destroyed in the one trade that he needed to win (Betts) and I get it, he was in a tough position where he was told he had to make the trade and I really didn't expect a home run, but I would have been happy with a double. What he got back was a scratch single at best. His old boss took him to the woodshed on this one. He's made some other good moves (Pivetta for the flotsam that he sent Philly was great, as was pilfering Whitlock from the Yankees), but his other trades? They've been mediocre at best. We keep talking about how he's built up the minors and yes, it's better than what it was two years ago but in all of the minor league talent that he's acquired, who's the blue chipper? Who's the player that he stole from another organization? Most of the players that he's received are organizational filler at best.

I think at his core, Bloom is not cut out to be the guy in charge. And it's not because he's dumb. He's obviously a bright dude who comes from baseball front office central casting (numbers heavy, Ivy League grad, etc) and he seems like a nice guy--which is why I think that he's built such a cult of personality in this forum. Seriously, he should change his name to Corey Glover at this point. But I don't think he's decisive or quick enough to go get what he wants. I think that he hems and haws a lot and spends a lot of time thinking and trying to figure out all of the angles and tries to make sure that he's going to "win" the trade. And I know that sounds like a dumb thing to criticize a person for, but MLB moves fast and if you spend too much time ruminating on things, some other team is going to swoop in and steal your player. And then you're stuck with JBJ playing right field for four months, or Bobby Dalbec at first for the same amount of time.

When this happens, I think that a GM needs a Plan B or is able to pivot quickly. Again, I don't think that Bloom does this very well at all. He's deliberate and thoughtful, which means that he has to think and rethink about what his next moves are. Again these are great qualities for other jobs, I just don't think that they're good for what he's presently doing. I will say that he it seem like he did attempt to try to do something on the fly at this year's trade deadline and it was a disaster; so maybe this isn't his strong suit.

Do I think that Bloom could grow into being a more cut-throat Head of Baseball of OPs? I don't know. I tend to doubt it. Like Epstein or Dombrowski or Cashman, you're either born with that killer instinct or you're not. I don't think that Bloom is. I just know that the Chaim Bloom experience is something that I'm pretty tired of--and I think it's going to be more of the same in 2023. There aren't any real free agents that will answer the Sox' needs (outfield power) except for Judge and I don't see the Sox opening their coffers for him. Maybe he makes some trades, but over the last three years he's made a point of saying that the next great Sox team is going to be mostly homegrown, so I doubt that he'll empty the farm for a starter and a power-hitting outfielder.

I also think that either Bogaerts or Devers is gone and if he did bring them back (which I hope he does) at the end of the day where are the Sox? They're at square one. There are so many holes on this major league roster, I don't think that one off season is going to plug them up. And I blame this porous roster construction on Bloom. He made this mess and now we're expecting him to fix it? Okay. Let's see what happens. I hope very much that I'm wrong, but I don't have any confidence that all of sudden he's going to turn into Jack MacKeon and start wheeling and dealing.
 

Fishercat

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I'll be honest, I really don't get the major Chaim hate. The Dombrowski experience did what the Dombrowski experience usually does - produce huge win numbers (and happily for us a WS) by spending a ton of cash and depleting the war chest of prospects - that most of them didn't turn into a ton (outside of Moncada, Kopech, and Margot) still means that once that value is spent, it's spent. Bloom came into a situation where ownership wants to rebuild the farm while shedding salary after some gnarly contracts are locked in.

The three drafts prior to Bloom taking over the team, ones many teams would normally rely on for their cost-controlled, high impact young talent produced one player who had more than .2 WAR last year in Tanner Houck. Kutter Crawford ate up innings thankfully and Casas looks promising but...there's not much of anything else unless Duran turns it around. And it's not as if there are players they traded doing notable things elsewhere from those classes - there's still time especially on 2019 but it looks bleak (where thhe Top 100 prospect list is strewn with 2018 and 2019 draftees and the only Sox representation on there in that time frame was an IFA flyer in Raffaela). The IFA classes at least drew out Brayan Bello and given the nature of IFAs that's still a lot of undetermined value, but still, Bloom was saddled with the end game of some feel-good contracts, a mandate from ownership to reduce costs (it seems), and some bleak prospect classes. There really isn't much else to do than try and find major value while rebuilding the farm. Some misses for sure, some hits.

From B-Ref war, to nobody's surprise, the two best players were Devers and Bogey. The next three cost about 10 million combined and were Bloom acquisitions (Pivetta, Scheiber, and Wacha). Next was Story. As I go down the list of the most positive contributors, I see highly paid players from prior years and reasonably priced options or cheaper prospects acquired by Bloom.

This isn't to say there aren't some deals that turned out to be headscratchers (I didn't love Renfroe/JBJ at the time and it's aged like milk unless those prospects really go nuts) but between JDM, Eo, and Sale there was about 65 million tied up in old deals pulling in about the same WAR value as Nick Pivetta.

I'm all about giving it time - maybe it won't work out, and if both Bogey and Devers walk and don't sign for an absolutely obscene number elsewhere, maybe my tune will change unless it's evident it's an ownership call or evident that Bogey or Devers were coming back no matter what - but I feel like the positive prospect movement and a seemingly shown ability to find positive contributors on the cheap will play well longer term. The big question I have is if he will be successful finding and signing or acquiring the talent Dombrowski was so good at doing when it comes down to it, when the Sox are an 85 win team and they need 90 for instance.
 

Salem's Lot

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Ultimately, I will judge Bloom on his ability to draft & develop good cost controlled pitching and get them on the MLB roster. That takes about 4-5 years at least when building a system from the ground up, so I voted that I don’t have a strong leaning either way yet.
 

Ganthem

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Apr 7, 2022
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I voted yes. Though this year was frustrating, it is easy to see what Chaim is doing. You can't build a perennial contender unless you have the farm system to support it. A lot of people here don't seem to grasp that concept. They just want to throw money at the problem. Maybe that will give us a playoff or even a World series, but it will lead to years of frustration. The Yanks are a good example. They could afford to resign Judge. If he turns into the second coming of Eric Hosmer (unlikely) then they can just use the farm to make up the production they were expecting, either by promoting players or by trading prospects for cost controlled players. I am guessing Bloom and company are trying to gauge where they think Bello, Cassas, and the farm system as a whole is going to be this time next year. That will probably factor into their decision to resign Bogey and to sign Devers to a long term extension. As for his trades and signings that didn't work, you don't get Whitlocks or schriebers if you are not willing to take risk and risk mean there will be some mistakes. As for those still complaining about Dalbec, there is not a GM/Team President who would not install Dalbec as a full time player after the last few months of the 21 season. The majority of people understand that the gulf between Triple A and the Majors is vast. Just because a player doesn't look like a hall of famer right away doesn't mean you give up on them.
 

BaseballJones

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Bloom took over in Tampa in 2017, a year after the Rays went 68-94. In his three years following that disastrous 2016 season, the Rays went 80-82, 90-72, and then 96-66.

The man knows what he's doing.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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Where’s the talent on the team? They have exactly four players under contract who had 2+ WAR last year (Devers, Story, Pivetta, Schreiber). They have money but we’ve established that it’s a lousy FA class. I don’t think it’s “Bloom hate” to look at the talent the org had in 2019 and what it has now and wonder what direction the team is headed. I think it’s pretty clear that this is a pivotal off-season, and with some good moves perhaps the Bloom skeptics will become lovers.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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I voted yes. Though this year was frustrating, it is easy to see what Chaim is doing. You can't build a perennial contender unless you have the farm system to support it. A lot of people here don't seem to grasp that concept.
Here's a fun fact, it's possible to build your minor league system while also paying attention (and improving!) your Major League roster! I know it sounds crazy but it's absolutely true!

You don't have to completely and totally bottom out.
 

nvalvo

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Just for fun...



Do you know what they are asking for? What if it's more than... [consults max offer thread]

Nvm you do not have a stated cap on what you would pay.



The funny thing about the Renfroe trade is that most of the people who bash Bloom the most for it are the same people who were so mad that Bloom let JBJ walk the year before & signed Renfroe off the scrap heap.

Those people (not saying at all that you're one of them) would have paid far more for an extra terrible year of JBJ & never made space for Renfroe & not received those 2 prospects.

That trade was the worst thing I think Bloom has done, though. Not so much for the trade itself which obviously has not worked out so far, but because another shoe didn't drop to actually fill that new hole. I expected JBJ to be the 4th outfielder & not an actual ever day player.

Without that trade they're probably about 3 wins better (Renfroe's 2.7 WAR, JBJ -0.5), so not really the reason they weren't so good this year on its own.



Even in hindsight I think this is pretty clearly the correct choice? Defense matters & will start mattering more. Baserunning is going to start mattering more.

& no one would even care we didn't sign Schwarber if Bloom hadn't traded basically nothing to get him to begin with.



They're obviously not all going to work out, but he's had a pretty good list of hits (Wacha, Schreiber, Kiké, Renfroe, Whitlock, Refsnyder, Strahm, etc.).



Yeah...I have no issue. The return on Vazquez was really nice for an impending free agent & they were able to replace what he was providing by unloading Diekman & getting back a cost-controlled, better defensive catcher who has 3 more arb years. Seems like a win/win.

Bloom is tasked with walking that tightrope & trying to compete while building something sustainable. They were mathematically alive (15-25% depending on which model you believe) & expecting Sale/Eovaldi/Devers back.

He got a good return on Vaz, so he made that trade. He got Pham, McGuire & Hosmer for basically nothing so he made those trades.

What selling did you want him to do? Take whatever mediocre flyer prospect someone would have traded for JD? Trade a questionably healthed Eovaldi for nothing great & lose the chance to QO? Trade someone under contract for next year who might be part of the future core?

If you get real value, sure, you can blow it up a bit, but it didn't seem like real value was really on the table too much (see e.g. Cubs not trading Contreras), so why not just give it a shot & hope for the best? I doubt they turned down real future equity to preserve their 2022 equity.



Yes.



Because they're a smart modern franchise with deep pockets doing smart modern franchise stuff that will eventually pay off with sustainable success.



Doubt he'll need much more, but sure.
This is basically exactly what I think. I typed and deleted something quite similar to what you said about Renfroe and JBJ: a lot of people want to blame Bloom's approach for everyone who leaves, but not credit him for the people who come in. So he ends up getting blamed for both acquiring Renfroe and for letting him walk.

And yeah: turning Vazquez and Diekman into McGuire, Valdez and Abreu was a very savvy set of moves.

And you're absolutely right that there was basically one good sellers trade made, and it was the Reds getting a haul for sending Castillo to the Mariners. We didn't really have an asset like that we wanted to unload.
 

Fishercat

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I'm a no.

I think that in a vacuum, Chaim Bloom is a great GM. Like if you were teaching a Baseball Management 401 class in college, Bloom would easily ace the course. I think that he has a lot of theories that make sense in the abstract, but when practiced in the real world, they don't work. And BTW, building up your minor leagues and using this as a low-cost feeder while adding complimenting pieces through trades/free agency isn't a Chaim Bloom original idea. Aside from the free agent part, GMs have been doing this since Branch Rickey. Saying that you want to do this is about as revolutionary as saying that you want five strong starters and a lineup that really hits.

Over the last three seasons, I haven't been blown away by Bloom. He got destroyed in the one trade that he needed to win (Betts) and I get it, he was in a tough position where he was told he had to make the trade and I really didn't expect a home run, but I would have been happy with a double. What he got back was a scratch single at best. His old boss took him to the woodshed on this one. He's made some other good moves (Pivetta for the flotsam that he sent Philly was great, as was pilfering Whitlock from the Yankees), but his other trades? They've been mediocre at best. We keep talking about how he's built up the minors and yes, it's better than what it was two years ago but in all of the minor league talent that he's acquired, who's the blue chipper? Who's the player that he stole from another organization? Most of the players that he's received are organizational filler at best.

I think at his core, Bloom is not cut out to be the guy in charge. And it's not because he's dumb. He's obviously a bright dude who comes from baseball front office central casting (numbers heavy, Ivy League grad, etc) and he seems like a nice guy--which is why I think that he's built such a cult of personality in this forum. Seriously, he should change his name to Corey Glover at this point. But I don't think he's decisive or quick enough to go get what he wants. I think that he hems and haws a lot and spends a lot of time thinking and trying to figure out all of the angles and tries to make sure that he's going to "win" the trade. And I know that sounds like a dumb thing to criticize a person for, but MLB moves fast and if you spend too much time ruminating on things, some other team is going to swoop in and steal your player. And then you're stuck with JBJ playing right field for four months, or Bobby Dalbec at first for the same amount of time.

When this happens, I think that a GM needs a Plan B or is able to pivot quickly. Again, I don't think that Bloom does this very well at all. He's deliberate and thoughtful, which means that he has to think and rethink about what his next moves are. Again these are great qualities for other jobs, I just don't think that they're good for what he's presently doing. I will say that he it seem like he did attempt to try to do something on the fly at this year's trade deadline and it was a disaster; so maybe this isn't his strong suit.

Do I think that Bloom could grow into being a more cut-throat Head of Baseball of OPs? I don't know. I tend to doubt it. Like Epstein or Dombrowski or Cashman, you're either born with that killer instinct or you're not. I don't think that Bloom is. I just know that the Chaim Bloom experience is something that I'm pretty tired of--and I think it's going to be more of the same in 2023. There aren't any real free agents that will answer the Sox' needs (outfield power) except for Judge and I don't see the Sox opening their coffers for him. Maybe he makes some trades, but over the last three years he's made a point of saying that the next great Sox team is going to be mostly homegrown, so I doubt that he'll empty the farm for a starter and a power-hitting outfielder.

I also think that either Bogaerts or Devers is gone and if he did bring them back (which I hope he does) at the end of the day where are the Sox? They're at square one. There are so many holes on this major league roster, I don't think that one off season is going to plug them up. And I blame this porous roster construction on Bloom. He made this mess and now we're expecting him to fix it? Okay. Let's see what happens. I hope very much that I'm wrong, but I don't have any confidence that all of sudden he's going to turn into Jack MacKeon and start wheeling and dealing.
I mean...maybe I'm wrong on this but how often can we expect any GM to make trades where he is destroying other GMs? To a point that I think you agree on, Bloom walked into a situation where he had a few really valuable players (Mookie Betts primarily) and I'm not litigating Betts again (sad necessity is where I stand but I get all views including yours on it) but how much else was there to trade where Bloom was going to be pulling away impact players with an impact within a couple years without absolutely fleecing the other team. I feel like getting Pivetta and Whitlock for peanuts is probably better than most GMs have done in trades like that.

I think a little while back I went through something like the Top 100 or so performers in 2022 and the number acquired in a trade prior to their MLB debut were relatively low, had long tails in terms of providing value, and often had some real value going the other way initially. Yordan Alvarez is the big example of the type of trade I think you'd want where Houston grabbed him for Josh Fields. But even the handful of those players who are acquired by trade often cost something more than Bloom was trading outside of Betts. Like Sandy Alcantara was one of the best pitchers in baseball this year, it took five years for him to really make that leap from the trade and he was part of a trade for Marcell Ozuna who was coming off of a very very good year in Miami (that trade also got them Zac Gallen who is really doing well now...who they traded for Jazz Chisholm Jr. who is also great...maybe Miami deserves some credit here). Andres Gimenez required Lindor and Carrasco to get. Dylan Cease was part of the Quintana trade. I think you get where I'm going here - the Sox have precious few players of the quality usually used ot acquire those impact prospects and even if he did, we probably wouldn't know right now.

Just such a higher number are acquired via FA, or as trades as major leaguers, or via the draft/IFA process.

Now, I think it's completely fair to say that the jury is out on his overall ability to get those 4, 5, 6 WAR players in a reasonable manner that doesn't destroy the team long term, but it's really hard and a lot of luck and work and time to fleece a team that badly for prospects especially if there is relatively little to trade - and I get the feeling that the talent the Sox would have had to use at the time they had to use it would make this thread a lot more combative than it currently is. Imagine them trading Eovaldi off for prospects on that 2021 run?
 

Ganthem

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Apr 7, 2022
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Here's a fun fact, it's possible to build your minor league system while also paying attention (and improving!) your Major League roster! I know it sounds crazy but it's absolutely true!

You don't have to completely and totally bottom out.
Here is a fun fact. Bloom did that in 2021 and almost reached the world series. This year was derailed by a massive slew of injuries, that even the deepest farm system would not have been able to help the team. The fact that Crawford and Winchowski etc was able to pick up the slack for the amount of time they did is a testament to Bloom's ability.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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I mean...maybe I'm wrong on this but how often can we expect any GM to make trades where he is destroying other GMs? To a point that I think you agree on, Bloom walked into a situation where he had a few really valuable players (Mookie Betts primarily) and I'm not litigating Betts again (sad necessity is where I stand but I get all views including yours on it) but how much else was there to trade where Bloom was going to be pulling away impact players with an impact within a couple years without absolutely fleecing the other team. I feel like getting Pivetta and Whitlock for peanuts is probably better than most GMs have done in trades like that.

I think a little while back I went through something like the Top 100 or so performers in 2022 and the number acquired in a trade prior to their MLB debut were relatively low, had long tails in terms of providing value, and often had some real value going the other way initially. Yordan Alvarez is the big example of the type of trade I think you'd want where Houston grabbed him for Josh Fields. But even the handful of those players who are acquired by trade often cost something more than Bloom was trading outside of Betts. Like Sandy Alcantara was one of the best pitchers in baseball this year, it took five years for him to really make that leap from the trade and he was part of a trade for Marcell Ozuna who was coming off of a very very good year in Miami (that trade also got them Zac Gallen who is really doing well now...who they traded for Jazz Chisholm Jr. who is also great...maybe Miami deserves some credit here). Andres Gimenez required Lindor and Carrasco to get. Dylan Cease was part of the Quintana trade. I think you get where I'm going here - the Sox have precious few players of the quality usually used ot acquire those impact prospects and even if he did, we probably wouldn't know right now.

Just such a higher number are acquired via FA, or as trades as major leaguers, or via the draft/IFA process.

Now, I think it's completely fair to say that the jury is out on his overall ability to get those 4, 5, 6 WAR players in a reasonable manner that doesn't destroy the team long term, but it's really hard and a lot of luck and work and time to fleece a team that badly for prospects especially if there is relatively little to trade - and I get the feeling that the talent the Sox would have had to use at the time they had to use it would make this thread a lot more combative than it currently is. Imagine them trading Eovaldi off for prospects on that 2021 run?
I don't expect him to destroy other GMs, I really don't. I think that most trades are net-net and rarely do GMs get over on each other. I agree with you on Pivetta and Whitlock, those were Bloom fleeces. But what I'm saying is that the minor trades, the ones where Bloom is supposed to be the minor league savant, where are those fleecings? He comes from TB and we get Ronaldo Hernandez and he's done absolutely nothing. Do I expect him to be Johnny Bench? No, but the Red Sox needed catcher last year and every time they passed him over, they even went outside of the organization looking for a new receiver. If Bloom whiffed this bad on Hernandez, a guy that he should know inside and out thanks to his days in TB, why do I have confidence in his ability to accurately assess other players?

Honestly, I'm not looking for him to pants every GM in every deal. I'm just looking for him to win more than a couple.

To me, Bloom is Ben Cherington 2.0 in that he's a really smart dude and he knows his stuff. I'm just not sure if he's cut out for a place like Boston. He's a guy who needs a lot of patience and that plays in TB or Oakland or Pittsburgh; but it doesn't work well here.

Here is a fun fact. Bloom did that in 2021 and almost reached the world series. This year was derailed by a massive slew of injuries, that even the deepest farm system would not have been able to help the team. The fact that Crawford and Winchowski etc was able to pick up the slack for the amount of time they did is a testament to Bloom's ability.
What did he do last year and in 2020?

It's easy to look like a genius when everything goes right, like it did in 2021. And BTW, if we're going to play "the Red Sox almost reached the World Series!" game, then the other side of that same coin is that the Sox also almost missed the post season that year because Bloom was set on getting an injured Schwarber cheaply and he didn't play in Boston for two weeks, almost costing them October.
 

JM3

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I'll be honest, I really don't get the major Chaim hate. The Dombrowski experience did what the Dombrowski experience usually does - produce huge win numbers (and happily for us a WS) by spending a ton of cash and depleting the war chest of prospects - that most of them didn't turn into a ton (outside of Moncada, Kopech, and Margot) still means that once that value is spent, it's spent. Bloom came into a situation where ownership wants to rebuild the farm while shedding salary after some gnarly contracts are locked in.

The three drafts prior to Bloom taking over the team, ones many teams would normally rely on for their cost-controlled, high impact young talent produced one player who had more than .2 WAR last year in Tanner Houck. Kutter Crawford ate up innings thankfully and Casas looks promising but...there's not much of anything else unless Duran turns it around. And it's not as if there are players they traded doing notable things elsewhere from those classes - there's still time especially on 2019 but it looks bleak (where thhe Top 100 prospect list is strewn with 2018 and 2019 draftees and the only Sox representation on there in that time frame was an IFA flyer in Raffaela). The IFA classes at least drew out Brayan Bello and given the nature of IFAs that's still a lot of undetermined value, but still, Bloom was saddled with the end game of some feel-good contracts, a mandate from ownership to reduce costs (it seems), and some bleak prospect classes. There really isn't much else to do than try and find major value while rebuilding the farm. Some misses for sure, some hits.

From B-Ref war, to nobody's surprise, the two best players were Devers and Bogey. The next three cost about 10 million combined and were Bloom acquisitions (Pivetta, Scheiber, and Wacha). Next was Story. As I go down the list of the most positive contributors, I see highly paid players from prior years and reasonably priced options or cheaper prospects acquired by Bloom.

This isn't to say there aren't some deals that turned out to be headscratchers (I didn't love Renfroe/JBJ at the time and it's aged like milk unless those prospects really go nuts) but between JDM, Eo, and Sale there was about 65 million tied up in old deals pulling in about the same WAR value as Nick Pivetta.

I'm all about giving it time - maybe it won't work out, and if both Bogey and Devers walk and don't sign for an absolutely obscene number elsewhere, maybe my tune will change unless it's evident it's an ownership call or evident that Bogey or Devers were coming back no matter what - but I feel like the positive prospect movement and a seemingly shown ability to find positive contributors on the cheap will play well longer term. The big question I have is if he will be successful finding and signing or acquiring the talent Dombrowski was so good at doing when it comes down to it, when the Sox are an 85 win team and they need 90 for instance.
Agree with ~all this. But I would add Price's $16m we were still on the hook for to make that a Sale/JDM/Eo/Price $81m of yikes.
 

BaseballJones

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Bloom didn't take over anything in Tampa. He was never the man in charge.
Eh...... I guess technically? I mean, this was his role: Vice President, Baseball Operations where his responsibilities included oversight of personnel, domestic and international player development, international scouting, contract negotiations, salary arbitration, budgets, and strategic planning.
 

BaseballJones

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baseball-reference suggests that assuming all contracts stay as-is (i.e., Xander doesn't opt out, no reworking of contracts, etc.), factoring in likely arbitration awards, that the Sox will have a payroll of ~148 million. So they'll have a LOT of money to spend, but also a lot of holes to fill.
 

Orel Miraculous

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Eh...... I guess technically? I mean, this was his role: Vice President, Baseball Operations where his responsibilities included oversight of personnel, domestic and international player development, international scouting, contract negotiations, salary arbitration, budgets, and strategic planning.
This isn’t a technicality: there was a president of baseball operations above him who was actually the decision-maker. And in light of the fact that there are people in here arguing that Bloom, while unquestionably smart, lacks certain qualities that would make him a great president of baseball operations, it’s highly relevant. Bloom didn’t “take over” the Rays anymore than Brian O’Halloran has taken over the Red Sox.
 

astrozombie

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I voted no. The Betts trade was a travesty and I give him a D- rather than an F only because I understand that management was forcing him to take anything for Betts, including a used band aid. Every other trade he has made seems like he is getting filler. Credit for Pivetta and Whitlock, I suppose, but they are not game-breaking talents and for all the trades he has made if those are his crown jewels, I am not sure that's the flex he thinks it is.
Furthermore, I look at his drafting and he seems to have an obsession with middle infielders. I like Meyer but I think anyone posting on this board could have made that pick at #4. And when I think of what made the Rays successful, it was consistently churning out pitchers who ranged from perfectly adequate to really good. I do not see how Bloom is working on that at all.
In fairness to Bloom, I think he gets another year because he has been somewhat hamstrung by the cap situation. But I firmly believe Bogaerts is walking and the rest of the roster will be filled with "low risk high reward types" (read: cheap) that work great when they are the 22nd most important person on the roster, not the 9th.
 

chrisfont9

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Bloom took over in Tampa in 2017, a year after the Rays went 68-94. In his three years following that disastrous 2016 season, the Rays went 80-82, 90-72, and then 96-66.

The man knows what he's doing.
I think some of us have patience for what the Sox are doing and others don't. If you see everything in win-now mode, sure, he's not doing great. But it's sort of like going to a Noah Baumbach movie and complaining about the lack of jokes.
 

joe dokes

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Furthermore, I look at his drafting and he seems to have an obsession with middle infielders. I like Meyer but I think anyone posting on this board could have made that pick at #4. And when I think of what made the Rays successful, it was consistently churning out pitchers who ranged from perfectly adequate to really good. I do not see how Bloom is working on that at all.
If you go through major league rosters, you'll probably find that, as 18-year olds, more of them were middle infielders than any other position. Probably shortstops. From Mickey Mantle to Paul Molitor to Gary Sheffield to Jorge Posada, Miguel Cabrera and Mookie Betts., it's where the best athletes play before they become major leaguers.
 

astrozombie

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If you go through major league rosters, you'll probably find that, as 18-year olds, more of them were middle infielders than any other position. Probably shortstops. From Mickey Mantle to Paul Molitor to Gary Sheffield to Jorge Posada, Miguel Cabrera and Mookie Betts., it's where the best athletes play before they become major leaguers.
Fair point.
 

Sandy Leon Trotsky

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If you go through major league rosters, you'll probably find that, as 18-year olds, more of them were middle infielders than any other position. Probably shortstops. From Mickey Mantle to Paul Molitor to Gary Sheffield to Jorge Posada, Miguel Cabrera and Mookie Betts., it's where the best athletes play before they become major leaguers.
Also should add that if Mayer is doing great at the ML level and then any number of those other SSs are doing great in AAA or AA with high BA rankings, those guys will bring max value pitching in return.
 

Shaky Walton

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Just for fun...



Do you know what they are asking for? What if it's more than... [consults max offer thread]

Nvm you do not have a stated cap on what you would pay.



The funny thing about the Renfroe trade is that most of the people who bash Bloom the most for it are the same people who were so mad that Bloom let JBJ walk the year before & signed Renfroe off the scrap heap.

Those people (not saying at all that you're one of them) would have paid far more for an extra terrible year of JBJ & never made space for Renfroe & not received those 2 prospects.

That trade was the worst thing I think Bloom has done, though. Not so much for the trade itself which obviously has not worked out so far, but because another shoe didn't drop to actually fill that new hole. I expected JBJ to be the 4th outfielder & not an actual ever day player.

Without that trade they're probably about 3 wins better (Renfroe's 2.7 WAR, JBJ -0.5), so not really the reason they weren't so good this year on its own.



Even in hindsight I think this is pretty clearly the correct choice? Defense matters & will start mattering more. Baserunning is going to start mattering more.

& no one would even care we didn't sign Schwarber if Bloom hadn't traded basically nothing to get him to begin with.



They're obviously not all going to work out, but he's had a pretty good list of hits (Wacha, Schreiber, Kiké, Renfroe, Whitlock, Refsnyder, Strahm, etc.).



Yeah...I have no issue. The return on Vazquez was really nice for an impending free agent & they were able to replace what he was providing by unloading Diekman & getting back a cost-controlled, better defensive catcher who has 3 more arb years. Seems like a win/win.

Bloom is tasked with walking that tightrope & trying to compete while building something sustainable. They were mathematically alive (15-25% depending on which model you believe) & expecting Sale/Eovaldi/Devers back.

He got a good return on Vaz, so he made that trade. He got Pham, McGuire & Hosmer for basically nothing so he made those trades.

What selling did you want him to do? Take whatever mediocre flyer prospect someone would have traded for JD? Trade a questionably healthed Eovaldi for nothing great & lose the chance to QO? Trade someone under contract for next year who might be part of the future core?

If you get real value, sure, you can blow it up a bit, but it didn't seem like real value was really on the table too much (see e.g. Cubs not trading Contreras), so why not just give it a shot & hope for the best? I doubt they turned down real future equity to preserve their 2022 equity.



Yes.



Because they're a smart modern franchise with deep pockets doing smart modern franchise stuff that will eventually pay off with sustainable success.



Doubt he'll need much more, but sure.
Responding to some of this:

1. Wanting the GM to lock up one or more of the best players on the team does not require me to know or even suggest what the parameters of the deal should be. I want the GM to get intelligent deals with the Sox best players done. Undoubtedly and obviously, it takes two to tango, and Bloom gets a total pass if one or both make unreasonable demands. At the same time, part of why people get hired in positions to negotiate is your trust in their ability to get the job done. To convince and cajole. Again, that goes out the window if the counter party makes insane, unworkable demands. I am making an assumption that one or both of these players will agree to a fair market deal. That may be a wrong assumption. I have no inside track or any way to know. But if we assume that I am right, we can criticize the GM for not getting it done with one or both of them. One of the hard things about all of this is that there is always so much we don't know. To this day, we don't know the extent to which Lester and Betts caused their ticket out of town, or who said what on that mound between Clemens and McNamara. But we can still opine based on assumptions, whether right ones or not.

2. I didn't want JBJ in the outfield given his bat and the other bats in the line-up. For the right team, he can start or be a sub. I was glad when he left and horrified when Renfroe was traded for him.

3. In hindsight, I think the Sox win more games with Schwarber and Iglesias than Story. Even if advanced stats suggest equivalence, Iglesias' glove at 2B would help any infield, Schwarber's homers add a dimension to the offense that was sorely lacking last year, and Story is often hurt. Iglesias hit well in September of 2021 and last year, as well.

4. I did not want Bloom to sell. But if he was going to keep everyone, I found it odd that they would trade a C who was playing defense and hitting as well as he did last year, and was so valued by many of the pitchers. Xander expressed his upset about the trade. There's also the human element, and baseball is not just stratamatic. Your point is fair about the C they plugged in.

5. Along human lines, the late night dumping of the back-up catcher was tone deaf and reminded me of Duquette and how he ran things. It's impossible to quantify how these softer points affect the equation.

6. I don't see that the collection of prospects that Bloom has taken in on the waiver wire or through trades will make them materially better over the long haul. I don't know that he has created or will create sustainable success. I have seen so many blue chip prospects, can't miss guys and high upside guys totally fail in the majors, and I am far from being an expert on young players. But I remain dubious that Chaim Bloom has cracked the code and assembled the kind of players who will translate into winning long term. I hope he has.

Make no mistake, I started this thread not because I was hoping for an echo chamber and I get that my views are just mine, and I may be overly critical of Bloom and guilty of having a reactionary take.
 
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Shaky Walton

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Bloom took over in Tampa in 2017, a year after the Rays went 68-94. In his three years following that disastrous 2016 season, the Rays went 80-82, 90-72, and then 96-66.

The man knows what he's doing.
Did he take over in Tampa? If I recall, he was never the number one man there.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/17978038/erik-neander-chaim-bloom-get-expanded-roles-rays

This article suggests that Erik Neander was ahead of him on the depth chart. And again, I seem to recall that Bloom never had the lead job there.

Perhaps others will recall with more certainty.
 

Super Nomario

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The team was bad this year for a ton of reasons - most of them beyond Bloom's control.

A lot of Bloom's moves have been necessitated by the payroll/prospect crunch created by the previous regime. When you have huge contracts in place on non-performing players & no cheap major league ready talent waiting to come up, you have to do creative things if you're trying to both contend short term, but more importantly long term.
If you have this kind of payroll crunch, isn't that all the more reason to not do things like get JBJ back in the Renfroe deal or take a flyer on Paxton that wasn't going to help any time soon? Those were their biggest acquisitions aside from Story and they got nada from them.

The things that Bloom could have done to help this year, but not really long term, are things like keep Renfroe & re-sign Schwarber instead of taking on JBJ/Paxton.

That would add an extra $7m or so of payroll & what like 5 wins to the team?
A re-signed Schwarber would help beyond 2022 as well. Arguably more so with his ability to step into DH (and not have to play the field).

Renfroe was just a 2022 solution, and I get why trading him made sense. The issue was the return. They could have saved money that they could have invested elsewhere, but instead they took on JBJ and his terrible contract. And the prospects they got back weren't top-tier and look even worse now. The idea behind selling high on Renfroe is sound; the problem is they didn't get "selling high" value in return.

I liked the Paxton flyer. The chance to land a guy with front end of the rotation stuff for a minimal investment seems like a really good use of not a lot of $ with very little downside considering the reasonable (if he'd gotten healthy) team option for next year.
I think it would have been reasonable for a team with a lot of room to maneuver under the luxury tax. I can't really square it with the idea that they didn't have money to improve the team this year though.
 

Daniel_Son

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I want to vote yes, as I too am a numbers nerd, but the last couple years aren’t inspiring and last years on field oft inspired a goat rodeo.

For those that saw hope in their playoff run, I’m happy for you but it seemed like empty calories.

I’m still waiting to hear how long Chaim said it would really take to build that machine. Three years in and the mid minors are looking healthy but that’s a long way from juggernaut.

one more year for Chaim to show it
If they had won 2 more games and made it to the WS, would you still feel that way? A lot of playoff success is getting hot at the right time - empty calories, I guess (see: 2022 Phillies).
 

Ganthem

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I don't expect him to destroy other GMs, I really don't. I think that most trades are net-net and rarely do GMs get over on each other. I agree with you on Pivetta and Whitlock, those were Bloom fleeces. But what I'm saying is that the minor trades, the ones where Bloom is supposed to be the minor league savant, where are those fleecings? He comes from TB and we get Ronaldo Hernandez and he's done absolutely nothing. Do I expect him to be Johnny Bench? No, but the Red Sox needed catcher last year and every time they passed him over, they even went outside of the organization looking for a new receiver. If Bloom whiffed this bad on Hernandez, a guy that he should know inside and out thanks to his days in TB, why do I have confidence in his ability to accurately assess other players?

Honestly, I'm not looking for him to pants every GM in every deal. I'm just looking for him to win more than a couple.

To me, Bloom is Ben Cherington 2.0 in that he's a really smart dude and he knows his stuff. I'm just not sure if he's cut out for a place like Boston. He's a guy who needs a lot of patience and that plays in TB or Oakland or Pittsburgh; but it doesn't work well here.



What did he do last year and in 2020?

It's easy to look like a genius when everything goes right, like it did in 2021. And BTW, if we're going to play "the Red Sox almost reached the World Series!" game, then the other side of that same coin is that the Sox also almost missed the post season that year because Bloom was set on getting an injured Schwarber cheaply and he didn't play in Boston for two weeks, almost costing them October.
You made an inaccurate and snarky statement. I felt compelled to correct you. 2020 was unprecedented due to a little pandemic. Though I will say 2020 shows the problem with just spending and trading. As I have stated before this past season sucked due to injuries. The fact that Bloom picked up guys like Whitlock and Schnieder and you are still not satisfied is kind of odd.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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You made an inaccurate and snarky statement. I felt compelled to correct you. 2020 was unprecedented due to a little pandemic. Though I will say 2020 shows the problem with just spending and trading. As I have stated before this past season sucked due to injuries. The fact that Bloom picked up guys like Whitlock and Schnieder and you are still not satisfied is kind of odd.
I think it's odd that every time that the Red Sox don't do well you grasp at straws and literally blame anything else (Covid, injuries, the moon's gravitational pull) but the year that the Sox do well it's "Chaim Bloom is a god damn genius this is all his glorious work!"

So I guess we're even.

Also I'm supposed to do a dance because in three years of transactions, Bloom picked up, checks notes, two good guys? #OkayBloomer.
 

Seels

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If they had won 2 more games and made it to the WS, would you still feel that way? A lot of playoff success is getting hot at the right time - empty calories, I guess (see: 2022 Phillies).
Not the person you responded to but I'm pretty surprised that a board that is as stat driven and 'smart' as this board is giving a great deal of weight to the 2021 season. That team was an 88 pythag team and overachieved to even get there. Having a team filled with career year / fluke types (like 2013...) isn't indicative that the FO is doing a good job when it is sandwiched between sub 500 seasons.
 

Seels

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. As I have stated before this past season sucked due to injuries. The fact that Bloom picked up guys like Whitlock and Schnieder and you are still not satisfied is kind of odd.
They went into the year without an outfield or a pitching staff. The injuries angle is overplayed. They had Nick Pivetta as a #2 going into the year. They had JBJ Verdugo and Kike as the starting outfield going into the year. Hansel Robles and Jake Diekman were two of the most important guys in the bullpen going into the year. All of that is an embarrassment for a team with a $230m payroll.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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Platoon with Arroyo and/or Verdugo. The idea was well received at the time. Things change.

https://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/hunter-renfroe-traded-to-brewers-for-jbj-and-2-prospects.35263/
Arroyo / Verdugo platoon in RF? Who was playing left? JD? Who was DH? Who was backup infielder?

Part of the Sox problems seem to be this weird obsession with flexibility which made it so the teams backup SS was also a platoon RF, the starting CF was also the backup 2b…sounds good in theory but then both guys got hurt and suddenly they are short at four positions instead of two.
 

Orel Miraculous

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Daniel_Son

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Not the person you responded to but I'm pretty surprised that a board that is as stat driven and 'smart' as this board is giving a great deal of weight to the 2021 season. That team was an 88 pythag team and overachieved to even get there. Having a team filled with career year / fluke types (like 2013...) isn't indicative that the FO is doing a good job when it is sandwiched between sub 500 seasons.
I don't think I'm giving a great deal of weight to that season, but I don't think it's fair to discount it either just because they outplayed their pythag. And while I don't agree with the notion that '21 was "filled with flukes," identifying those players who are capable of temporarily elevating their game and "having career years" is an essential part of GMing. You can't just go out and sign All-Stars and MVPs at every position.
 

soxhop411

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I don't think I'm giving a great deal of weight to that season, but I don't think it's fair to discount it either just because they outplayed their pythag. And while I don't agree with the notion that '21 was "filled with flukes," identifying those players who are capable of temporarily elevating their game and "having career years" is an essential part of GMing. You can't just go out and sign All-Stars and MVPs at every position.
and super teams dont guarantee anything

Just ask the Yankees and Dodgers

Or in the NBA, the Lakers
 
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Ganthem

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I think it's odd that every time that the Red Sox don't do well you grasp at straws and literally blame anything else (Covid, injuries, the moon's gravitational pull) but the year that the Sox do well it's "Chaim Bloom is a god damn genius this is all his glorious work!"

So I guess we're even.

Also I'm supposed to do a dance because in three years of transactions, Bloom picked up, checks notes, two good guys? #OkayBloomer.
If you think Bloom has only made two good moves in three years you have not paid attention. I was giving two examples due to your cherry picking response where you were just trying to magically wave away anything Bloom did that was positive in order to push your narrative. You might end up being proven right about Bloom. We will find out in a few years, but from where I am sitting the moves he made for this organization, have been more positive then negative.
 

Ganthem

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They went into the year without an outfield or a pitching staff. The injuries angle is overplayed. They had Nick Pivetta as a #2 going into the year. They had JBJ Verdugo and Kike as the starting outfield going into the year. Hansel Robles and Jake Diekman were two of the most important guys in the bullpen going into the year. All of that is an embarrassment for a team with a $230m payroll.
You mean the Outfield that had Kike and Verdugo, both of whom played well last year? As for the JBJ trade, there might have been another shoe that was suppose to drop that never did, but it wasn't the craziest assumption to think JBJ could provide OK offense and stellar defense. As for the pitching staff, Evoldi or Sale was suppose to be their number two. If Sale hadn't gotten injured it would have been
Sale
Evoldi
Pivetta
Houck/Whitlock
Hill

Sale did get injured and guess who stepped in? Wacha. As for the bullpen, most people acknowledge that bullpen pitchers are temperamental. One year they are great and the next they suck, but I will say it would have been nice for Bloom to step in and stop Cora from relying so heavily on the bullpen early in the season. As for the injury angle being overplayed, are you saying injuries can't affect a team? If the Dodgers or Yanks had almost their entire starting rotation on the DL do you think they would have still made the playoffs?
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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If you think Bloom has only made two good moves in three years you have not paid attention. I was giving two examples due to your cherry picking response where you were just trying to magically wave away anything Bloom did that was positive in order to push your narrative. You might end up being proven right about Bloom. We will find out in a few years, but from where I am sitting the moves he made for this organization, have been more positive then negative.
You're the one that made the assertion of me not being satisfied with two middle relievers, not me.

And I think I did a pretty good job of articulating why I'm not a Bloom guy above. If you want to give it a read, go ahead. If you don't, we're probably done here.