Red Sox Hire Chaim Bloom As Chief Baseball Officer

gkelly53

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I wouldnt be upset if they brought Hazen back. The Sox could offer him the promotion to President and he knows majority of the players in our fo now. He is going to be in the last year of his deal in AZ. Unless of course they promote him/ sign him to an extension
 

VORP Speed

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I hope this doesn't happen, but they should send Andrew Friedman's contract to Chaim Bloom and Erik Neander and tell them both that the first one to sign it gets the job.
 

chawson

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They have to get fully out from under the old guard GM style, which means getting rid of La Russa and Frank Wren too.

Friedman would be gold but I doubt he leaves L.A. A strategically positioned FO team of Amiel Sawdaye and Eddie Romero would be great, and I’d be excited about Chaim Bloom, Kim Ng, or Jason McLeod (scouting and player development exec on the Cubs) too.
 

DeadlySplitter

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I'm not sure why La Russa & Wren were not let go already, but based on this president committee not including them, they should be out in short order.

I'm fine with Romero.
 

lexrageorge

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Regarding Wren and LaRussa: both are still well connected and well thought of among the MLB inner circle. The optics are indeed better if they part ways sometime during the quiet part of the offseason: "The Red Sox announced today that Tony LaRussa will not be returning to the Red Sox for the 2020 season. We wish to thank him for his contributions and wish him well in his future endeavors."

The next GM will want to hire his own advisors, and handling the incumbents will make it easier for the new GM to attract his desired candidates. Last thing the new GM would want to hear from a promising candidate: "I'd love to join you, but I saw how they dumped Wren and LaRussa for no reason during the regular season, and no way I want that to happen to me".
 

MakeMineMoxie

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Regarding Wren and LaRussa: both are still well connected and well thought of among the MLB inner circle. The optics are indeed better if they part ways sometime during the quiet part of the offseason: "The Red Sox announced today that Tony LaRussa will not be returning to the Red Sox for the 2020 season. We wish to thank him for his contributions and wish him well in his future endeavors."

The next GM will want to hire his own advisors, and handling the incumbents will make it easier for the new GM to attract his desired candidates. Last thing the new GM would want to hear from a promising candidate: "I'd love to join you, but I saw how they dumped Wren and LaRussa for no reason during the regular season, and no way I want that to happen to me".
I wish they would have handled DD like this, too but the suddenness makes me think something came to a head last night.
 

mauf

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I wish they would have handled DD like this, too but the suddenness makes me think something came to a head last night.
Reports posted in the other thread say that DD pressed for “clarity” on his situation. I doubt the Sox will be considered a less attractive employer because they honored DD’s request that he be fired promptly if he wasn’t going to be extended.
 

BJBossman

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I hope this doesn't happen, but they should send Andrew Friedman's contract to Chaim Bloom and Erik Neander and tell them both that the first one to sign it gets the job.
I'm good with either of these.

Hazen or Porter in AZ.

I think the smart move would be to go outside the organization here. Especially from a franchise like Tampa or CLE who have track records of doing it on a budget.
 

lexrageorge

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I'm not sure the next GM has to be outside the organization. Good and talented people can work within available budgets, and it's not like the Sox are going to become the KC Royals or even Tampa from a budget perspective. The goal should be to hire the best available candidate, and then put in the organizational structure to make him or her successful. If the best person currently has an office at Fenway, so be it.
 

BJBossman

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I'm not sure the next GM has to be outside the organization. Good and talented people can work within available budgets, and it's not like the Sox are going to become the KC Royals or even Tampa from a budget perspective. The goal should be to hire the best available candidate, and then put in the organizational structure to make him or her successful. If the best person currently has an office at Fenway, so be it.
I think it's highly unlikely that's the case.

Just look at the names in this thread and the DD thread.

An internal hire would seem to be a worst case scenario.
 

lexrageorge

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I think it's highly unlikely that's the case.

Just look at the names in this thread and the DD thread.

An internal hire would seem to be a worst case scenario.
The initial reviews are that any of the 3 assistants currently holding the co-GM title would be well qualified to at least be considered. Just because they worked for Dombrowski doesn't mean they are a clone of DD. (for the record, I am not talking about LaRussa or Wren).

We don't yet know who's going to be available, beyond the speculation. Hazen or Hoyer may not be available, or may decline for other reasons.
 

BJBossman

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The initial reviews are that any of the 3 assistants currently holding the co-GM title would be well qualified to at least be considered. Just because they worked for Dombrowski doesn't mean they are a clone of DD. (for the record, I am not talking about LaRussa or Wren).

We don't yet know who's going to be available, beyond the speculation. Hazen or Hoyer may not be available, or may decline for other reasons.
your last line is why i wrote the last line of my post.

Hopefully they won't decline because Boston should be one of the top jobs...but Henry having a Steinbrenner-esque decade may not have been the best thing for the gig.
 

shepard50

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The initial reviews are that any of the 3 assistants currently holding the co-GM title would be well qualified to at least be considered. Just because they worked for Dombrowski doesn't mean they are a clone of DD. (for the record, I am not talking about LaRussa or Wren).

We don't yet know who's going to be available, beyond the speculation. Hazen or Hoyer may not be available, or may decline for other reasons.
I believe it i's four assistants holding the job. Raquel Ferreira being the fourth.
 

mauf

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your last line is why i wrote the last line of my post.

Hopefully they won't decline because Boston should be one of the top jobs...but Henry having a Steinbrenner-esque decade may not have been the best thing for the gig.
Are you old enough to remember pre-suspension SiaS? Because JWH couldn’t be more different.
 

StuckOnYouk

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Naehring is a great call.
Bring a former Sox player back who by all accounts has done a hell of a job with the Yankees and knows their inner workings.
He's Cashman right hand man, yes?
 

StuckOnYouk

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Just heard McAdam on the Sox pregame and he's got an article.coming out tonight talking about how the sox are going to aim sky high at first- namely Friedman, Epstein, Antonetti and Luhnow.
He doubts they will be successful but he says that's where they are going first
 

mauf

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I'm not.

But 4 managers and 3 GMs in less than 10 years is pretty George-esque, no?
A Google search brings up a whole bunch of articles on the tenure of field managers; the median is in the 3-4 year range. Much less has been written about the tenure of GMs; this article from a few years ago pegs the median at about 6 years. (Note that I’m using “GM” to refer to the head of baseball operations, regardless of actual title.)

Not counting interim managers/GMs and the guys that the current ownership group fired almost immediately after buying the team, the Sox have had 5 field managers and 3 GMs in the 17 years they have owned the club. I guess you could say there has been a bit more turnover than the norm outside of the 2004-11 period that was unusually stable (the famous gorilla suit incident aside), but I don’t think they are an outlier, such that they would have trouble attracting the sort of talent you would expect to covet a big-market GM job.
 

JimD

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Just heard McAdam on the Sox pregame and he's got an article.coming out tonight talking about how the sox are going to aim sky high at first- namely Friedman, Epstein, Antonetti and Luhnow.
He doubts they will be successful but he says that's where they are going first
That's nice, but I hope that they also bring in Chaim Bloom as part of this first round of candidates. He should be at the top of their list.
 

Yelling At Clouds

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I mean if we're wishcasting, the guy I'd love to see them try to poach is AA. Seems roughly as likely as Lunhow or Friedman to me.

I don't really get why you'd want to bring back Epstein, as others have said, after the "build" phase, didn't he basically do the same thing to the Cubs that DD did here?
 

BJBossman

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That's nice, but I hope that they also bring in Chaim Bloom as part of this first round of candidates. He should be at the top of their list.
Agreed. He's a no brainer better than the current internal candidates. He's been a key piece of the Tampa FO through multiple iterations of their run with a shoestring budget.

And that might be insulting to shoestrings...
 

bosockboy

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Listened to a long interview with Theo this morning on Chicago radio, St Louis radio station was playing it back. He really trashed how badly they have played and scorched Maddon. “Completely uninspired baseball with poor fundamentals.”

Putting here because it sure sounded like the beginning of an exit strategy.
 

TheoShmeo

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Listened to a long interview with Theo this morning on Chicago radio, St Louis radio station was playing it back. He really trashed how badly they have played and scorched Maddon. “Completely uninspired baseball with poor fundamentals.”

Putting here because it sure sounded like the beginning of an exit strategy.
How a self promoter and wildly overrated manager such as Maddon has lasted this long under Theo is shocking to me.

As to Theo to the Sox, get it done, Theo. Isn't this too natural a result not to happen? Larry is gone, he would be the undisputed king, he's a Boston guy and he gets away from owners whose politics he abhors. Plus, if/when he turns the Sox back around, he's a hero yet again.
 

JimD

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The best part of bringing in Theo is that there likely wouldn't be any significant brain drain - they could elevate Romero or Ferreira to the GM position, thus ensuring organizational continuity. You'd have to think that they and O'Halloran and Scott would relish working for Theo again after dealing with DD's Old Boys Club the past few years. They seem to be highly regarded in baseball circles and certainly played a major part in developing the current homegrown core so I don't think a housecleaning is in order.
 

Ale Xander

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Theo makes too much sense. Just give him all the tools and all the resources. No trust problem there without LL, and he sort of has no risk because of 2004. Of course, in that famous article way back, he said how he puts pressure on himself. But seriously, he knows the city, he knows the media, he knows the co-workers, he knows analytics, he knows the coaches (but not the players, save Pedey, but that's ok.)

He should be the #1 candidate, no doubt about it. If he wants it, it should be his. He would probably receive a statue if he does it again.
 

lexrageorge

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The issue with bringing in Theo is that there is no way, no how he will work for Kennedy.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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The issue with bringing in Theo is that there is no way, no how he will work for Kennedy.
Why would he have to? I think bringing Theo back is a pipe dream, but presumably part of bringing him back would involve him having Dombrowski's old title at the very least. And Dombrowski did not answer to or "work for" Kennedy. They were essentially equals running different aspects of the organization with only Henry and Werner above them.
 

BoSox Rule

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Theo still has two years left on his contract (rumored to be up to $10 million per year) and President of Baseball Operations is a lateral move. How is this supposedly getting done?
 

Harry Hooper

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Didn't Theo get a small slice of ownership with the Cubs?


The best part of bringing in Theo is that there likely wouldn't be any significant brain drain - they could elevate Romero or Ferreira to the GM position, thus ensuring organizational continuity. You'd have to think that they and O'Halloran and Scott would relish working for Theo again after dealing with DD's Old Boys Club the past few years. They seem to be highly regarded in baseball circles and certainly played a major part in developing the current homegrown core so I don't think a housecleaning is in order.
All this logic pretty much applies to Hoyer as well, and he would seem to be a more realistic target since the Sox can offer him a promotion.
 

bosockboy

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Theo still has two years left on his contract (rumored to be up to $10 million per year) and President of Baseball Operations is a lateral move. How is this supposedly getting done?
Presumably if this season ends badly the Cubs will blow it up. Ricketts might just let him walk away.
 

twoBshorty

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Hoyer and his wife just bought a 3-million dollar mansion in Chicago this summer. That might seriously restrict his mobility.
He was in escrow on a house purchase when he left SD for Chicago. There are plenty of reasons he might not want to come here, but I don’t think real estate would be a hold up.

I read The Cubs Way recently and it had a lengthy bit on Theo’s move to Chicago. I really can’t see him returning to Boston. He was very unhappy here by the end and had been for awhile. Lucchino is gone but the job stress is still the same or worse. He’s closer to 50 than not and his older son is in middle school—if there’s no guarantee of stability unlike the revolving door of the last few years, why would he risk it? He has less than zero to prove to anyone and doesn’t need the money or the headache. I guess anything’s possible but I’d be shocked.
 

lexrageorge

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Why? What's the story there? Sworn enemies? Nuggies?
Why would he have to? I think bringing Theo back is a pipe dream, but presumably part of bringing him back would involve him having Dombrowski's old title at the very least. And Dombrowski did not answer to or "work for" Kennedy. They were essentially equals running different aspects of the organization with only Henry and Werner above them.
First, I just don't see Theo working for anyone but the owners at this stage of his career. He certainly doesn't need to report to anyone else at this stage of his career. But Kennedy does have the title of President & CEO, and I thought I saw one post in the other thread citing a news article mentioning differences between Dombrowski and Kennedy.

I doubt very much Theo is coming back regardless. But if he does it would have to be on his own terms; he's been burned twice already.
 

RedOctober3829

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First, I just don't see Theo working for anyone but the owners at this stage of his career. He certainly doesn't need to report to anyone else at this stage of his career. But Kennedy does have the title of President & CEO, and I thought I saw one post in the other thread citing a news article mentioning differences between Dombrowski and Kennedy.

I doubt very much Theo is coming back regardless. But if he does it would have to be on his own terms; he's been burned twice already.
Kennedy and Epstein have known each other most of their lives. They grew up together and played baseball together at Brookline HS. I don't think there is any rift between them and I think they would look at it as working together and not one working for the other.