When do people feel this position MUST be filled? Clearly, the sooner the better, but when does it get to the point where the organization is disadvantaged for next season? Or, has that point already been passed?
So....who is the new GM/head of baseball ops?
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Free agency begins five days after the end of the World Series, so ideally they would have the new boss in place by then. HOWEVER. Kennedy said he could not promise they would even have new FO in place by the GM Meetings (Nov 7-9). That's usually where teams have discussions and lay the groundwork for future deals, many of which go down during the Winter Meetings in December.
The Sox apparently have Romero in charge now, so he could certainly make some decisions before a new FO boss is hired . . . if it's not him in the end. In 2005, Theo quit on Halloween and didn't return for 80 days. In his stead, Port and Hoyer acquired Beckett and Lowell in a late November deal many said Theo would not have made. Theo apparently was loathe to trade top prospects like Hanley Ramirez and Anibal Sanchez.
So not sure when he MUST be hired if they trust the current acting leadership, led by Romero. That being said, for the new #1 to be able to put his imprint on the off-season, he would be in place before the World Series ends
The Sox apparently have Romero in charge now, so he could certainly make some decisions before a new FO boss is hired . . . if it's not him in the end. In 2005, Theo quit on Halloween and didn't return for 80 days. In his stead, Port and Hoyer acquired Beckett and Lowell in a late November deal many said Theo would not have made. Theo apparently was loathe to trade top prospects like Hanley Ramirez and Anibal Sanchez.
So not sure when he MUST be hired if they trust the current acting leadership, led by Romero. That being said, for the new #1 to be able to put his imprint on the off-season, he would be in place before the World Series ends
Bloom was officially hired on October 28, 2019. I'm not sure we're close to the point where there's a detriment or disadvantage not having the job filled. All that can be happening now is internal anyway, which is stuff that Romero, O'Halloran, and company would be heavily involved in anyway.
My bad. According to the the Boston Herald, it was Lajoie and Shipley.
"The Red Sox, under Bill Lajoie and Craig Shipley, could absorb it, so they took it on, insisting that the third baseman could revive his career. Theo Epstein was on leave at the time of the deal."
"It's not that we had to take Mike," Lajoie told the Boston Herald. "It's that we wanted Mike.''
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2009/11/trades-of-the-decade-the-hanley-ramirez-deal.html
Looking at some key dates for the offseason:
Teams are able to sign free agents starting 5 days after the World Series. This date used to be a bigger deal, but it seems now most big free agents sign in December. The same date is also when opt-outs and opt-ins must be exercised and also when qualifying offers must be extended to pending free agents.
GM meetings are November 7-9, the Winter Meetings are December 4-7, and the Rule V draft is December 6th. Honestly, it would be borderline inexcusable if there is no GM/PBO in by then.
I didn't realize you were a journalist, my apologies. I was too, which is probably why I have a quick reaction when it appears that the media gets blamed for stuff that the team does. There are times when writers do stir shit up (Shank) but I don't think that there are many media members who a. do that any more and b. have the power to drive agendas. I mean Shaughnessy takes an unnecessary shot at David Ortiz every single Sunday in his weekly column and I don't think anyone's mind has ever changed about Papi. Maybe Felger can get people talking or repeating his bullet points, but it's not automatic.
We certainly might be talking past each other as I think that we're both close to the same page (at least within the same chapter) in that I think that we both agree that Bloom wasn't a robot like someone such as Dan Duquette was portrayed as. You know that I was no fan of Bloom, but I never thought that he was a bad guy. He seemed like a dude that would be fun to have a beer with, which is cool. I just didn't agree with his approach/philosophy to running the Sox. I actually thought that he could have been a bit more bloodless and make moves quicker. He seemed to overthink things to the point of inaction, which I think is/was a byproduct of his temperament. Like he was too concerned about what people thought about him.
Seth Mnookin in Feeding the Monster quotes Nick Cafardo saying "CEO Larry Lucchino...sealed the deal with the Marlins." (p. 387) Lajoie and Shipley were the spear carriers.
The deal probably wouldn't have been made if Theo had been around. He was somewhat more oriented to player development than Lucchino and tried to reacquire Hanley a couple of years later.
With all the inaction the past month and multiple candidates finding better reasons to not take the job…
Do we still believe Bloom’s marching orders (move Betts, reset finances and keep Cora AND compete for playoffs) didn’t make the job almost impossible?
I would like to think Bloom wanted to sell everything but was stopped by FSG demands. Too easy for me to say it was Bloom indecision without knowing what FSG said he could and couldn’t do.
I'm basing Bloom's indecision not on what FSG told him to do (I think that he, by and large, fulfilled their orders) but what opposing GMs/PoBOs said in the days following his ouster that oftentimes Bloom was hesitant to makes deals or once a deal was struck, Bloom would ask for a different prospect. Or when dealing with an agent, Bloom would restructure a deal after it was thought to be completed. I think that the Bogaerts deal is a good example of that. At the end of last year Bloom and Kennedy both unequivocally said that resigning Bogaerts was the most important thing in the offseason. Not only did that not get done (which, I don't think that we need to discuss this gain) but they were blindsided by how quick the market moved on their shortstop -- as evidenced by the paragraphs that Chawson quoted.
I think that Bloom was looking for the *perfect* deal, of which, I don't think that there is one. That's what I meant by Bloom's indecision. Wasn't there a report that the Rangers wanted Chris Sale and Bloom had him shipped but was like, "welllllll I think we should renegotiate on prospects." I mean you take whatever the Rangers are offering you and you run away like a theif in the night. There's no need to get cute when you can exponge a salary albatross from your bottom line.
And yes, you could look at Yoshida and say, "Look how decisve Bloom was there and now he's getting killed for it." And I'd agree, he was bold and decisive signing Yoshida. It was an aggressive move and I wish he did that more. Bloom is a smart dude, but from what I've read it seemed that he either didn't 100% believe in the power of his convictions or he was one of those people that needed to win every single aspect of a deal. If it's the latter, I'm afraid that's not going to happen. No one can bat 1.000.
It's probably unfair, but I compared Bloom to Dombrowski and Epstein who knew what they wanted, went out and got them and let the chips fall where they may. It doesn't appear that the Sox ownership didn't give Bloom as much cash, but last offseason he did have a bunch of prospects to use as chips. I will never understand how he could look at the Sox starting pitching and second base positons in February and say, "Yup. My work here is done."
What we don't know...and may never know is how much of Bloom being fired is that he "couldn't pull the trigger." Someone here explained him as being a good example of the Peter Principal as he had reached is level of incompetence. It seems like the Sox were second best on a bunch of potential free agents. And they were close on a bunch of potential big trades. Was it that Bloom simply couldn't cross a threshold level he had agreed with ownership....or that he simply couldn't pull the trigger and be bold?
Theo thrived in a world were undervalued talent could still be identified. I think much of that has dried up. DD lived in a bold world...big bold moves he made in Detroit, Boston and is still making, the future be damned. Both were highly successful. I'm not sure Bloom could ever find his footing to get outside his comfort zone .... and we won't know if ownership had been pushing him for that.
Theo thrived in a world were undervalued talent could still be identified. I think much of that has dried up. DD lived in a bold world...big bold moves he made in Detroit, Boston and is still making, the future be damned. Both were highly successful. I'm not sure Bloom could ever find his footing to get outside his comfort zone .... and we won't know if ownership had been pushing him for that.
For me the Bloom approach was develop the farm and in the mean time don't get locked into long term deals. If you're in contention in July with those short term deals than push some chips into the middle. Alternatively, if you're out of contention move some of those short term contracts to further develop the farm. It's those last two sentences that didn't happen with conviction. Even in 2021, the push wasn't as substantial as it probably could have been.
Sean McAdam weighed in on Cora's impact on the process:
"After the season, the Red Sox made the surprising announcement that Alex Cora would have some input into the search for a new lead baseball executive. The reasoning went like this: the Red Sox wanted to make sure Cora and the new hire would be able to forge a good working relationship. That raised eyebrows throughout the game, since it’s highly unusual for managers to have a hand in hiring their boss.
But according to a well-placed source, Cora has had very little involvement in the process to date."
https://www.masslive.com/redsox/2023/10/some-things-i-think-i-think-red-sox-need-upgrades-all-over-a-different-pats-season-mcadam.html
"After the season, the Red Sox made the surprising announcement that Alex Cora would have some input into the search for a new lead baseball executive. The reasoning went like this: the Red Sox wanted to make sure Cora and the new hire would be able to forge a good working relationship. That raised eyebrows throughout the game, since it’s highly unusual for managers to have a hand in hiring their boss.
But according to a well-placed source, Cora has had very little involvement in the process to date."
https://www.masslive.com/redsox/2023/10/some-things-i-think-i-think-red-sox-need-upgrades-all-over-a-different-pats-season-mcadam.html
So everyone who took them saying Cora would have "some input" to mean Cora was running the whole show might have over-reacted a bit? Imagine that.
Wouldn't surprise me if Cora's input to the process was limited to giving them an evaluation of his dealings with Bloom and maybe some feedback on what he hopes a good relationship with a new GM/CBO would look like. Would make sense if they want someone who can integrate well with the staff they already have to figure out what might have gone wrong with the last guy and try to avoid some of those pitfalls. The notion that Cora would be involved in the actual interview and selection process always struck me as an absurd assumption based on a couple quotes with much more innocuous possible explanations.
It's certainly possible Cora's role was overblown from the start. Teams sometimes use a player board as part of the interview process or certain players provide input on a coach. They may not have a deciding vote, but the players' input is simply a part of the process. Robert Kraft sought Drew Bledsoe's input on Pete Carroll's replacement, which led to Bill Belichick over Dom Capers.
If you're planning on keeping the manager around, and he wasn't on the same page with the previous general manager, it makes sense to at least get Cora's thoughts on the final candidates. That does not mean Cora gets to choose his boss.
Orrrr, perhaps you're underreacting due to a single anonymous source. But I don't think the primary concern, at least for me, was that Cora would have real power over the CBO search. It's how publicly they supported Cora & the numerous quotes indicating his high standing in the organization. & it is also clear from the reporting that this concerned multiple people around baseball who may have otherwise been interested in the position, or maybe were at least more skeptical due to these public & private comments the org has made.
If the people in the industry are concerned over Cora's place in the organization, I don't think it's at all unfair for us to be concerned about it, & the fact that he is not literally interviewing the candidates himself does not change that.
My assumption is that ownership does trust Cora, and he’s also probably aligned with their interests (fielding g a winning team). As the team is (in theory) moving into a more competitive arc and is integrating younger players, it makes sense to not have whole scale turn over, so they’re keeping him around. But that doesn’t mean he’s choosing his boss and it doesn’t mean the new POBO can’t choose his own guy: Cora has a year left on his deal and it may be a lot to ask for the new guy to do a full overhaul, so they come in and use 2024 to figure out what they want to keep and what they want to get rid of.
Whether it's impossible, he *did* sort of do that through July (the 28th at least). I think it was the "O.K., what now?" aspect of things that led to his ouster. It's absolutely fair to ask "well, what *could* he have done that would have both helped the team and remained true to the long-term?" And my only answer is "I don't know." Perhaps management has an idea of both what could have been done and Bloom's rationale for not doing it. (Possible.) Or maybe management is just saying "the team he built really sucked again." (Unlikely to be that simple.)
While in and of itself, the non-moves at the deadline *could* just be seen as a misjudgment of how the rest of the season would go (which is problematic enough), I suspect management saw it (based on the type of deadline information that @JMOH talks about) as a type of "fatal defect" that would keep him from being good at the next/other step(s) of the team's planned progression.
I don't get the concern about Cora and I cannot imagine any candidate who is otherwise interested in the Boston job declining to interview because of Cora.
Do folks think candidates are not interviewing because of Cora as manager or because he, someday, would like to move to the front office at some undetermined time in the future?
He's under contract for one more season and would present an easy media target/scapegoat if next year doesn't go well. I guess the potential worry is that the Sox win the World Series next year and the new GM is pressured into signing Cora to a new contract? Or that Cora will be named the new GM when the four year GM clock strikes zero? If the latter, the easiest way to avoid that scenario is having a very successful ballclub over the next four years that is positioned for further success.
As for being put off by other reasons, it seems that some candidates see a better path to success at their current jobs and don't want to uproot their families (Gomes, 37 with kids; Fuld, 41 with kids; Falvey, 40 with kids)(Edit: Click and Daniels fall into this same pattern)
Look at Thad Levine- he apparently turned down opportunities to interview with the Phillies, Mets, and Astros in recent years. If one of those guys takes a job elsewhere, I think we should be concerned about the perception about working for the Red Sox. Same thing if Ng takes a comparable job. But, the Sox appear to want a young candidate and I think this is a challenging reality when targeting younger names who have school age children and who have jobs at successful teams.
I'm sure that the recent churn in the Boston front office is seen as a detraction of the job. But I am not at all surprised that young candidates who have top level jobs at other very successful teams are declining to interview.
If Cora had more power, he’d be extended. It’s really weird that he’s staying while also being a lame duck.
It seems totally plausible to me that family reasons make up the bulk of the concerns. Click, Fuld, Gomes, Sawdaye and Daniels all have kids aged 6-14, and Hill has three older boys, two still in high school. Some of those kids reportedly have special needs, it doesn't seem wild to see them genuinely prioritizing family reasons — especially post-pandemic. Maybe related, but GMs/PoBos are a little younger now than they used to be. Average age of a GM was 48.6 in the 1970s; was 41.3 in the 2010s according to this 2015 study.
Adding that Falvey, Hazen, and Epstein have also declined interviews beefs up the story, but those guys already have top-level jobs. Kennedy had already said Epstein wasn't an option, yet national outlets are reporting that he's said no. Ferreira's reasons are perfectly legitimate and she's in the organization, yet she's also listed among these names as further evidence of organizational dysfunction.
Adding that Falvey, Hazen, and Epstein have also declined interviews beefs up the story, but those guys already have top-level jobs. Kennedy had already said Epstein wasn't an option, yet national outlets are reporting that he's said no. Ferreira's reasons are perfectly legitimate and she's in the organization, yet she's also listed among these names as further evidence of organizational dysfunction.
I think that's what cost Bloom his job. In 2021 and in 2023, he never pushed any chips in. This is Boston, and the Red Sox compete in the playoffs - fans expect it; ownership expects it. You build a pile of chips to push them in. And when it was time to push, he folded his hand, twice.
I think one of the reasons (agreed there are multiple ones) is that Cora obviously has the ear of upper management and this contributes to the perception (presumably confirmed by Bloom if anyone asks him) that a lot of internal politics come with this job, and no one wants their boss to side with one of their employees over them. That is true to some extent with all jobs, but more so with this one, it seems.
Bummer. Now the "Color Me Thad" title for the new head of baseball operations thread can't be used.
Certainly willing to let the process play out but it's a bit concerning to me that, based on reports, so many of the people who might be moving on to the next round don't have the experience for the role. I'd rather Romero get prompted versus giving someone like Kapler or Breslow the job when they have 0 experience.
Breslow is the #3 front office guy, essentially, for the Cubs, has by all accounts successfully built up their pitching development program, was a major league player, comes with a Yale degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry, is widely considered one of the smartest (former) athletes, has relationships with the organization already, and conveniently lives in Newton!
Seems to me he's an attractive candidate.
For those of us who can't read the Globe, who is still being considered? Based off of the picture, I am guessing Breslow and Kapler are two. Are there any other external candidates?
EDIT: It appears the Neal Huntington is the only other candidate being looked at that's not currently apart of the Red Sox. That's grim
I mean its pretty obvious he’s going to be extended but they’re waiting for the new baseball boss to be hired to extend him.
Disagree, it seems quite possible he will manage in 2024 and then move to the front office, hence no extension.
Or Thad boys?
He does look super appealing but don't we have loads of smaht guys and gals already? I want people in the 1&2 seats that already know 'Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown'.
The chair turned out to be too big for Bloom 1.0, regardless of his analytical chops. To be clear, he has everything he needs and will grow in his next opportunity, which will probably happen soon, and has totally high roaded it so far.
Why?
If ownership is committed to him long term, they can extend him and the new guy can live with it. The lack of an extension very much suggests they're leaving that decision up to the new CBO.
Absolutely unnecessary to leave Cora dangling as a lame duck if they're committed to moving him up to the front office after 2024. If that's really their intention, they can extend him and just redo the deal to account for his front office role when the time comes.
Listen, I love the thought of Craig Breslow, but I mean, there is zero way to objectively say Bloom to Breslow is anything but a massive downgrade.
The list seems absolutely terrifying.
The list seems absolutely terrifying.
Red Sox are leaking that they informed him...... which probably means that after talking he said No Thank you
Yeah all of these things sure. But he's also been tasked with fixing/developing their pitching. That pales in comparison to all the hats and skills a POBO needs to possess and wear. Breslow has seemingly not done any of those other things. I get he's the shiny new toy and we do love our Ivy League grads on this board. But I'd feel better about a guy who's actually been part of putting a full team together, negotiated contracts, etc.
If that were the case it would have happened closer to when he interviewed and not the day they cut down the candidate list.
As I posted earlier, I agree and I think this is somewhat tied to the fact that Cherington/Dombrowski/Bloom have all lasted only four years, which makes relocating young kids/spouse much less attractive.
If Breslow is the guy, wonder if they hire Huntington as GM since he’s experienced in GM negotiating, etc…
If they reconfigure the FO so that it's almost a 3 headed monster (Romero in charge of amateur scouting/draft, O'Halloran contract/trade negotiations, Breslow pro scouting/pitching) then maybe you could consider it an upgrade, although that structure would have problems of its own.
However, even if you like Breslow (who basically doesn't have any experience with many of the aspects involved in being a GM), it's an awful list. I mean, the fact that the only two external candidates that accepted a 2nd interview are Breslow and Neal fucking Huntington is absolutely crazy.
This gives me a chance to say this bugs the hell out of me. Breslow does seem genuinely very smart, people have talked about it forever, but in general, citing someone's Ivy League undergrad background as somehow showing they're intelligent seems really silly to me. I am a Columbia grad and some of the dumbest people I have met in my entire life went to Columbia or Yale or Harvard, all of those schools have always let in athletes who would not be there otherwise. Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.
Not sure what changed but just two days ago he was considered very much in the mix
https://www.si.com/mlb/red-sox/news/red-sox-gm-search-appears-to-be-narrowed-down-to-two-candidates-scott7
Feels like there's a parallel universe where Bloom and ownership sat down together and decided some F.O. changes needed to happen, so they go out and get Breslow to be the new #2 and hire someone like Ng on who has experience but maybe isn't looking to jump right back into a PBO type role as a "special projects" consultant to help develop both Breslow and Bloom in growth opportunity areas. That would seem like a pretty good alternate universe to me.
Instead, we're stuck hoping a guy jumping a grade level will pan out for us. And, I mean, I really like Breslow's profile long term so if he is the guy I obviously hope it all works out, but it seems like we got rid of the last guy for not having some of the temperament and soft skills needed to succeed in the PBO role and now we're thinking of handing it to someone who is very, very green. Doesn't seem optimal from the outside looking in.
Instead, we're stuck hoping a guy jumping a grade level will pan out for us. And, I mean, I really like Breslow's profile long term so if he is the guy I obviously hope it all works out, but it seems like we got rid of the last guy for not having some of the temperament and soft skills needed to succeed in the PBO role and now we're thinking of handing it to someone who is very, very green. Doesn't seem optimal from the outside looking in.
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