How should Chaim Bloom's Red Sox performance be judged?
The Red Sox have a mediocre MLB record since Chaim Bloom took over. But isn't his job about a lot more than that?
The Boston Red Sox will likely make a decision about Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom’s future sometime in 2023.
Bloom’s in the fourth year of a reported five-year deal. It’s not impossible he goes into that fifth year without further clarity, but teams often remove that distraction—one way or another.
Given the team’s record over the last few years, one might think Bloom is in trouble. Whenever the Red Sox lose, segments of team observers start calling for heads to roll, and Bloom is usually the target of vitriol.
It’s far too early to declare 2023 a success or failure. But the Red Sox record since Bloom took over following the 2019 season is 209-204. That jibes with an out-and-out lousy pandemic-shortened 2020, an injury-filled and inconsistent 2022, and a surprising and fun 2021 playoff run sandwiched in between.
209-204 is a mediocre record. But the way Bloom is talked about in some quarters of Red Sox Nation, you’d think his teams are actually 0-413.
Losing is frustrating. Losing has a compounding impact on narratives, and it doesn’t help when there’s a sports media environment in Boston that incentivizes fanning the flames of controversy for engagement and eyeballs instead of informing fans and adding value to their experience.
In reality, any discussion about Bloom’s future deserves a deeper level of analysis than just the team’s win/loss record.
What’s the actual job Bloom has been asked to do? And, what does Red Sox ownership want to see from the baseball operation he’s running?
What’s Chaim Bloom’s Mission in Boston?
On March 24, Beyond the Monster posted an interview with Bloom on the Obstructed View Podcast. In response to our founder Chris Henrique’s first question about the state of the organization, Bloom laid out his mission with the Red Sox:
“All we’re trying to do is build the organization while we’re winning. Obviously in 2021 we did both, and then last year we didn’t do the winning part…We’re in a much better place. We still have a lot of work to do.”
Bloom also discussed the cutthroat level of competition among teams for talent. While he feels the Red Sox have made strides, they aren’t close to where they want to be yet.
“I think our ability to get the most out of that talent, with some of the new voices we’ve brought in and some of the people we’ve empowered, is in a much better place. The only way we can accomplish that goal of fielding a championship-caliber team every year is by having a strong pipeline. There is no other way to do it. We’re fortunate here that we’ve got resources that allow us to add to that core…but the only way to be there every year is to constantly be replenishing the club with good talent that you grow yourself. So, we have to be elite at that.”
How should Bloom be evaluated based on those statements? Let’s look at what his actual bosses have said publicly.
Team chairman Tom Werner said this on the day of the Rafael Devers extension press conference (per the Boston Sports Journal):
"We have great confidence in Chaim and his department,'' said Werner. "People were rightfully upset and disappointed (with the team's play in 2022); we were rightfully upset and disappointed. We did not like what happened last year. The wheels came off. On the other hand, we were two games away from going to the World Series the year before and we believe that we were ahead of our plan.
"I believe Chaim has a clear plan to make us not only competitive but to win another World Series. I have a lot of confidence in our minor league system -- we'll be seeing some of the results of that this year and next year. We know we're in a very competitive business. We're in the toughest, competitive division. But we'll be back this year…''
At the start of spring training, team president and CEO Sam Kennedy said to the Boston Globe: “Chaim is our chief baseball officer and I do not anticipate any changes there.”
Lastly, here’s what principal owner John Henry said to the Boston Sports Journal about Bloom’s job performance in February:
“Baseball operations is more than one person. This is true in every organization. We put blame and credit on one personality but it takes a strong organization to be successful on the field. So a better question is: how is the organization doing? As I said, we haven't gotten the kind of results you would have expected for the amount of resources deployed over the last four years with the exception of 2021. We've been building depth, but we saw little depth last year in the major leagues. You should see some depth this year and improvement…”
[Note that Werner brought up the development of the minor league system, and Henry mentioned “building depth.” Those things are connected, and we’ll get back to them shortly.]
We know ownership has been frustrated by mediocrity at the MLB level. We can debate the merits of Bloom’s player additions and subtractions. Some have worked out to date, some haven’t, and the jury is still out on many. Those moves have been debated ad nauseam, and aren’t really the point of this post.
But what about those other areas Bloom talked about, including building the baseball organization with new voices, and that pipeline of talent for depth? There have been successes, but much work is left to be done—which could make walking away from Bloom now inadvisable.
Revamping the Red Sox Organization and Farm Talent Pipeline
Henry noted that baseball operations involve more than one person, and trying to build that team within a team has been a huge part of Bloom’s mission.
There’s ample evidence Bloom has free reign to modernize Red Sox baseball operations, which lagged behind others during the previous two baseball operations administrations.
To summarize the points of the article, since Bloom arrived the Red Sox have:
Increased the size of the analytics/research & development staff from 14 in 2019 to 33 at present in an effort to keep pace with the rest of the industry
Grown the minor league development operations infrastructure including a major reorganization of the unit starting in 2021
Added development coaches at each level intended to serve as liaisons between the analytics and coaching staffs
Expanded roles for Red Sox staffers including moving director of amateur scouting Paul Toboni to a hybrid role with scouting and player development responsibilities
More recently, hired three new player development staffers with extensive experience working at Driveline Baseball, a leading player performance facility with a focus on biomechanics
Worked to expand the facility at JetBlue Park in Fort Myers to turn it into “a player development hub”
Now, have any of these changes directly led to on-field winning yet? It’s hard to say, although the team should get some credit for 2023 improvements to date for Alex Verdugo, Connor Wong, Jarren Duran, Josh Winckowski, Kutter Crawford and others.
These org changes presumably took significant investment in both people and operations to implement. These moves—in particular the new analytics hires that have gotten a lot of attention—are about catching up to, and eventually keeping pace with, teams that win consistently year in and year out in MLB.
The Red Sox have resources needed financially to do this, it’s just a matter of finding the right people and retaining them. These aren’t the moves that get headlines in and of themselves, but they’re the kind that can directly lead to MLB team success.
If the Red Sox were to move on from Bloom sooner rather than later, and put someone completely different in his place, there’s potential all those years of work to build a modern baseball operation would go up in smoke, and have the effect of putting the franchise right back where it was in 2019.
Then, there’s the effort to build the minor league talent pipeline. Bloom has acknowledged the franchise he took over in 2019 didn’t have a good pipeline of minor league talent, and the industry was inclined to agree. Before that season, Baseball America ranked the Red Sox farm system dead last of all 30 MLB teams.
After four years under Bloom, the farm system has arisen from the basement all the way up to 10th in BA’s org rankings. Several players acquired under Dave Dombrowski’s regime—including Triston Casas, Ceddanne Rafaela, Bryan Mata and Brandon Walter—have prospered since Bloom’s arrival. But other marquee prospects in the system—including Marcelo Mayer, Miguel Bleis, Nick Yorke, Shane Drohan, Mikey Romero and Roman Anthony—were acquired since Bloom came to Boston.
Some young players Bloom traded for—including Enmanuel Valdez, Verdugo, Wong and Winckowski—are current MLB contributors to varying degrees. Others have flamed out, namely Jeter Downs, Connor Seabold and Franchy Cordero. The franchise also lacks high-end pitching and catching talent in the minors as things stand.
Either way, the farm system is undoubtedly much stronger than it was four years ago.
Yet, real Red Sox contributors from the minors have been few and far between in recent years. That’s at least partially due to the state of the system when Bloom took over. As noted, it was quite bleak, especially in terms of immediate help for the MLB ballclub. The top prospect in the SoxProspects.com rankings the month of Bloom’s hire was Casas, who wouldn’t make his MLB debut for nearly three years.
The depth to help fill out an MLB roster was gone. Bloom needed to build it back nearly from scratch, a time-consuming exercise. Players brought into the franchise as amateurs under Bloom haven’t reached MLB yet–Yorke, Drohan and Luis Guerrero are the furthest along, and they’re at Double-A Portland.
Examples across MLB show how it can take years to build and fine-tune a machine that spits out MLB players on the regular. The Rays and Guardians have a seemingly endless supply of talent. The Astros lost Carlos Correa and replaced him with Jeremy Pena, who immediately won ALCS and World Series MVPs. The Dodgers can afford to lose Max Scherzer with Dustin May waiting in the wings, not to mention plugging James Outman in the outfield after Cody Bellinger departed.
While Red Sox fans have every right to be impatient with a mediocre team, they should also understand reasons for that mediocrity. The lack of a talent pipeline is one of them.
Based on recent season figures from @RedSoxPayroll, it can be deduced Bloom does have payroll constraints generally in vicinity of the first Collective Bargaining Tax (CBT) threshold, which is presently $233M with the Red Sox finding themselves about $5M under that for 2023 right now.
It stands to reason Bloom’s job may have been easier these last few years if he actually had more MLB-ready prospect depth to draw from instead of plugging holes with short-term, limited-upside veteran free agents.
To field a representative team, Bloom spread available money to multiple spots. But, a working pipeline of cheap talent may have meant spending that money on higher-ticket options to make the team a real contender. That feels like where the Red Sox want to be, but aren’t now.
Will Red Sox Ownership Continue to Be Patient?
The only opinions that matter about Bloom and his job performance are those of his bosses, and it’s true Henry has shown a lack of patience with his heads of baseball operations in recent years.
Ben Cherington was promoted to run the team in 2012, won a World Series the next year, but was out the door before the 2015 season ended. Dave Dombrowski then won three straight division titles and the World Series in 2018 but was fired in September 2019 after asking for clarity on his position with a year left on his contract (similar to where Bloom will reportedly be contract-wise this fall).
Seems bad for someone with Bloom’s record at the MLB level, right? Maybe, or maybe not.
After going through the whiplash of different approaches to baseball operations in the 2010s, ownership seems content to give Bloom more time to see through his mission. But talk is cheap, and no one knows how things will look in five or six months.
In order to push themselves back into contention for World Series titles year in and year out, ownership also ought to consider looking inward. They may choose to use Bloom as a scapegoat for long-term organizational failures, but it doesn’t change their role in said failures.
Spending is not a panacea that directly leads to championships, and despite narratives to the contrary the Red Sox generally spend among the highest echelon of teams.
And yet, Henry must contend with the fact that a record seven teams appear projected to go over at least the first CBT threshold in 2023, and the Red Sox aren’t one of them. Going over the CBT this year isn’t a good idea for a lot of reasons for the Red Sox, but it could be one in the future.
ESPN’s Buster Olney made comments to a Vermont radio station in April about Henry’s responsibility to the team:
"It's not about Chaim Bloom. To me, it's about John Henry. He will now be tested as we move forward, what his level of patience is. I don't think you can ask a fanbase in Philadelphia or New York or in Boston to sit back and wait six-to-eight years for your team to completely rebuild..."
Additionally, it’s not like the Red Sox under Henry have never shown any patience with a baseball operations leader: Theo Epstein stayed in his role in charge of Red Sox baseball operations for nine years, aside from a stretch in the 2005-2006 offseason when he briefly voluntarily stepped away.
Bloom isn’t Epstein, at least not yet. But like Bloom, Epstein was tasked with building a modern baseball operation and a self-proclaimed “player development machine.” Like Bloom, Epstein made plenty of mistakes along the way (Wily Mo Peña says hello). Yet, the end result for Epstein was a consistent winner.
Will Bloom be allowed to see through a consistent winner in Boston? Is he absolutely the right person to do it? That remains to be seen. But firing him now feels akin to changing pilots during Transatlantic flight. You might get to where you want to go, but it’s gonna be damn bumpy and probably not worth it.
Red Sox ownership, and Red Sox fans, should give Chaim Bloom the chance to land that plane.
If you’re interested in more on the Red Sox minor league system, I’m joined each week on The Pesky Report by Derrik Maguire and Hunter Noll to talk all things Red Sox prospects. Listen and subscribe to The Pesky Report here.
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