The Blame Game, A Continuing Series

What do you do when things go south? Start pointing fingers at everybody!

Chaim Bloom is not the only guy to blame for this Red Sox mess

What will we do now that we don’t have Chaim Bloom to kick around anymore?

Bloom, a good and decent man who was neither ready nor equipped to run a big-market baseball team, was fired by the Red Sox before Thursday’s day-night doubleheader with the Yankees. The record will show that the Red Sox finished last in two of Bloom’s three full seasons and were tied for last on the day he was fired.

Bloom was asked to do the impossible when the Red Sox hired him from Tampa Bay in October of 2019. Ownership wanted him to win at the major league level, but also wanted him to cut payroll (get the team under the luxury-tax threshold) and rebuild a deteriorating farm system.

...

Red Sox owner John Henry and chairman Tom Werner fired Bloom in a face-to-face meeting at Fenway Thursday morning. The Sox released a statement at 12:27 p.m. announcing the “departure” of Bloom, then made CEO Sam Kennedy available for questions at Fenway at 12:45. This gave NESN a television exclusive.

“There’s blame to go around,” Kennedy acknowledged. “There’s blame on me. Our ownership. The on-field staff deserves blame. I’m sure some of the players would say they haven’t performed up to expectations. We all fell short of our collective goal, so there’s a lot of blame to go around.”

Connection Made

Or - A Tale of Two Grand Slams:

A tale of two grand slams: Mookie Betts, Pablo Reyes, and the direction of Chaim Bloom’s Red Sox

Mookie Betts and Pablo Reyes both hit grand slams Monday.

Betts’s blast powered the first-place Dodgers (65-46) to a 13-7 win over the Padres. Reyes’s walkoff granny gave the Red Sox a 6-2 win over the moribund Royals (36-78), vaulting your Towne Team out of last place for a few hours.

How are these things connected?

Chaim Bloom, that’s how.

Bloom’s first big moment as Boston’s baseball boss came in February of 2020 when he traded the face of the franchise and likely Hall of Famer Betts to the Dodgers for Alex Verdugo, Connor Wong, and Jeter Downs.

The Dodgers are going to be at Fenway two weeks from Friday, and it’ll be Mookie’s first appearance since that awful deal. And it got me wondering whether poor Chaim will still be on the job when Betts comes to town.

Wondering? I bet Shank's rooting for it.

Don't Stop Not Believing

Red Sox GM Chaim Bloom basically sat on his hands as baseball's trading deadline passed earlier this week, which is great news for Shank:

The Red Sox’ Chaim Bloom showed at the trade deadline that he doesn’t believe in his own team

In the end, Chaim Bloom decided this team is not worth an additional investment. He did not listen to Rafael Devers, Alex Cora, or a sizable segment of Red Sox Nation calling for reinforcements at the trade deadline. After weeks of debate about “buy or sell,” we got a still life painting of a bowl of oranges.

Bupkis. Nothing. Nada.

(Sorry, bringing on Luis Urías, a 26-year-old Triple A utility infielder who batted .145 for the Brewers this year does not count.)

Do you believe in this surprising Sox team that has played the best ball in the majors since June 30?

Always An Optimist

Shank, back for another round of Fort Myers fun, trackes down Red Sox GM Chaim Bloom, who's all rainbows and fluffy bunnies:

Keeping Chaim Bloom’s optimism in perspective, and other thoughts

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Picked-up pieces while waiting for Joe Mazzulla to call timeout …

▪ At Red Sox spring training in 1967, rookie manager Dick Williams — inheriting a 72-90 team that finished ninth — asserted that the Sox would win more games than they lose. They wound up going to the seventh game of the World Series.

Unfortunately, there are no guarantees in Bloomville.

I put the question to beleaguered Sox baseball boss Chaim Bloom on Thursday morning at Fenway South: Can you guarantee that the ‘23 Sox will win more than they lose? Or maybe just promise they won’t finish last again?

“There are no guarantees in this game,” Bloom said. “And especially not in the AL East. So no, I can’t honestly give fans a guarantee. That’s what makes baseball fun. You don’t know what’s going to happen. I think this is going to be a fun team.”

DHL Dan CLIX - Critical Year Ahead

With the prospects of a successful season by the Boston Red Sox seem slim, Shank's doing his best to pile on:

This is a critical year for the Red Sox and Chaim Bloom, and other thoughts

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Picked-up pieces from a correspondent’s 44th spring training …

▪ Wheeling into JetBlue Park at 7:45 a.m. on a balmy Tuesday for my first look at the 2023 Red Sox, the first person I saw was beleaguered, sweaty baseball boss Chaim Bloom doing his morning jog around the training complex.

Trust me when I tell you I never spotted Lou Gorman running around Chain O’ Lakes Park in Winter Haven.

Yabba Dabba Lou was a frequent target of Sox fans and media, but he never got booed by fans at a team promotional event. He never operated the Sox like a small-market team, and never finished last twice in three seasons.

Ditto for Dan Duquette, Theo Epstein, Ben Cherington, and Dave Dombrowski. They took the slings and arrows that come with the Boston Baseball Experience, but none was charged with franchise malpractice.

This 2023 season is critical in many ways for your Boston Red Sox, especially for Bloom.

DHL Dan CLI - Placing Blame

Shank's favorite pastime as applied to the offseason Boston Red Sox:

Don’t blame Chaim Bloom. It’s ownership that did this to the Red Sox, and other thoughts

Picked-up pieces while playing Mitch Miller Christmas carols . . .

▪ Chaim Bloom is having a horrible offseason, but he’s not the sole reason the Red Sox are bad.

It’s not Chaim. It’s not Alex Cora or Alex Verdugo. It’s not Joe Castiglione, Wally The Green Monster, or his sister, Tessie.

It’s ownership. It’s John Henry, Tom Werner, and whoever else is directing baseball ops to seek value over winning. Mookie and Xander are gone with virtually nothing in exchange, and the last Sox star — Rafael Devers — has a foot out the door. Fangraphs reports that the Red Sox — ever a top-five spending team — have dropped to 12th in cash payroll.

What is happening to the Red Sox is a direct result of ownership decisions made late in the 2019 season, after Dave Dombrowski was fired. That’s when they decided to put the bottom line above winning. And that’s why the Red Sox — while charging the highest ticket prices in baseball — have only one healthy star left on a team that will be a consensus favorite to finish last for the third time in four seasons.

DHL Dan CXXXVII - The Kiss Of Death

Do the Shank sharks smell blood in the water?

How did the Red Sox’ Chaim Bloom take his recent vote of confidence? And other thoughts ...

Picked-up pieces while wondering if the feds found a “Malcolm Butler/Top Secret” file at Mar-a-Lago …

▪ Red Sox CEO Sam Kennedy was compelled this past week to issue a vote of confidence for Chaim Bloom and Alex Cora.

“I am very comfortable saying Chaim and Alex will be back,” Kennedy told The Athletic.

The proverbial vote of confidence. Since we never hear from ownership anymore (feels like John Henry is ghosting his baseball team), Kennedy’s backing will have to do.

How did the statement land with the Red Sox chief baseball officer — who has had a year like Eddie Mush in “A Bronx Tale” and is taking way more heat than his manager?

“I believe in what we’re doing here,” said Bloom, whose team is likely to finish last for a second time in his three Red Sox seasons. “This year has not so far gone the way any of us would have wanted. We’ll work hard to get better.

... Thanks for the time, Chaim. But watch your back. Ownership always needs a scapegoat.

Written without a hint of irony.

The One Where Shank Saves Me The Work

Shank finally gets around to interviewing Red Sox general manager Chaim Bloom, whose team Shank has been savaging since spring training. I was going to do the usual linkfest to point all this stuff out, but today's my lucky day:

At the halfway point, Chaim Bloom is pleased with Red Sox but says: ‘We haven’t accomplished anything yet’

Red Sox baseball boss Chaim Bloom returned a phone call Tuesday, which was pretty nice of him considering that I’ve been driving a pipe through his ball club since he got the job 20 months ago.

You might remember: Tampa Bay by the Charles. The Boston Devil Rays. The worst Sox deal (Mookie Betts to the Dodgers) since Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees. The joke of “payroll flexibility.” The worst outfield in Red Sox history. Fangraphs’s idiotic projection of 89 wins. “Sneaky good” mockery. Sox bound for irrelevance. Sox are Fool’s Gold.

So here we are at the midpoint of the 2021 baseball season, and the Sox are in first place, own the second-best record in baseball, and are on pace to win 98-100 games.

Shank Gets One Right

Maybe not a really tough prediction, but give some credit where it's due.

Remember him predicting Chaim Bloom's gonna be the next Red Sox baseball honcho? He nailed it:

In his introductory press conference, Chaim Bloom made it clear: his goal as chief baseball officer of the Red Sox is to “build as strong an organization as possible in all aspects so we can have sustained long-term success and so we can compete in championships year in and year out.”

Does that long-term plan include holding on to Mookie Betts or J.D. Martinez? Bloom’s not quite ready to answer that.

The Red Sox’ new chief baseball officer -- on the job for about two hours before his introductory press conference on Monday -- said there are a lot of options for the roster and it would be premature to say what direction the team will move in.

I wonder how long it'll take before Shank starts second guessing him? Probably with Bloom's first trade!

Shank Still Sucks At Math

Or we might call this one 'wishful thinking' instead:

Is Chaim Bloom the next Theo Epstein?

WASHINGTON — History tells us that the Red Sox can’t go wrong when they hire a young Jewish man from Yale to run the baseball operation.

Theo Epstein broke the mold 17 years ago when — just a few years out of Yale — he took over as the youngest general manager in baseball history. Theo won a World Series two years later. He was the first of a new generation of baseball executives — analytics-driven students of the game who did not play baseball at a high level. Baseball’s annual Winter Meetings today are overrun with bright job seekers well-versed in the topics at MIT’s Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. Everybody wants to be the next Theo Epstein.

Say hello to 36-year-old Chaim Bloom, new chief baseball officer of your Boston Red Sox.

Bloom takes over for Dave Dombrowski, who was fired in September, less than a year after winning the World Series. Dombrowski took over for Ben Cherington, who was knifed in the back less than two years after winning the 2013 World Series. Cherington succeeded Epstein, who ignited this whole geek craze back in 2002 when he was named general manager of the Red Sox at the age of 28.

Shank seems to think that one data point (hiring Theo Epstein) indicates a trend; it does not. Furthermore, the announcement hasn't been made yet, and the column doesn't indicate anything about Bloom's hiring - rumors, insider scuttlebutt, etc. It is pure speculation, which of course means Shank could wind up with egg on his face yet again. This is what happens when you nuke your bridges leading into Fenway Park.