Fire Bloom .

[cp176]

Moon does a great job looking at team's overall 'budget'.

 

As a former CPA, I just can't get excited about anyone talking about adding players to the roster without mentioning overall financial implication.

 

Question is always where will the money come from.....HOW DO YOU ALLOCATE $230M OR WHATEVER THAT NUMBER IS?

 

Let's just look at our cheap cost talent.

 

Houck

Schrieber

Brasier

Sawamura

Dalbec

Arroyo

Verdugo

Duran

Crawford

Winckowski

Bello

 

Over $25M club

Chris Sale ($25.6M)

Over $20M club possible savings of $42M

Story ($23.3M)

Xander (probably gone after 2022, relieves $20M)

JD (gone after this year, relieves $22M)

Over $15M club savings of $33M

Eovaldi (probably gone after this year, relieves $17M)

David Price (last year of pay not to play at $16M)

Over $10M club possible savings of $10M

Devers (will need $10M bump for 2023)

Paxton (may get 2 year option picked up)

Over $5M Club Savings of $19M

Barnes ($9.375 2nd biggest mistake by Bloom)

Kike ($7M)

Wacha ($7M)

Hill ($5M)

 

How will Bloom allocate maybe $90M in available spending?

 

ok here goes - i'll preface this with a no offense to anyone but not paying Eovaldi and Sale for what they had done and actually might still be able to do in the future would have been a huge mistake. Considering what both men have endured injury wise and what they fought through to get to the top, it would would have been foolish not to pay them if you had the capital which JH does. Over the course of my 67 years of following this team, we have had many gamers, winners and battlers. these two men represent the best of them. They are winners.i'v heard all of the crap about their ages and injury histories but i have to say that if you a multi billionaire who wants to win moving forward, you need to have players like this. You can hindsight all you like and cry about budgets all you want, signing them at the time was indeed the right thing to do.

[JDavis76]

Not being the main focus of one's non committed financial resources is not the same as ignoring. I may choose to go looking to buy a new BMW. That doesn't mean I ignore my home and decide not to pay my property taxes.

 

What a silly, ignorant comparison.

 

Pretty sure you don't have a team of several hundred employees helping you take care of your house and cars....

[Bellhorn04]

I think anytime you are a cellar dweller with one of the highest payrolls in baseball that your job may be in jeopardy...

 

He will be with the team through the 2023 season at least, guaranteed.

[JDavis76]

He will be with the team through the 2023 season. I'm calling it.

 

Entirely possible, but that doesn't mean the seat isn't getting warmer as we speak...

[Elktonnick]

The Rays have something we don't and can't match for young players.....Kevin Cash

 

Entirely possible, but that doesn't mean the seat isn't getting warmer as we speak...

 

I think Bloom is in deeper trouble with ownership then many care to admit. Both Merloni and Spiers reported that Blooms moves at the deadline left ownership confused. It is never a good thing to leave ones boss confused.

Apparently, one of the main points of confusion is why will the club exceed the lux tax by a small amount yet not be a contender. The feeling is if one is going to suffer the consequences of exceeding the tax then the team should contend. If they are not going to contend then why exceed the lux tax. According to Merloni for one, ownership thinks this is evidence of Blooms poor planning.. This may explain why Bloom is straining to explain that he really does have plan even though it may not be apparent to anyone including his bosses.

[notin]

I think Bloom is in deeper trouble with ownership then many care to admit. Both Merloni and Spiers reported that Blooms moves at the deadline left ownership confused. It is never a good thing to leave ones boss confused.

Apparently, one of the main points of confusion is why will the club exceed the lux tax by a small amount yet not be a contender. The feeling is if one is going to suffer the consequences of exceeding the tax then the team should contend. If they are not going to contend then why exceed the lux tax. According to Merloni for one, ownership thinks this is evidence of Blooms poor planning.. This may explain why Bloom is straining to explain that he really does have plan even though it may not be apparent to anyone including his bosses.

 

At some point upper management does acknowledge have over $100 mill and 4/5 of your rotation on the Injured List at once is a detriment.

 

Losing Sale all year on its own has been a big factor…

[Elktonnick]

The Rays have something we don't and can't match for young players.....Kevin Cash

 

At some point upper management does acknowledge have over $100 mill and 4/5 of your rotation on the Injured List at once is a detriment.

 

Losing Sale all year on its own has been a big factor…

While that maybe true it doesn't change the fact that Bloom is confusing his bosses and appears not able to articulate a path forward.

[moonslav59]

At some point upper management does acknowledge have over $100 mill and 4/5 of your rotation on the Injured List at once is a detriment.

 

Losing Sale all year on its own has been a big factor…

 

If Bloom had signed all these guys, then I could understand the need for some to blame him, but he is responsible for signing Paxton (more for 2023 and beyond: hint, hint), Wacha and Hill.

[Old Red]

I think Bloom is in deeper trouble with ownership then many care to admit. Both Merloni and Spiers reported that Blooms moves at the deadline left ownership confused. It is never a good thing to leave ones boss confused.

Apparently, one of the main points of confusion is why will the club exceed the lux tax by a small amount yet not be a contender. The feeling is if one is going to suffer the consequences of exceeding the tax then the team should contend. If they are not going to contend then why exceed the lux tax. According to Merloni for one, ownership thinks this is evidence of Blooms poor planning.. This may explain why Bloom is straining to explain that he really does have plan even though it may not be apparent to anyone including his bosses.

And thus the best explanation I keep repeating that he is still looking for that 3rd option at the fork in the road.

[Old Red]

He will be with the team through the 2023 season at least, guaranteed.

 

Much to the Red Sox detriment I agree.

[redsoxrules]

Bloom was good in the first year but this year has completely s*** the bed. Prospects are great but they are not always going to pan out. I feel like all he's doing now is collecting whatever prospects he can in hopes that some of them become something. It's one thing to trade for prospects when you know you're going to lose a player (Betts) as you want at least something but it's another to trade for some when it's not warranted. Like the Renfroe trade and now with all the deadline trades they made. All these prospects may not even amount to anything.

[Old Red]

bloom was good in the first year but this year has completely s*** the bed. Prospects are great but they are not always going to pan out. I feel like all he's doing now is collecting whatever prospects he can in hopes that some of them become something. It's one thing to trade for prospects when you know you're going to lose a player (betts) as you want at least something but it's another to trade for some when it's not warranted. Like the renfroe trade and now with all the deadline trades they made. All these prospects may not even amount to anything.[/quote

 

BINGO!

[Bellhorn04]

Bloom was good in the first year but this year has completely s*** the bed. Prospects are great but they are not always going to pan out. I feel like all he's doing now is collecting whatever prospects he can in hopes that some of them become something. It's one thing to trade for prospects when you know you're going to lose a player (Betts) as you want at least something but it's another to trade for some when it's not warranted. Like the Renfroe trade and now with all the deadline trades they made. All these prospects may not even amount to anything.

 

Odds are some of them will amount to something though.

[Old Red]

Odds are some of them will amount to something though.

 

Yes the odds are some will amount to something, but what are the odds that one turns out to be a Mookie, Bogey, or Raffy, which the Red Sox could very well loose them all. As Uncle Jed used to say Pitiful just plain pitiful.

[Fan_since_Boggs]

Bloom inherited some quality core offensive players like Devers, Bogaerts, and Martinez, and needed to surround those players with half-way decent contributors at a reasonable cost and he completely failed to do that, raising some concern about his ability to make sound baseball decisions.

 

I wouldn't fire Bloom but I would fire him a year from now if the same level of incompetency continues.

[Fan_since_Boggs]

Both Merloni and Spiers reported that Blooms moves at the deadline left ownership confused.

 

This is interesting reporting. You never know with John Henry, he has been through so many general managers, perhaps he will pull the plug on Bloom after the season.

[jung]

This is interesting reporting. You never know with John Henry, he has been through so many general managers, perhaps he will pull the plug on Bloom after the season.

Rut-row

 

Thats not a good sign for Bloom if true.

 

Again I just do not see Bloom being able to go "full Bloom" successfully in Boston. There is nothing in this world worse than a half implemented strategy.

[moonslav59]

Bloom inherited some quality core offensive players like Devers, Bogaerts, and Martinez, and needed to surround those players with half-way decent contributors at a reasonable cost and he completely failed to do that, raising some concern about his ability to make sound baseball decisions.

 

I wouldn't fire Bloom but I would fire him a year from now if the same level of incompetency continues.

 

Year one, there was no "reasonable cost." He had to slash the payroll, bigtime (Betts/Price) just to have enough to sign Martin Perez & Co.

 

Year two, he had a bit more, but he had so many open slots on the 40 man roster, he had to go cheap or 2nd/3rd tier. He did get some "half-decent" players from the deadline on 2020 to the deadline of 2021:

 

Pivetta

Whitlock

Kike

Renfroe

Ottavino

Schwarber, Iggy, Shaw I, Robles I & Davis

and others. (He missed on quite a few, too.)

 

This past off-season was his first real chance at spending, and i has not looked good, at all.

 

The JBJ money added was the big head-scratcher, to me.

The Story signing had me wondering, too, but Story may still pan out.

The Paxton deal exposes Bloom's eye to 2023 and beyond than 2022.

Wacha, Hill, Diekman and Strahm, combined, probably earned their keep, but very little more, thanks to injuries and Diekman's implosions.

The Refsnyder and Schreiber deals look like his best ones, and they were the most under-the-radar moves of these listed.

 

This next winter will be the telling moment in Bloom's career and may set the tone for the Sox direction for the next 3-5 years.

 

[Bellhorn04]

Here is the Speier article from the Globe:

 

Here’s how the Red Sox approached the trade deadline, a path that not even everyone in their organization understands

By Alex Speier Globe Staff,Updated August 8, 2022, 7:56 p.m.

One week later, head-scratching persists about how the Red Sox approached the trade deadline, and not just from fans and media.

 

Multiple members of the organization — from players and uniformed personnel to front-office members — used a common word in assessing the team’s unwillingness to define itself as either a buyer or seller while orbiting the .500 mark at the Aug. 2 trade deadline: Confusion.

 

Questions have lingered. Not just about the team’s direction for the rest of 2022, but beyond.

⋅ Did the Sox overvalue or undervalue the opportunity to win this year?

⋅ Did they place too great a premium on prospects in dealing away Christian Vázquez, an everyday catcher and team leader, or not enough in their choice to keep fellow free-agents-to-be Nate Eovaldi and J.D. Martinez (as well as Rich Hill, Matt Strahm, and Michael Wacha)?

⋅ Did they give away too much of their big-league team, or not add enough back?

⋅ Perhaps most importantly, after dealing Vázquez and reliever Jake Diekman and acquiring first baseman Eric Hosmer, outfielder Tommy Pham, and catcher Reese McGuire, do the Red Sox feel they actually got better?

 

“I understand why people could look at what we did and scratch their heads,” acknowledged chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom. “To us, it was pretty clear and pretty simple that the position we were in demanded a unique response.”

 

Uncertain direction was an issue as early as the spring. In theory, once Trevor Story pushed the team over the $230 million luxury tax threshold, some evaluators inside and outside of the organization expected the Sox to keep spending to round out the big league roster.

 

Trading Hunter Renfroe for Jackie Bradley Jr. and prospects made a great deal of sense if the club added another outfielder in spring training who had a chance to offset some of Renfroe’s offensive production from 2021. Instead, the loss of Renfroe became jarring, and Bradley’s offensive struggles led to him being released last week.

 

Dealing Hunter Renfroe for Jackie Bradley, Jr. last offseason was a trade the Red Sox would come to regret.

 

“The whole book on that [Renfroe] trade obviously is not yet written,” said Bloom, “but we have to own — and I as a lead decision-maker have to own — that part of our thought process was that the 2022 roster would come together in a way that we wouldn’t feel Hunter’s absence as much as we have.”

 

Others thought the Sox were vulnerable at first base, where they entered the year with Bobby Dalbec (intriguing but inconsistent in 2021) and Travis Shaw, and Franchy Cordero as an out-of-position placeholder for Triston Casas should either falter.

 

The team passed on a move for a buy-low player with upside like Daniel Vogelbach. As Shaw (released in April), Dalbec, and Cordero struggled, and with Casas sidelined by injury for two months, the Sox explored trades for alternatives in June and early July, but elected to stick with internal options.

 

In that decision, some saw a measured approach that raised questions about whether the team was putting sufficient priority on the current season — a notion that was tested in earnest at the trade deadline.

 

With 48 hours left before the deadline, the Sox were one game under .500 and last in the AL East, but 3½ games behind the Rays for the third and final Wild Card spot. They’d shown immense potential on a 33-14 run in May and June, but bookended that with runs of 10-19 and 8-19.

 

As the team calibrated its plans around the All-Star break, Bloom and senior Red Sox officials defined their position. Numerous fissures — both injuries (particularly to four-fifths of the rotation) and poor performance — had collided to create a July dam burst, but the team had a chance to look very different with a return to health in August and September. If the Sox could add reinforcements at positions of weakness, then perhaps they would be in position to capitalize when their injured players returned.

 

Odds were against a playoff berth, yet not so dramatically stacked as to motivate a repeat of the team’s clear 2014 selloff. The mere possibility of contending couldn’t be taken lightly, as Atlanta had demonstrated going from a sub-.500 deadline team to a World Series in 2021.

 

“The North Star here is winning,” said one front-office member.

 

And so, the Sox opted for a sliding scale approach.

 

They wouldn’t rule out dealing pending free agents for players with a chance to be part of their efforts to contend in coming years, but they would not merely seek player-for-player value in a trade. If dealing key players, they’d need to receive a return that reflected the cost to their hopes of contention as well as any potential draft pick compensation.

 

An executive of a National League team that discussed a deal for Martinez in the hours leading up to the deadline said the Sox sought both major leaguers and prospects back for the slugger. Another said the team was aiming for top-tier prospects for rentals.

 

“[it] felt like they just wanted to see if someone would get dumb,” said an executive of one team that discussed Martinez and starting pitchers with the Sox.

 

Red Sox officials say they felt it made no sense to force a deal for its own sake.

 

The two prospects sent by the Astros for Vázquez — second baseman Enmanuel Valdez and outfielder Wilyer Abreu — can both now be considered among the top 20 Sox prospects, and cleared what the Sox themselves described as a high bar. Offers for the team’s other rental players did not.

 

A year ago, teams dealt top-10 and even top-5 prospects in their systems for players who were months from free agency. But this deadline, while Juan Soto, Luis Castillo, and Frankie Montas fetched top-tier prospects, all of them were under control at least through the end of 2023.

 

Rentals yielded lower-level prospects, and helped keep catcher Willson Contreras with the Cubs and lefthander Carlos Rodón with the Giants — a team that, like the Sox, appeared to straddle a buy/sell divide.

 

All the same, some with the Sox were surprised the team didn’t make further deals involving rental players — and in particular, that the team didn’t make the necessary moves to shed the roughly $5 million to $10 million to get under the luxury tax threshold. That shedding would mean greater draft pick compensation (a pick just before the third round, versus before the fifth) if top players depart as free agents.

 

Yet getting under the tax line was never a motivating principle to the Sox, who valued contention more. Indeed, it added in the interests of addressing holes via Pham — a free-agent-to-be whose remaining salary (just over $2 million) the Reds were looking to dump. The Sox explored other rentals to upgrade their roster — particularly for relievers — and most discussions followed the Pham model of absorbing salary from out-of-contention teams.

 

The club did discuss dealing prospects for players who would be under team control for the longer haul — A’s catcher Sean Murphy represented one such target — but couldn’t find a match.

 

The club believes Pham represented an upgrade of a season-long weakness, outfield production. While it spent time discussing a deal with the Padres that would have had the Sox responsible for a decent chunk of Hosmer’s salary along with receiving prospects, the unexpected final form of San Diego subsidizing all of Hosmer’s remaining three-plus years save for the minimum was a clear upgrade at first base.

 

Are Pham and Hosmer, along with McGuire, enough for the Sox to believe they’re better positioned to contend than they were before dealing Vázquez and sending a shockwave through their organization?

 

“Ultimately, we felt we came out of it with a stronger organization, and at least as strong and maybe a stronger big league club,” said Bloom. “Even though it looks different.”

 

Going 2-4 since the deadline hasn’t backed that notion, and even if the Sox go on a run, the bewilderment of some organization members suggests a potential issue.

 

The multi-directional approach to roster building has become more common throughout the game, also employed by the Dodgers, Rays, Brewers, Giants, and Yankees (among others) as teams are ever conscious of balancing short- and long-term moves.

 

Bloom and members of his inner circle might have a clear sense of what they’re trying to accomplish. Yet as he seemed to acknowledge in requesting a team meeting in Kansas City after several face-to-face conversations in Houston, nearly three years into his tenure, the Sox still have work to do in getting everyone from the front office, to the big league roster, to minor leaguers to understand — and, perhaps more importantly, to believe in it.

 

“No doubt this is a time that has crystallized that,” said one front office member, who expressed confidence that Bloom’s history as part of the Rays’ remarkable culture was reason for optimism. “We’re not where we need to be. It’s been a big shift from how we operated through October 2019.

 

“There are growing pains with that.”

[notin]

Ok I’m not seeing Elktonnick’s questioning of Bloom’s plans in the way he is implying. Now the headline alone gave me that same impression. The story, not so much…

[Bellhorn04]

Ok I’m not seeing Elktonnick’s questioning of Bloom’s plans in the way he is implying. Now the headline alone gave me that same impression. The story, not so much…

 

The story does seem to confirm that not everyone in the organization understands what Bloom is doing.

 

Whether that's a serious problem, we'll have to see.

[Elktonnick]

Ok I’m not seeing Elktonnick’s questioning of Bloom’s plans in the way he is implying. Now the headline alone gave me that same impression. The story, not so much…

Spier is repeating what Merloni reported the day before. It was Merloni who spoke about the lux tax issue and how ownership was questioning going over the lux tax and still not contending etc.

[Bellhorn04]

Spier is repeating what Merloni reported the day before. It was Merloni who spoke about the lux tax issue and how ownership was questioning going over the lux tax and still not contending etc.

 

He said "ownership" and not "people in the organization"?

[jung]

The story does seem to confirm that not everyone in the organization understands what Bloom is doing.

 

Whether that's a serious problem, we'll have to see.

 

As many have commented and I agree with, it is not hard to see what Bloom is doing or trying to do. What is IMO hard to envision is Bloom being able to execute "FULL BLOOM" in Boston and I actually think THAT is what the Sprier piece is suggesting if not saying outright. "we are not convinced this is going to play here".

 

I am not convinced of it either with Bloom likely to have to face off with Sam Kennedy at some point and Henry having to decide which way he really wants to go.

[notin]

The story does seem to confirm that not everyone in the organization understands what Bloom is doing.

 

Whether that's a serious problem, we'll have to see.

 

Yeah, but it looks more of a “hey we’ve never done it that way” type of not understanding than a “what the f*** is he doing?!?” type of not understanding.

 

And it mentions no names, so what’s Henry thinking?

[Bellhorn04]

As many have commented and I agree with, it is not hard to see what Bloom is doing or trying to do. What is IMO hard to envision is Bloom being able to execute "FULL BLOOM" in Boston and I actually think THAT is what the Sprier piece is suggesting if not saying outright. "we are not convinced this is going to play here".

 

I am not convinced of it either with Bloom likely to have to face off with Sam Kennedy at some point and Henry having to decide which way he really wants to go.

 

Henry had a pretty good idea the direction things would go in when he replaced DD with Bloom, one would think.

[Bellhorn04]

Yeah, but it looks more of a “hey we’ve never done it that way” type of not understanding than a “what the f*** is he doing?!?” type of not understanding.

 

And it mentions no names, so what’s Henry thinking?

 

Yes, that's a very important question.

[jung]

Henry had a pretty good idea the direction things would go in when he replaced DD with Bloom, one would think.

 

Remains to be seen. Myself, I just do not see it here. Too small market-ish and we are already hearing rumblings from the Natives. Kennedy represents the Natives as is the case with the business end of any sports franchise. If they start beating the war drums steadily, Kennedy will push back on Bloom.

[Elktonnick]

He said "ownership" and not "people in the organization"?

Merloni specifically said ownership. Spier who is Henry's employee may simply be using the standard euphemism that reporersts use to not name sources. Merloni not being a Henry employee nor a Globe reporter may feel he does not need to use such a device.

[Bellhorn04]

Remains to be seen. Myself, I just do not see it here. Too small market-ish and we are already hearing rumblings from the Natives. Kennedy represents the Natives as is the case with the business end of any sports franchise. If they start beating the war drums steadily, Kennedy will push back on Bloom.

 

But Bloom is Henry's hand-picked guy, and Henry was obviously keen on converting to a more Rays-like approach, which meant not handing out so many big contracts et cetera.

 

But Friedman came from the Rays and now he's got the highest payroll in the game by far.

 

There's a lot of money available to be spent this offseason. It's going to be very interesting to see what they do. Especially with the unrest in the Nation looking on.