That is a separate issue and worthy of a separate debate.
The other issue was clearly related to your issue in 2020 and to a lesser extent before 2021, and IMO all the way to March 2022, when Bloom signed Story.
I can't really say Bloom botched the spending prior to Story. He was given a negative budget in 2020, and didn't come close to replacing the salaries of Betts, Half-Price and Porcello by 2021, and also had to deal with no Sale and his contract plus no ERod in 2020. To me, the judgment begins with Story and runs to now, but I'll start with the winter before 2022 until now, and here it is:
The only Big Contracts (3):
$314M/10 Devers: begins in 2024 and is hard to judge, right now.
$140M/6 Story: looks like a total failure but made some sense, at the time, but could be TBD.
$90M/5 Yoshida: looks good, so far, but it is very early.
The Moderate deals (4):
$32M/2 Jansen: looks good, to me.
$24M/3 Kike (I added 2 deals): looks bad, now, despite a solid second half to '21 and an awesome post season.
$21.7/2 Turner (assuming he takes the option): looks good, to me.
$17.5M/2 Martin: looks good, to me.
($18.8M/2 Barnes extension sucked)
(JBJ trade that added significant money to the budget sucked)
Shorterm $7-10M/1 or $14-20M/2 Deals
$10M/1 Richards: YUCK!
$10M Kluber: YUCK!
$7M Duval: TBD
$7M Wacha: looked good, to me
$10M/2 Paxton: TBD
$2.5-$5M/1 or $5-$14M/2 Deals
$5M/1 Hill: Looked good, to me
$8M/2 Diekman: Bad, but getting McGuire and shedding $5.5M helped.
$3M/1 Strahm: very good
I gave my comments, but I'm not trying to make excuses or apologies, here. I ask you to think about what expectations should be on the money spent on mostly moderate to low budget deals, and then opine on just how bad, okay or good Bloom did, in retrospect or maybe how these deals looked at the time of their signings.
Personally, I don't think he has been as horrible as many make him out to be, and feel our poor records have been related to other issues more than how many mistakes he's made on stab-in-the dark signings (not counting the Story deal, which was a major choice made.)
Looking at the list above, what is your grade?
Looking at that grade, how does those signings compare to the issue of Sale & his contract giving us next to nothing plus almost every big-named vet from 2018-2019 giving far less production from 2020-2023 or not even playing for much of that time?
How much does the farm giving us only Houck from mid 2017 to mid 2022 compare in effect on the team record and our budget?
Of the top of my head, I might say ...
40% lower production and injuries to our carry over stars
40% virtually no farm input for 5 years (3.5 in Bloom's era)
20% Blooms signings
(I did not mention Bloom's additions of Wink, Schreiber, Refsnyder and others at less than $3M/yr and his farm building or his budget improvements.)
This is his record just as much as the losing W-L record since 2021.