Inside the Red Sox’s free agency plans after Xander Bogaerts

The ownership group fired Dombrowski before the end of the 2019 season, less than a year after winning the World Series, and mandated the team cut salary in order to reset the luxury tax penalties. In came Bloom—whom Boston hired from the Tampa Bay Rays—with a vision of creating a Dodgers-style of sustained success, spending big money on star players while consistently developing top prospects to fill out the lineup.

It’s pretty funny saying they want a “Dodgers-style of sustained success” when the Red Sox traded Mookie Betts to the Dodgers who signed him. You keep your young superstar players and get them locked up early, you don’t let them dangle until they get close to free agency. (Also see Bogaerts.)

According to multiple sources, Boston’s ownership group did not mandate that Bloom trade Betts to get under the luxury tax. But that is what Bloom ultimately decided to do, with an eye toward increasing the Red Sox’s options in the future. The team traded Betts and Price to Los Angeles for Alex Verdugo, Jeter Downs and Connor Wong. And Betts eventually signed a 12-year, $365 million contract with the Dodgers—a deal he told ESPN in August that he would have accepted in Boston.

I hope Bloom likes the criticism from multiple sources in the know. I’m sure those sources aren’t owner friendly. /s

Of course, if this is true, Bloom shouldn’t be in charge.

Have we made wrong decisions in the past? Lots of them,” Kennedy said. “You can’t sit around regretting mistakes of the past. That’s not a good recipe. We respect Mookie and it’s a hard decision, but we’ve moved on.”

Sure, you “can’t sit around regretting mistakes of the past.” But, you should remember and learn from them. Repeating the same mistakes over and over don’t point to the latter.

As the team builds the roster for 2023, some within the Red Sox front office have questioned Bloom’s decision-making process, team sources told ESPN. One front-office official said Bloom’s deliberate process toward making moves—asking many people for their input before making a decision—can put the Red Sox in a position to fall behind, reacting to other teams versus setting the market.

“I think we have a culture where people can and do express directly to me when they disagree with something,” Bloom said. “We have a lot of people in the loop on transactions that we make and we have a lot of really good debate. We have a place where people can share their opinion and have it be heard.”

More anonymous sources laying the groundwork for the future.

Anyway, there is a lot of other good stuff in the article, including info about Bogaerts willingness to take an extension after Story signed.

“I’m not sure how to respond to that,” Bloom said. “I certainly think we’ve made some large commitments in the time I’ve been here. For people who would’ve liked to have seen more, that’s their right. I think a lot of circumstances under which I joined the organization really precluded that for a period of time. I would argue we would’ve been worse off certainly prior to 2021 had we listened to people who wanted to see us make a splash instead of building a good baseball team.”

It’s not about the spending for me. It’s about the right spending. A team has to properly evaluate their best young players and get them signed as soon as they can. They can’t fritter away cash on mediocity and not spend money to keep their best homegrown players.

Betts and Bogaerts should have been able to fit within the Red Sox long-term budget. Alas, they can’t go back. Now they either have to overpay to keep Devers or be doomed to repeat the same mistake, again.

Ugh.

Do You Really Want John Henry To Sell The Red Sox? - Over the Monster

My biggest complaint about John Henry is his impatience and quick firing of GMs.

A top franchise needs stability at the top. The owner needs to hire a good GM and then give him the runway to execute his long-term plan. Otherwise, there will be no consistency.  GMs, even the ones with good long-term plans, get forced into short-term moves to keep critics at bay and to keep their jobs. Those short-term decisions usually undermine their plan. For a GM to build with a long view in mind, he has to know the chance that he’ll be around in five years is good. To that end an owner has to provide the needed stability AND cover by getting out in the press to explain the team’s vision. The team’s actions then need to match those words.

With four Red Sox championships in this century, John Henry has a successful track record to point to that demonstrates his ability to build winners. He is squandering his credibility in that regard by not being up-front about the team’s plan and by not taking the short-term heat from the team’s decisions. As a result, he’s losing the confidence of his passionate, but reasonable, fans.

As for Chaim Bloom, Dan O’Dowd nails the issues with Bloom in this segment. (I wanted to embed the video but it seems MLB doesn’t have that option any more.)

At the root of any team’s success is having the best possible player evaluations. I don’t care how much money the team spends; I don’t care about the effectiveness of their player development; and, I don’t care if their economic models are perfect. If a team doesn’t properly evaluate players, it can’t win over an extended time period. That was true in Branch Rickey’s day; that was true when the Yankees were dominant in the 50’s; that was true when the Orioles excelled in the 60’s and 70’s; that was true when the Braves won in the 90’s; and, it’s true now during the Dodgers current run. A team NEEDS to evaluate players well or it fails.

Chaim Bloom’s plan seems good (such that he’s explained it) but his talent evaluations simply haven’t been good. The proof is in the play of his acquisitions and in the standings, which are the ultimate judge of of a team’s decision making.

Now, I haven’t given up on Bloom and the Red Sox yet, but I’m tettering. Hopefully, some self-examination of their player evaluation process will lead to some changes/improvements to the way they evaluate players. Otherwise, the team will continue to flounder and the blood demands from the most impatient, unreasonable Red Sox fans will continue to spread to the rest of the fan base.

Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom joined bradfo on the BBisntBoring podcast

Good interview from Rob Bradford. I’m in the middle of listening and it’s already worth a listen.

Red Sox’s Chaim Bloom on losing Xander Bogaerts: ‘It got to a point we weren’t going to’ - masslive.com

Here’s a great interview and article by Chris Cotillo.

I’ve been hammering Red Sox ownership and giving Bloom a break because owners make the call on big contracts. After reading the article, I wonder how much responsibility Bloom has for some of the decisions. Although most people didn’t properly forecast this off-season market, the Red Sox offered Bogaerts a decidedly undermarket contract (as the market was perceived) during last off-season. For Bloom to say the Red Sox had a high priority to keep Bogaerts, while offering such a contract, is either a blatant lie or an incompetent estimate of Bogaets market value. In either case, Bloom and the Red Sox don’t look good.

Going forward the team needs to do a better job in both evaluation and explaining to fans just what they are trying to do. Or, they can continue to get HAMMERED by their fans, while becoming a less attractive option for free agents.

Bloom said the Red Sox truly considered Bogaerts its top priority for the last few weeks and tried to back it up with actions, even if the final offer came well short of what the shortstop took from San Diego.

“We wouldn’t have said that if we didn’t mean it,” Bloom said. “I think it became clear to us as things went on that this was going to go to a point that we just weren’t, irrespective of how we prioritize things, it just wasn’t something that we should do. It’s hard because of how much we love him. But it’s just the reality of the situation.”

Chaim Bloom’s empty words about Bogaerts are insulting

Of course, the Red Sox will be mediocre with him.

Bogaerts is just the most recent bungling of a superstar’s exit. The Red Sox decided early on to not pay for Lester, Mookie, and Bogearts. Their actions are more credible than their words. The Red Sox ownership, which is the common factor in the mishandling of contract negotiations with top players, has lost all credibility.

Now, I don’t have a problem with a team walking away from a player it feels is overvalued in the market. What I do resent is the ownership lying about their intentions, especially while making multiple GMs scapegoats for those ownership level decisions. It treats the players and fans as idiots.

The shelf life of the Red Sox three :D four championships has expired. At this point, whether they end up resigning Bogearts is irrelevent for me. What I’d rather see is a consistent team-building vision and an honest, transparent expression of what that vision is. (See the Dodgers for an excellent example of how this is all done.)

Super agent Scott Boras put the pressure on the Red Sox Tuesday at MLB’s Winter Meetings, calling them a middling club if his client isn’t manning shortstop. “I think if there’s anybody, I think everyone around them understands the Sox without ‘X’ are so-so,” he said.