L Chaim

 

This has turned into a very somber Rosh Hashanah for Chaim Bloom. 

The man came to Boston with high hopes and big dreams for turning around the Red Sox, and then four years in, after none of it had worked, he was out of a job. Who would have thought that trading away the team's biggest player, and letting several others leave in free agency, would make a guy so unpopular?

I knew something was up with Bloom's tenure as President of the Sox because he was a team president or businessman that I'd heard of. Typically, I should not know who the head business guy behind a baseball team is. The ones I know are the ones that are well-known; Brian Cashman's the GM of the Yankees, Theo Epstein and Billy Beane have had GMships and presidencies that have transcended regular business, Dave Dombrowski turned the Phillies around, and Kim Ng has made the Marlins who they are now. And then there's people like Jeffrey Loria who bankrupted two different teams, and Steve Cohen, whose habit of overspending has not paid off yet. 

But yeah, I remember all this fanfare about Chaim Bloom, how he'd come up through the Rays and helped them become what they are, and how he joined the team after the 2019 season and was determined to help them continue to compete, and in the years since the pitching has fallen apart, the stars have left and the team is fighting to stay out of last. And we've seen executives fail miserably [look at Jeter's Marlins ownership days], but not as drastically as Bloom. Even from the start of this year, the Red Sox fan friends of mine were just watching what Chaim did to their team next with baited breath, and got grumpier as the season went on. 

And I'm not saying it's hard enough for the city of Boston to embrace a Jewish person............actually, I am saying that. Every five years or so we have to tell Red Sox fans to stop throwing bananas at black outfielders. Usually you don't have to TELL sports fans that. Philly fans at least move onto other slurs. So that wasn't helping him. But he didn't help himself in how he ran the team. I look at the Sox in 2018, and I look at the Sox now, and I see that things have been put into place to prevent this team from looking as good as they did in 2018. It's a smaller, scrappier team, but the people they've put money towards haven't paid off like they've wanted, and Chris Sale and Trevor Story have been disappointments. 

One of the most fascinating stories the Sox have had in 2023 is Chris Martin, the veteran reliever who, at 37, is having his best season yet, with a 1.12 ERA and 6 earned runs in 52 games. Martin's been excellent for the Dodgers, Cubs and Braves, but this is his best work. Now, there are Sox successes that will carry over to next year, like Brayan Bello and Alex Verdugo and Jarren Duran, but I can't see the second year of Martin's Sox contract going as well as this year has gone. Whoever comes in and calls the shots going forward needs to really make sure they're keeping the right people around and putting their eggs in the correct basket, because this was only 4 years. If there's another CBO that pulls what he did, it may be even longer before the Sox compete again.

Coming Tomorrow- A pitcher who thought he'd be joining an expansive mega-rotation this year, what a shock he must have had.