Last night it was reported that that Rays VP of baseball operations Chaim Bloom was the frontrunner to become the Boston Red Sox’ next head of baseball operations. This afternoon Joel Sherman of the New York Post reported that the Red Sox have finalized a contract with Bloom. The future of the Red Sox is in his hands.
Bloom, 36, worked with both MLB and the Padres before joining the Rays, where he has been for 13 seasons, three of which came in the VP of baseball ops role. Despite his age he is a widely respected executive who, just last year, was a finalist to take over the Mets front office. It was only a matter of time before he got a chance to run a team of his own.
He faces some challenges in his new role. Specifically, the challenge of keeping the Red Sox payroll below the Competitive Balance Tax level, which the Red Sox’ ownership recently said was a goal for 2020. Doing that while keeping Mookie Betts, J.D. Martinez and and handful of young stars in the fold, all while addressing a pitching staff that was the biggest reason the Sox fell short of the postseason in 2019, is gonna be no easy trick.
I’m guessing the Red Sox asked Bloom about how he might do that in interviews. Based on his hiring, I’d say he has an idea.