Red Sox Notes: Bloom, Scherzer, Sale, Fabian

Dewey = So the run this season was fun because it was completely unexpected after Bloom butchered the roster or was ordered to butcher the roster depending on your point of view. Now reality is sinking in and this year will be exactly what Red Sox fans didn’t want. A middle finish that gets no playoff games and no good draft pick.

2020 was the result of Bloom and ownership’s actions but it did get the team the fourth pick in the draft and an excellent player fell to the fourth pick. Since the draft occurred in 2021 the luck of the player falling to fourth parallels the luck of a talent depleted team coasting to 1st thru 106 games. Unfortunately there are 162 games and the lead disappeared in one series with TB and in the next month we will see the first wildcard turn into the second wild card turn into the first spot out of the playoffs to the second spot outside the playoffs. A crap draft spot and no post season. Why? A lack of action by Bloom. I guess his long-term plan didn’t include procuring real talent until year 3? 5? 10?

What the roster needed was an injection of talent to fill needs. What it got was a talented guy who doesn’t fit anywhere and a set-up man to go with all the newly acquired set-up men. Yes, it’s beginning to look like the Yankee roster except they buy premiere set-up men and the Red Sox buy K=MART set-up men.

The fans have given Bloom two years and what has he done? He’s torn the heart out of many fans with his Mookie giveaway. He’s received players at the wrong positions in almost every deal he’s made. He had one bright spot realizing Pivetta was rushed to the majors and actually had talent. Then he reversed his ONE smart move with this dumb trade of Benny who got the same type of career path that Pivetta got in Phillie. He finally had a chance to ACTUALLY impact what happens on the field and he choked grabbing Schwarber instead of Rizzo or so many other better qualified 1Bs. He then neglected to actually fill the biggest need and get a SP.

That’s a lot of screw ups in less than two years. Each minute we keep the guy adds 10 minutes to the time it will take to win another ring. His system isn’t working 2 years into his program. The farm players who look good right now were in Boston before Bloom arrived. The product on the field is far less than it was when he arrived and he rehired a manager who got caught cheating punished once and should have been punished twice if the timing of the discovery of the incidents had been different and players actually stepped up and told the truth.

Compare that to DD who got less than 5 years. DD came in made some key additions to the roster including Sale and the team’s success was enormous. He hires on in August 2015 and they win 26 of their last 44 games. They win the division the next 3 years including the World Series in his 3rd full year. They might have won in his second year but they lost to Houston in 2017 when Houston cheated.

After doing so much for Boston fans DD is dismissed because he wants to bring Mookie back and the owners don’t. They want to increase profits. They dismiss DD with a slap in the face and then they begrudgingly fire the instigator of the greatest cheating scandal in the history of the sport. What’s wrong with that picture? The cheater practically gets a vacation at Club Med and DD get the old “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out”. Some very screwed up behavior on the part of ownership.

Bloom got hired in October of 2019 and immediately proved to be ineffective. Challenged with Cherington’s retained payroll he was asked to get under the cap.. So any good GM would start with non-tenders in December. Not Bloom, non tenders never included the players earning far more than their contribution like JBJ. This great opportunity to carve the $228M payroll by nearly $14M as his first act, NEVER HAPPENED.

Two months later, Bloom sends the face of the franchise to LAD prematurely and compounds the problem by INCREASING the dead contracts rather than reducing them. Roster disaster and financial disaster. It’s like taking a loan when you are too far in debt. It made no sense to give LAD money for Price. Less than six months and the mistakes are huge!! He hurt the talent level of the roster while decreasing the available payroll for 2020!! What a blockhead!!

Then for 18 months he acquired utility players and minor league players none of whom have impacted the success of the team SUBSTANTIALLY. Why substantially? Because many of the players were relievers and utility players. Utility players are a dime a dozen and the impact of their play is inconsequential compared the alternative utility player. The relievers fall into the same boat. One year Hembree looked good the next he didn’t. The same can be said about Kelly, Barnes, Workman and countless other Red Sox relievers since 2018. Will the 2021 relievers be as good next year? Not likely. It’s the nature of most relievers except the quality relievers that actually cost money. Then, the issue is staying healthy more than performance. So is the man brilliant for acquiring average relievers at low costs? Or is that just a small part of his job? You know what the big part of his job is? Acquiring impact talent. He’s not done that. He’s only at best acquired complimentary talent.

So Blooms net add is a half dozen average utility players, a bunch of hopeful minor league players who may not be better than what the Red Sox had before he arrived and a power-hitting left handed hitter who has no real position where he can play adequate defense.

Bloom subtracted the best player in the franchise, a developing left fielder who had played a key role in the Red Sox success since he joined them just a few short years ago, a SP with a Cy Young who helped win the World Series before Bloom got to Boston, If you put the adds and subtractions on a teeter tauter the subtractions would be touching the ground and the additions would be at their summit.

If you think 2022 is going to be better than 2021 you are dreaming and thinking with your heart not your head. Only three star hitters and all had career years in 2021 like the top three in 2018 did. In 2019 they weren’t as good because they regressed to the mean and will do so in 2022. That leaves a bunch of utility players to pick up the slack. That’s not going to happen. The fake farm system boost won’t be showing dividends because the talent level didn’t rise. Next year’s graduates will be more of the players that existed prior to Bloom like Duran, Houck and Dalbec.

The Bloom schedule is so slow for building a champion that I’m thinking I’ve seen the last ring I’m going to see. They need a new GM to build back the confidence of fans. Some of the fans are drinking the Cool-Aid like you but many realize that it’s all smoke and mirrors. Lots of media hype but no substance. The only redeeming thing that Bloom can do for me to consider supporting him would be to fire Cora and that’s not going to happen because Cora has more pull with ownership than Bloom. Remember, Cora had something on ownership related to the Boston cheating scandal and Cora’s actions with the players and not talking to the commissioner allowed the scandal to go away so they owe him. He’s got a job for a long time based on the embarrassment he saved them by not confessing that he was in on it and had shared what they were doing with ownership.

Dewey – I will give you this. I evaluate players based on performance and I do the same with GMs. If Bloom ACTUALLY does something worthy of recognition I will recognize it but until then I will continue to point out the many, many shortcomings of both Bloom and Cora. They suck at their jobs. 2022 will be the year both will be exposed just like 2019 proved to fans that Cora didn’t make them winners in 2018 and Bloom didn’t make them winners in 2021. JD, Bogey and Devers did!!