To hear Eminem so eloquently tell it, you only have “one shot or one opportunity.”
For Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom, Monday’s 4 p.m. 2020 Major League Baseball trade deadline may be that shot.
Sure, in the 10 months since the 37-year-old landed in Boston Bloom has made his share of meaningful moves. Heck, he traded away MVP Mookie Betts and like the rest of Red Sox Nation is watching the smiling superstar light it up in L.A.
But that was an organizational move. That was a hand that was forced by finances and past mistakes. A resetting of the accounting books if you buy entirety of the well-told narrative.
Now, though, Bloom is on the cusp of true baseball moves, of working HIS way through HIS plan to return HIS team from the depths of its current state of pandemic short-season irrelevance.
It’s no longer about competitive balance taxes but finding a way to return to some form of competitive balance.
That’s all on Bloom’s youthful, confident shoulders.
If he hasn’t already realized it to his core, he’s not in Tampa anymore. He’s certainly not in Kansas. He’s in Boston, where time tables are expedited and expectations are sky high, even when the current winning percentage is cellar-dwellerly low.
“I don’t subscribe to the concept of a long-term rebuild. It’s just not in our ethos,” Red Sox CEO and President Sam Kennedy said recently told the Boston Globe.
In the next few hours Bloom will likely wheel and deal his way through the day. In doing so he’ll not only chart the course for the Red Sox future but begin to write his own lasting legacy in Boston.
Bloom actually began the process last week, sending relievers Brandon Workman and Heath Hembree to the Phillies. Added to that by shipping Mitch Moreland to the Padres.
Those are deals that, in the long haul, can and likely will be easily forgotten. Unless one of the now somewhat nameless returns in those trades becomes a star, it will be water on the annual trade deadline bridge, even in this crazy, coronavirus-controlled year. Maybe not much gained, but also not much lost.
But if we’re to believe speculation and rumors, Bloom may just be considering other more significant dealings that won’t be so easily swept away into the history books. Deals that might include needle-moving mainstays like shortstop Xander Bogaerts, DH J.D. Martinez or catcher Christian Vazquez.
Those are the types of franchise-shifting considerations that you don’t come back from. They either jumpstart a relatively quick return to winning ways or dig a deeper hole.
How Bloom handles the trade deadline may also bring insight into his overall plan for the franchise.
Despite Kennedy’s comments, we may know by the end of Monday whether Bloom sees a competitive team in 2021, 2022 or not.
Moving the likes of Bogaerts – who can opt out of his team-friendly contract in 2022 – or even Vazquez – who’s declared a desire to be a career Red Sox player now that he’s developed into one of the best all-around catchers in MLB – would certainly signal that Bloom doesn’t foresee a swift return to being a contender.
Standing pat with those core stars, though, might indicate that Bloom projects the potential for 2021 returns from topline pitchers Chris Sale and Eduardo Rodriguez combined with more financial flexibility as a way to jump right get back into the swing of things in the AL East.
Either way, it’s all on Bloom. His time to shine is now.
Today we will begin to find out if Bloom is potentially the next great, championship-winning personnel man in the City of Boston or the latest example of the Peter Principle in professional sports.
This is why he makes the big bucks.
Let’s hope he doesn’t blow what may be his “one shot.”
“His palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy
There's vomit on his sweater already, mom's spaghetti
He's nervous, but on the surface he looks calm and ready”
--Eminem, “Lose Yourself”
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