The Red Sox fired Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom last week, and Jon Lyons and KJ Carson broke down what has gone wrong for the Red Sox in recent years to lead to this. While both agreed that Bloom underperformed and a change was needed, Bloom was not solely responsible for the poor state of the Red Sox. (Listen to the full segment below.)
“You look at the on-field product at the major league level, we’re in year four and we can only be happy with one of those four years [2021],” Lyons said. “Look at the previous World Series that they’ve won: they have always been top five in payroll while also having good, homegrown players. The Red Sox should be able to do both. They never invested enough in building the major league roster.”
“If you’re going to let farm system pieces go [Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts], you better get something major in return. They got nothing major in return for these guys and at times nothing at all,” KJ added.
In addition to blame being put on Bloom and ownership’s lack of spending, Lyons also felt manager Alex Cora and the players deserved blame.
“When you see all the baserunning mistakes the Red Sox make, all the fundamental defensive mistakes….at what point does this fall on coaching and the players themselves?,” Lyons asked. “You have guys not knowing fundamentals. What were you working on during spring training? What did you work on all offseason?”