Kevin Cash is worth listening to.
The current Rays manager has lived life as a Red Sox player in the Boston market. So when the trade deadline comes and goes with slings and arrows being sent the way of the team's front office, it doesn't come as a surprise.
But Cash has also seen the Chaim Bloom way of doing things first-hand, spending six seasons managing the team Bloom was helping build.
So when the subject of Bloom's approach to Red Sox roster-building came up before Thursday's Tampa Bay win over the Red Sox, Cash didn't hesitate in offering a fairly educated opinion.
"Two totally different markets. I totally understand that. But I would trust that Chaim is going to make really good decisions for the club currently and moving forward," Cash told WEEI.com
"Chaim and all the Rays guys are very comfortable in their thoughts on players, on the organization, on player development. I think they do a good job of not letting the outside influence them."
While it's easy to point at what is perceived as a much more forgiving Tampa Bay market and suggest Bloom has never experience anything like this, the former Rays decision-maker was in the middle of the same kind of discourse that is taking place in these parts.
On July 31, 2015, the Rays traded valued reliever Kevin Jepsen to the Twins -- a team just three games ahead of Tampa Bay in the Wild Card standings at the time -- for minor leaguers Alexis Tapia and Chih-Wei Hu.
It was not a popular decision for a team scratching and crawling to remain in the race.
"I remember we traded Jepsen, which was not ideal at the time, but there was a purpose for it," Cash said. "Chaim and Erik (Neander) did a really good job of explaining the roster players as well as the staff."
The leaps of faith didn't stop there.
In the matter of four days in February, 2018 -- after an offseason of trading away Evan Longoria -- Bloom and Co. dealt away Jake Odorizzi, Steven Souza Jr. and Corey Dickerson.
"That was a lot," remembered the Tampa Bay manager.
But then came the 2019 trade deadline. As Cash pointed out, that was the instance Red Sox fans should key on.
With the Rays just 1/2 game ahead of the Red Sox on July 29, Tampa Bay made a seemingly innocuous move for Miami rookie reliever Nick Anderson, who came to Bloom's team along with Trevor Richards for top prospect Jesus Sanchez and valued hurler Ryne Stanek.
Anderson was a former 32nd-round pick of the Brewers who ultimately had to sign with Minnesota as a free agent three years after being taken. After the 2018 season, the pitcher was dealt to Miami, where he emerged as a solid big league relief pitcher for the first half of 2019.
So, when the Rays scooped up Anderson at the deadline, one could understand while there wasn't a surge of adrenaline pumped through the Tampa Bay clubhouse.
"No. Nobody did. Nobody did," said Cash when asked if anyone in the Tampa Bay clubhouse knew what they were getting in Anderson.
Two postseasons later, this was a guy who became this team's most valued reliever.
"Anderson is a great example of a time when the industry didn't think anything of it, and our guys sat there and said, 'This guy does some special thing.' Now, nobody could predict he was going to go do that," Cash said. "But I don't know where we would have gotten without him the past two seasons."
Cash became a believer in Bloom. Now he's urging his former fans in Boston to do the same.
"I got to work with him for six years and I learned as much from him as any of the guys in that front office," he said. "They just make very savvy decisions. Sometimes the sexy decision at the time is not the right decision for the big picture."