Dustin Pedroia returns
For a Red Sox team that needed the All-Star break to come a week before it eventually did, matters have not improved. Time hasn’t healed their many roster wounds nor has it calmed their erratic and losing play on the field. As Tom Brady once famously said after losing the 2012 AFC Championship at home to the Baltimore Ravens, “We picked a bad day to have a bad day.”
After stealing two away from the Yankees just two weeks ago, injecting some much-needed hope and life into the fan base and their own collective psyche, those moments of promise vanished quickly ... like Kaleb Ort’s fastball to Aaron Judge a week later in Yankee Stadium.
For those who missed it or didn’t catch the reference, Judge’s late-inning blast left the yard quickly. And much like that minor league pitch to the major league’s most dangerous hitter, the Red Sox hopes for a competitive second half in this 2022 season are disappearing nearly as fast.
As bad as it has looked on the field from the Boston/Worcester Red Sox we’ve been watching for the last several weeks, I’m more concerned about what comes next. Or more accurately said, for what doesn’t come next.
What’s got me concerned are the views and motives of Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom and his boss, Principal Owner, John Henry.
Boston is a Top 10 media market in America. It is the most passionate and emotionally invested baseball market and sports market in the country and perhaps the world. The Red Sox are the most successful baseball team of the 21st century. Their payroll has been and continues to be among the largest in all of baseball and with all that said, I suddenly have very little confidence that either Bloom or Henry are compelled to operate as such for much longer.
As former Red Sox great Mo Vaughn once famously said, “It’s not about the money” but rather what the money represents. In this case, the money appears to be in direct philosophical opposition to the latest vision of the organization. Moreover, the timing is both curious and scary for Red Sox fans, invested in this team’s present and its championship-level core.
Current players like Xander Bogaerts, Rafael Devers, J.D. Martinez, Kike’ Hernandez, Christian Vazquez, Jackie Bradley, Jr., Nathan Eovaldi and the too oft-injured Chris Sale all made massive contributions to earning a 2018 World Series Championship. The same goes for their highly respected and well-liked manager, Alex Cora.
Frankly, I’m worried about the Red Sox future regarding all of them, as the reality of losing most if not all has become scarily too clear to see. The timing surrounding the lingering feeling of an organizational shift feels ominous and my uneasiness with it started during the offseason.
Weeks after last year’s trade deadline, when we began to experience what Kyle Schwarber could mean to the Red Sox and the region, I felt like I understood the Chaim Bloom vision. Schwarber was a trade deadline value due to a lagging injury. Bloom being the noted value-seeking shark that he is, struck. At the time, the team was in need of a more immediate infusion of help but it didn’t come. The fan base grew impatient. As a few weeks passed and the Red Sox barely hung on, the air support that was so desperately needed in the American League war zone finally came. Schwarber’s bat made an immediate impact and all was suddenly well in the much-maligned trade deadline aftermath. He shined in the playoffs too and Bloom’s move appeared to be a stroke of genius.
With Martinez playing on an expiring contract in 2022, of course, Schwarber would be the likely successor at DH. It made perfect sense. Schwarber could play first base, but his ideal future would be as a designated hitter in this league and Bloom would have filled that hole more than a year in advance. Bravo.
Then the offseason came and went and so did Schwarber and I’m still scratching my head on that one.
Perhaps the Red Sox believed in their incumbent first baseman Bobby Dalbec (I don’t), or in the future of Worcester’s Tristan Cassas to fill that role. Perhaps they were saving those valuable dollars to reinvest in their own homegrown talent. Enter Xander Bogaerts who is playing in his final contract year and surely for their rapidly rising star, Rafael Devers. That, I could have understood. However, once again, the offseason came and went and no deal was made for either Bogaerts or Devers. So despite not having enough hair to spare, I’m still scratching my head on that one too.
Perhaps Bloom’s goal was to invest in the bullpen and attract a top-level closer but sadly once again, the offseason came and went and the bullpen has been left with a gaping and yet-to-be-fixed hole.
Still scratching ...
When you add it all up, just nine months after being just two games away from a World Series birth last October, the dark clouds of a roster dump and organizational cleanse feel a little too close for comfort. I’ve been watching and following the Red Sox for nearly 50 years, as long as I have been enjoying Star Wars in all of its machinations and I’m feeling an overwhelming tremor in the force.
Here’s my fear. Has Bloom’s experience in Tampa Bay hard-wired his thought process? Is the Tampa Bay way, the only way in Bloom’s mind? Is there room for flexibility? There’s certainly room in the Red Sox's big market budget for flexibility, but does John Henry at this point in his life, care as much as he once did to give Bloom the nudge he may need. I’m unsure but I am sure that I’m concerned about it as I am the Red Sox future.
Had the Red Sox come out strongly against Toronto this weekend and put Bloom in a position to make a postseason push, these questions could minimally be tempered. Instead, the Red Sox have put themselves in a position where Bloom is now in his natural environment; where he can offload and reset and it’s exactly what this team and market doesn’t need or want.
Bloom is a smart man and a savvy baseball mind, but is he the right fit for this team at this time? At best I’m unsure.
In Boston, you don’t have to have the biggest payroll, but you need to invest in a winner and push your chips into the middle of the table when opportunity knocks. Can Bloom go all in? I’m not confident he can. Does his owner have the passion he once did to force the issue? I’m no longer sure about that one either. Now three days into the second half of the season the Red Sox didn’t do themselves any favors to help make that case.
What hangs in the balance is far beyond the Red Sox diminishing hopes for a 2022 postseason push. As the injuries to key players continue to mount and the trade deadline nears, contention in 2022 has unfortunately become fleeting. The stakes are still very high, however.
The vision of the team, its future and the future of a potential hall of fame level talent in Rafael Devers is all right in front of us. Devers, whom the Red Sox have groomed and are watching blossom right before their collective eyes will enter the final year of his contract next season. His situation should have been handled at least a year or two earlier. Every GM should take a page out of the 90’s Cleveland Indians playbook, who signed all of their young talent to long term contracts before they hit their prime. Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, Carlos Baerga, Kenny Lofton, Omar Vizquel, Roberto Alomar and Sandy Alomar to name a few. Then Indians GM John Hart recognized his home grown talent early and did his best to ensure they played the primes of their careers in Cleveland.
As the Red Sox had to say goodbye to Mookie Betts as he entered his prime, will Bloom let that happen again to Bogaerts who’s already in it and Devers who’s approaching it? That remains to be seen, but it’s all developing right now in real-time. Devers, Bogaerts, Eovaldi, JD Martinez, Christian Vazquez and Kike’ Hernandez; folks the stakes are high. How are you feeling with the stack of chips in front of you right now?