Sitting in last place in the American League East with virtually no chance to make the playoffs, the Boston Red Sox fired chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom on Thursday. It was an announcement that surprised the baseball industry, as most assumed that Bloom would get one more year to bring the Red Sox back to the playoffs considering Boston made the ALCS under his management in 2021.
Bloom started his tenure by trading Mookie Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers, an iconic trade due to Betts' popularity in Boston, how well he's performed in Los Angeles and how poorly the trade has gone for the Red Sox. That transaction is what Bloom will be most remembered for in Boston, but there's a more thorough accounting to be done of this era and who ultimately deserves the blame for a two-year downturn.