The Red Sox were previously reported to have interest in former Marlins president of baseball operations Michael Hill to head their baseball operations department, but USA Today’s Bob Nightengale relays that Hill has “no interest” in leaving his role as MLB’s senior vice president of on-field operations to return to work in a front office. Hill is the latest potential candidate to decline to interview for the position, joining former Rangers president of baseball operations Jon Daniels and Arizona GM Mike Hazen.
Nightengale adds that while the Red Sox have (as previously reported) interviewed assistant GM Eddie Romero for the position, the favorite to take over for Chaim Bloom as the club’s chief baseball officer could be Phillies GM Sam Fuld. It’s unclear to this point if Fuld has interviewed for the position. He’s under contract with the Phillies through 2025 after signing an extension last winter, meaning the Phillies would have to grant the Red Sox permission to interview Fuld for the role. That being said, it’s somewhat rare for organizations to stand in the way of their personnel interviewing for a potential promotion as this would be for Fuld, who serves as the club’s second-in-command to president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, who previously helmed the Red Sox from 2015 to 2019.
Other notes from around the league…
- Nightengale adds that the Diamondbacks are expected to offer manager Torey Lovullo a multi-year contract extension this winter. That’s hardly a surprise, seeing as Hazen, who the club recently extended through 2028, previously indicated that the club could look to retain Lovullo beyond the 2024 campaign in the event that Arizona went on to make the postseason. The DBacks, of course, have done far more than that, making it all the way to the NLCS after sweeping the Brewers in the Wild Card series and the Dodgers in the NLDS.
- FanSided’s Robert Murray noted yesterday that Giants bench coach and interim manager Kai Correa has been interviewed for the club’s vacant manager seat. Correa joins third-base coach Mark Hallberg as the only known candidates to interview for the position. Correa, 35, began his coaching career immediately after graduating college in 2010. He spent four seasons with his alma mater, University of Puget Sound, and another four seasons coaching for the University of Northern Colorado. His first professional coaching role came with Cleveland in 2018, for whom he served as an infield coach in the Arizona Complex League. He stayed with the organization in 2019 before joining the Giants ahead of the 2020 season in his current role as bench coach.
- Jon Heyman of the New York Post recently noted that the Angels, who have been reported to have mutual interest with Buck Showalter regarding the club’s managerial vacancy, are seeking a veteran manager for the 2024 campaign. While Showalter certainly fits that description, another candidate Heyman puts forth is Darin Erstad, who played for the Angels in 11 major league seasons and in retirement served as the head coach for University of Nebraska, with whom he spent eight seasons in the role.
I think Mark Hallberg is a good fit for the Giants. Sign him for a few years, and see what Z does this offseason. Go from there. Wouldn’t mind seeing Wotus either.
Red Sox logic, you know who would be a good candidate? That guy who works for the dude we fired before the guy we just fired
I don’t know why so many fans think FO guys can only work a pre-determined way given who they came up working under. Andrew Friedman came up in the TB organization similar to Chaim Bloom, yet no one would claim Friedman had run the Dodgers anything like how TB is run. Just because Fuld is currently working under Dombrowski doesn’t mean he will operate his own baseball ops department exactly the same way.
Ken – I think you totally misread Oh’s comment.
He’s saying Fuld has probably heard a lot of negative things about the Red Sox from Dombrowski.
Fuld going to the Sox would be like your ex-wife’s sister marrying you. Highly unlikely.
I disagree with Fever Pitch on this but can’t respond because he blocked me. No matter what was said to Fuld, this would be a promotion, so I think he would at least consider it.
He’d be nuts to not take the job.
I disagree Joe, at least in-so-far as the position exists the way I understand it.
Now, if Cora, and the other retained coaches, and the agms, and o’halloran, and everyone else are forced upon the new boss, thats not very desirable compared to being part of the machine DD has been building up in Philly.
Honestly ask yourself, how much room is there for a new PBO to both bring in HIS (or I guess HER) people, to run things HIS/HER way, and be the type of people building the system the way the PBO wants with pretty astronomical number of holdover employees being fordec pn the new candidate?
One also doesn’t know if DD stays should Nashville get an expansion club. It’s unclear (to me) if his role permanently ended up on accepting the Philly job and Fuld might simply wait it out if talks heat up on expansion now that the A’s and Rays situations are resolved.
The way I see it is that they had 78 wins , 81 Py W/L. a pretty good farm, and will have some serious spending money. Where else do you get that opportunity?
First I wondering why Buck S would wanted to manage the LAA. With owner that wanted to play POBO and roster that not very good. Buck Sit home collect your 4 million dollars from Steve C and wait till a better job opens up.
Second I like to see former White Sox GM Rick H get a Interview with the Boston Red Sox.
Some how living In Chicago I feel Rick got a raw deal. Kenny Williams was pulling the string and Rich got flush out so Jerry Reinsdorf could say It was a clean sweep. Just Saying
> why Buck S would want
I think he likes baseball and wants to manage while he is still young enough to do so.
John Henry has fired his last 3 POBOs after 4 years. Is 4 years enough for a new POBO to get his people in place in the organization and start to see results? I guess that’s enough time, but probably not much room for error.
Results don’t necessarily matter.
Cite to DD – streak of ALCS berths, a WS championship, a core just hitting their prime, and a dumba** manager forced in by ownership costs a bad year due to gross.negligence in spring training handling and he’s out.
I think the Sale and Eovaldi contracts got Dombrowski fired. He signed them both to big contracts after the 2018 season and then they both got hurt in 2019. Also, there was no need to sign Sale until after the 2019 season. I think the 2019 spring training approach was the responsibility of the organization, not just Cora.
The Sale contract was a huge mistake but one deal didn’t get DD fired. Someone else said best in another thread. More likely DD disagreed with the payroll and roster changes he saw coming and ownership’s spin was they canned him. Rooting for the Phillies this season and Texas. Would love to see Eovaldi again in the WS.
Suit – The Sale contract angered Henry for sure, but it was missing the playoffs that triggered Henry’s demand to stop spending for 2 years and Dombrowski wanted nothing to do with it.
If Henry was so upset about the Sale contract, why did he approve it? Unless you mean that he was upset about the aftermath of the contract, but DD was fired so shortly afterward that I don’t buy that either.
I think you’re right that just DD wanted nothing to do with a more limited budget.
Mike – Henry was upset about the aftermath, Dombrowski left a week after Sale was moved to the 60-Day IL. I agree Henry must have approved the extension, we will never know if it was a complete failure by the medical staff or if Dombrowski disregarded the medicals the same way Bloom disregarded Story’s medicals.
And yeah, when Dombrowski learned there would be no spending for a couple years and one of Devers, Xander or Mookie would have to be moved, I think he really took offense and knew he’d have no problem going to a team that was more focused on winning.
I think the Sale and Eovaldi contracts got Dombrowski fired.
===============================
Partially.
1-84 wins.
2-Highest payroll in BB.
3=Bad farm.
Dewey, Fever & Joe: Good points about why Dombrowski was fired.
I’d have given him another year, just out of respect for 2018. But there were plenty of issues.
Joe: Agreed. I would have given Dombrowski and Bloom each at least one more year.
That manager got us a World Series and very closely a second one too.
Suit – Ummm….you seem to have forgotten Ben saw results in year #2 .. a World Championship in fact.
And Dave saw results with a World Championship in Year 3.
The only one who failed miserably was Bloom.
So, you are saying someone can walk into a new organization and be expected to win a World Series in 2-3 years? I think that’s unrealistic. Cherrington was already in the organization, so I doubt he changed it much. Dombrowski inherited a well-stocked farm system that he dealt from to win a World Series. Bloom did not have the benefit of either of those.
bloom inherited Casas, Rafaela, and Bello among others, including players on the MLB roster. He had plenty to deal from but was just too chickensh1t to do so.
Dombrowski was smart enough to only deal prospects that were redundant, weren’t going to amount to much or both. He knew who to keep because he knows how to judge talent.
Yeti: You have only named 3 players. That is not plenty to deal from and I wouldn’t have traded Casas or Bello. I agree it is good to deal redundant players, but I don’t think Bloom has had redundancy in the farm system until recently. You may be right, but I’m not seeing it right now. I think Bloom wanted to build a young core from the farm system and was building redundancy. I think Bloom was too conservative and could have traded more, but I didn’t have a problem with his valuing prospects.
Yeti: I should add that I liked the idea of hiring a guy from the Rays (Bloom) and more than doubling his budget. I thought it could have great results, but it would take a while to build a strong farm system which is central to the Rays’ model. I was willing to wait to see how it turned out, but no one else was. I think Bloom’s top priority was always building the farm system which is why he traded hardly any prospects. I think once he had a strong farm system, he would have switch from building the farm mode to win now mode, but we’ll never know now.
Suit- Personally, I said from the moment that he traded Mookie, they should’ve just blown it all up at once in order to reap the most from all those players they were never going to keep or truly build around. Instead they kept shoving down our throats how they were going to remain competitive while building their 3-4 year bridge. That worked out well…
suit – Depending on the inherited players and the team’s resources, yes. If somebody is taking over the Royals or Athletics, no.
Don’t forget, in 2021 Bloom had 5 players who made the All-Star Team that year. They had the best record in the league into July. Had he picked up a quality starting pitcher and quality reliever, they probably beat Houston in the ALCS.
This is baseball, it doesn’t take much to make a big difference. We have see that proven soooo many times.
And the Rays model is not something to be emulated. How many championships have they won? How many legit WS appearances have they made?
There’s a big difference between regular season success and postseason success.
Depth wins regular season games.
A core of very talented clutch players win postseason games.
Yeti: Agreed. Sometimes you need to blow it up and rebuild.
Fever: The Rays’ model is working better than the Red Sox and Yankees model these days. I wonder if the Rays breathed a sigh of relief when Bloom was fired. Bloom should have been able to replicate the Rays’ processes and done a lot more with a much larger budget.
We’ll never know on Bloom because he was let go before his garden matured. As for Story, doesn’t he seem more like an ownership decision than Bloom’s (thinking ahead to replace Bogie)?
Agreed AITS. Bloom’s job was entering the next phase of his plan.
Fever, going back to 21, who were the missing players? At what cost to the farm? Would the payroll have worsened for 22? I don’t remember who was available so it’s hard to be objective.
We saw exactly how bad bloom was based on all of his poor trade deadline moves or lack of them. It’s so obvious that he was in over his head from the beginning.
dewey – I’m sure Henry gave his input on whether or not to extend Xander, but I don’t think Henry would ever tell Bloom “Go and get this particular player” unless it was a superstar like Ohtani (not that Henry has said that about him).
dewey – Berrios, Scherzer, Tepera to name a few.
At what cost? I dunno, would you be okay if Bloom traded Downs for Berrios?
grnmt – You are 100% correct as always. Like many who are obsessed with statistics, Bloom had tunnel vision and was very uncomfortable and bad at anything that didn’t involve analytical data. He had poor negotiating skills, grossly misjudged the free agent markets, grossly misjudged the trade deadline markets, and spent foolishly when he had money to spend the past couple years. Losing track of the tax threshold last year was the icing on the cake.
The diff is that the spending for one is always around half, or less than the big market teams. The Rays model is being able to compete year after year with no payroll, no blue chip picks anymore, and nearly entirely through expert development, reclamations, and tinkering. That is something all baseball wants to emulate, and would if they could. Those big market competitors would then add another 140 million to that Rays model for resigning their own stars to keep them from leaving, or signing other people’s stars. That is the diff.
William: Agreed. The Rays need to do everything better than larger market teams because of their financial disadvantage. They are one of the most, if not the most, efficient with their money. So, if you gave the Rays another $140M per year, they could and should be a monster, right? That is why I liked the idea of the Red Sox hiring Bloom from the Rays. I have said before on here that the Red Sox would be able to retain their good players unlike the Rays. Just neglected to say it this time. Not many people seemed to get it, but sounds like you do.
The Rays are a beast, which is why the Red Sox hoped to poach off of their front office (as they tried with Oakland, the other “how are they ever competitive so often team”).
I am the wrong guy to defend Bloom. I thought he was atrocious. My opinion is based solely on one persons words and actions. Bloom. He was lying through his teeth for years to fans about competitiveness and playoff aspirations which he never believed ( this would explain a great deal of moves, and more importantly, his lack of them especially each deadline), or he really was trying to field a playoff team but was insanely incompetent and blinder than nearly everyone to the blatant holes everywhere up and down the roster. It can’t be both, and no one around Bloom has ever called him stupid. He isn’t.
He never thought the team had a chance, he was right, and in many incidents assured they didn’t. I think his beating the drum about competition, playoffs, and promises he reneged on going into trade deadlines killed him. He was better off being honest, and honesty would have bought him another year in that tired old 5 year build trope instead of the 4 years he got. He would have been forgiven 2 or 3 bad years if he came out and said this team is a hot mess, and needs a total payroll rework and farm system rebuild. I personally think even 85 wins next year would have possibly bought him a 6th year with honesty.
William: I am on the same page with you. I don’t think Bloom is dumb at all. I think this all may have been a stealth tank which he designed to work as it did so he could build the farm system. I didn’t mind as I prefer building through the farm system more than signing free agents to deals that often go bad for years. The only difference with me is I didn’t care what Bloom said. I only looked at what he did. I typically mainly look at what people do instead of what they say. I guess I am used to it, so I didn’t believe or disbelieve him. Hiring a guy from the Rays has gone well for the Dodgers. Not sure how it was different there than in Boston.
The only problem with ignoring what he said for years is that it makes him come off as an idiot and an unreliable guy to ever listen to again. Ignore what he said and what he did was tear a team down into a last place certainty that 4 years in has no rotation, a flimsy pen, terrible defense, not much power, and still lacks a MLB starting second baseman, and catcher. It would take 7 moves this off season to make the team competitive.
I chose to believe he was just a liar, because the alternative is that the same people that picked him are picking the next guy to replace him.
Or ownership was in on the lies and they thought the fan base would fall for stealth tanking and a rebuild of the farm system. I didn’t mind because I am ok with rebuilding the farm system. I think a well-stocked farm system will lead to a longer window of contention. I’ve seen so many people say one thing and do another it just seems ordinary to me. Let’s hope for the best. I think the front office can still land in a good place from here.
Suit- a strong farm system is great but you shouldn’t sacrifice your MLB team to do it, which was bloom did every deadline and offseason. Even with the best development staff and coaching, which I don’t think the Sox had under bloom, prospects may never pan out. I’m not saying he should’ve traded their top prospects but he had depth to trade from.
Yeti: I think that point of view is why Bloom got fired. Some teams openly tank to improve their farm system. I think Bloom may have been covertly tanking and everyone had enough of it. Bloom may not have wanted to improve the MLB club because that would lead to a lower draft pick. It is an interesting debate about how to build a team with a long window of contention. Not sure I know the answer, but it looks like some front offices tank and don’t trade many prospects from the farm and it looks like Bloom was taking that approach. I think it all depends on how much you value prospects. It looks like you and others do not value prospects much because they may never pan out. It looks like teams that tank and Bloom really value prospects and believe a lot of them (or enough of them) will pan out and that is where a future winner is.
Suit- I think a balance is what’s needed. You can’t empty the farm but you also shouldn’t tank to stock it and then hoard them.
Suit – Also, if his goal was to completely stock the farm, then why the lack of deadline moves over the past couple of seasons? Why not try to get something for JD, Eovaldi, Wacha and even try to get Bogaerts to accept a trade? They got nothing for those four.
Yeti: Good question. I think Xander was not traded for public relations to avoid backlash. The same may be true for JD Martinez and Eovaldi. I think Bloom tried to trade Eovaldi and JD Martinez and he either didn’t like the return or had unrealistic demands. I am guessing he wanted really good returns from a public relations standpoint if he traded those fan favorites or he was a bad negotiator or he may have decided to completely avoid the backlash for having a sell off. I think Bloom always had to figure public relations into what he did which was a hindrance. It looks like he was tanking covertly and worrying about fan perception of trades. Bloom still gets bashed for the player return in the Mookie Betts trade even though the main return was the $48M the Dodgers took on with David Price’s contract.
I think the consequences of fans being unhappy is lower attendance at Fenway and less viewers of games in NESN and therefore profit goes down which would bother John Henry. So I think Bloom was trying to juggle keeping fans optimistic along with making baseball decisions. That’s why he made some trades at the trade deadlines, but not all he could have made. I think Bloom was likely fielding teams that would stay in the mix for a while and go far if everything went right, but would most likely be mediocre and get a good draft pick. I think if we could see the flaws, he could too.
The Boston media was bashing everything he did and attendance was down, so it looks like ownership had enough and fired him. Was this a good approach by Bloom? It looks like it didn’t work as he was apparently not honest with fans and this angered many people. I don’t pay attention to most of what people say, only what they do, and I prefer to build a team from the farm system. So, I was ok with Bloom for the time being. I expected him to switch over to win-now mode in a year or two, but ownership and a lot of fans like you do not want to wait and work that way. So, it looks like they will take a different direction. Hopefully, it works out well. John Henry may have made the mistake of firing the last 3 POBOs after only 4 years which may be hurting hiring a good POBO. Also, Cora seems to have some power which is probably unattractive. Ownership and the front office may be very dysfunctional which may have hindered Bloom and might hinder the new POBO. Hope I was able to make some sense. It is not always easy to capture thoughts and communicate here.
Suit- please, don’t lump me in with those who are unwilling to wait. Heck, I was advocating for a full tear down once they traded Mookie in order to maximize value of a lot of the roster.
My problem was the lying, telling fans that they were going to remain competitive while building the farm. I too believe that bloom was tanking as evidenced by his lack of improving teams with legitimate shots at the postseason.
Yeti: Got it.
Red Sox are like the girl in high school that was a 9-10, gained 50lbs, and thinks she can show a little leg/chest and pull anyone. Hilarious. Waiting for the announcement of Cora are the new promotion. What a travesty of organizational management.
Never mind, I misread. I’m not getting your metaphor though. How are the Sox that showy?
You need beer goggles at a company holiday party where 19 of every 20 employees are dudes. Then she starts looking more showy.
Red Sox are expecting a qualified GM to beg for this job in spite of zero job security and with a manager not of his choosing already given endorsement by ownership. It’s strike one when they can’t choose their own manager. Plus, it’s obvious they’re grooming Cora to take a GM-like position in the near future. So whoever is stupid enough to accept is merely holding the fort for a few years.
Milt – I know the Brock Star is interested, if Henry is intent on hiring an inexperienced unqualified puppet then might as well go with a fan favorite.
Maybe it all comes full circle and John Henry takes another run at Billy Beane.
The A’s pay Beane $3M per year, which isn’t really that much, but they also gave him a 4% ownership stake. The team is valued a $1.18B. Any team that wanted to make a run at him would have to at least equal that value, but probably need to exceed it.
I can’t see the Red Sox being anyone’s first choice given high turnover. Would have to pay much better than other teams for someone to take that job.
The job security from ownership isn’t guaranteed, and if the GM they hire doesn’t get results within 4 years he’s getting the boot. Ownership is too hands on, they’re going to get a lot of no thank you from candidates.
College ain’t professional. That would be a disaster waiting to happen. Erstad is way too intense.
I’d give Erstad a shot. He’s passionate about winning, knows what a world series team should look like and knows how to play the game really well. Does that translate into a championship next year… not likely. But good old Buck won’t do any better either. Besides, whoever we hire won’t be around longer than 2 years anyways. So honestly, does it really matter? Got to have someone to blame and ownership isn’t a believer in program development and stability.
I would definitely give Erstad some strong consideration. He was a no BS kind of player. I think the clubhouse would rally around him.
This is Arte playing the fan base withErstad. He knows the base would love to see a member of the 2002 team. Means more seats foiled. Arte great marketeer!
That certainly is a possibility, but I also think the clubhouse would respond well to him as well.
He is young enough to relate to the players. He played gritty no nonsense baseball. He got 240 hits in ONE SINGLE season, that alone should garner a lot of respect.
If he is interested, I don’t see why you don’t give him some serious consideration. I don’t mind that he hasn’t coached at the MLB level, there are plenty of successful managers oxer the years that were in the same situation and succeeded.
He’s never coached anywhere on the professional level.
The Angels tried this once before and it was a disaster.
I wouldn’t.
Halo, Neither had Craig Counsell before he took over the Brewers.
Some guys are “just dudes” and they get it, and they make it happen. I feel Erstad would get full support from the BO and that the players would buy in to him as a manager.
It would be a better hire than Showalter
They’ve both won the same number of championships.
Touche Halogirl
FYI
Not a big fan of the dudes reference. Lol
Just kidding. I get the intent
Jon Daniels is looking pretty good right now. He brought on the big guns that are in the playoffs now. They didn’t win right away, so management fired him.
The problem w Showalter, and it’s not he same as Maddon, they haven’t played in the majors, so players can tune them out when things go south. At least Bochy and Baker have had the experience. And Showalter still hasn’t won a championship or even an pennant so I don’t understand the priority.
Sorry meant to say “it’s the Same as Maddon”
Skip, I agree.
PLUS the Angels do not need another retread middle of the road manager.
Showalter should be back on MLB Network. They like him there. He’s welcome there.
The biggest problem right now is Henry. Since 2019, our main competitor’s payrolls:
NYY 27% higher
TBJ 97% higher
BRS 9% lower
Joe, in 2022 Boston was still the 6th highest payroll around season start according to one set of figures I saw.
We don’t know how much money was approved by Henry for this year, but, we have to assume it was more than Bloom doled out just because of some offers that were extended and turned down by players which weren’t replaced by other spending.
I also think I remember interviews where higher-ups said money was there for the team to take on payroll should the right opportunity present itself.
Basically I’m not willing to toss Henry under the bus as being responsible for the way the 2023 roster was built. That lay with the former PBO.
Disagree GA Fan. They were getting under the tax threshold in 23 after screwing it up in 22. While there was money to add this past season and remain under the cap, Bloom likely found few short term moves at the deadline to discuss with ownership. I’ve said it so many times recently. Bad defense results in burnt out pitching. Many also got hurt in part due to overuse. I’ve mostly defended Bloom but the starting staff was amongst the worst in the majors the last two months. Some were just tired, others unable to consistently find themselves after coming off the IL. Only Pivetta was the real deal almost every start in September.
Dewey, I think everyone will agree the pitching situation was a self-inflicted wound that fostered and deteriorated as the season went on.
Remember, Eovaldi COULDVE been back, except Bloom told him to pound sand. (Not to mention others like Wacha). Also, that atrocious team.defense was created by the roster moves of… you guessed it, Bloom. These players could’ve been added and remained under the CBT, but, BLOOM chose not tk
When they lost Bogey due to (who else) Bloom’s mismanagement of extension discussions that allowed a player to reach FA that never should’ve, and thus, the excessive bidding took off, once again it was Bloom who didn’t make any concrete moves to a#dress the problem. He said they’d slide Kiki over which I pointed out data why he would be terrible there (and was even WORSE than even I expected.) The Mondesi move was fine as an upside attempt, but, shouldn’t have been the main signing to supplement the roster at the position.
Still, the fact remains I don’t think you can say last year’s opening day payroll was where it was due to ownership, all sogns pointed to Henry greenlighting more money and Joe’s numbers are misleading in that regard after spending over 2020-2022 remained among the leage highest without the “problem” being implied here.
GA: I think Bloom likely left holes in the pitching staff so the team would stay in the mix but eventually implode and they would get a higher draft pick. I still say if we could see the flaws, he could too. Ownership just had enough of this. We will see if stopping the rebuild now is a good idea of not.
dewey – Besides Pivetta’s 2.43 ERA in September, Crawford had a 3.86 ERA and Sale had a 2.88 ERA. Keep in mind September was a brutal schedule, against mostly very good teams.
FWIW – The Sox threw only 24,034 pitches in 2023 which puts them in the middle of the pack, fewer than the Braves & Astros and only 66 more than the Orioles.
And as we all know, there were so many dumpster picks that were cycled on and off the team to absorb innings, none of the Sox pitchers can claim overuse. The starters often went 5 innings or less and were constantly given extra rest. The relievers barely pitched at all, look at the IP of Martin and Jansen.
or not
GASox – Great post as always! Yeah Bloom was one of the worst baseball ops heads in Red Sox history, no doubt about it. Off the top of my head the only two notable good things he did was the Pivetta trade and the Abreu trade. Everything else was either low hanging fruit or a failure. Three last place finishes with losing records, doesn’t get much worse than that over a 4 year period.
GASox – Great post as always! And let’s not forget the Sox finished this year around $12M below the threshold, so there was plenty of funds available to take on some additional salary at the trade deadline. I honestly think because of last year’s blunder that Bloom was afraid to even come close to the threshold this year.