Red Sox Hot Stove Rumors: It’s splash or smash time to Chaim Bloom
Free agency for the Boston Red Sox and all the other MLB teams begins on November 10th as players can be signed now. After their dismal last place in the AL East showing in 2022, the team can ill-afford to mess up another offseason as they did in the disastrous 2021 offseason.
With two last-place finishes in the three years, he’s been at the helm of the Red Sox personnel operation, Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom is on the hot seat. Even the penurious ownership of the club (which evidently may sell their interest in the Liverpool Football Club, too bad it’s not the Boston Red Sox), might not countenance another last-place finish in 2023.
They must protect their revenue streams, you know. yet, this offseason will demonstrate in no uncertain terms exactly what the absentee ownership intends to do with this storied franchise.
If they punt again in pursuit of the almighty dollar (how much do you really need anyway?) and fail to act and spend as a big-market baseball team should, they will clearly demonstrate what is already clear, they could care less about the team than its revenues.
So let’s take a look at what the Boston Red Sox should do this offseason
If the ownership and Mr. Bloom want to improve the team a few things are advisable. First, they should go all-in on the best hitter on the market, Aaron Judge. They should pay whatever it takes to sign the Yankee giant and put him in red hose for a decade or so.
Full disclosure, no, this space does not generally like long-term mega-million dollar signings. But Judge is a special case. First, he’s a tremendous hitter and a home run hitter, a trait likely sorely to be lacking in the 2023 Red Sox. And, it’s addition by subtraction as the Yankees lose their best player to Boston.
This space can’t see this embarrassing Red Sox ownership making a big-time move like this. Oh well, the team must be sustainable, you know. Actually, they are, sustainable right now, as a last-place AL East team it seems.
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Next, if the team wants really make a statement, they should add to the splash and then go trade for Shohei Ohtani. He’s immediately their best pitcher and he and Judge would be a formidable 3-4 combination in the lineup, maybe the best in baseball.
Now naysayers will be all over these two suggestions. Too much money and too many years, blah, blah, blah they’d say, probably accurately. But this is the Boston Red Sox we’re talking about here. This is a historic team and about the best MLB team of the 21st century thus far. Why let it flop?
The Boston Red Sox have to cut ties with several top players
Those are two top suggestions, there should be others added of course. But to facilitate this business, player shave to go, and here are the suggestions of who should go.
First, Xander Bogaerts has opted out of his contract. Let him leave. The Sox have Trevor Story ready to go and Marcelo Mayer in waiting. Next, the Sox should either get an extension signed with Rafael Devers by a date/time specific or trade him. There is no in-between.
Others may cite the Mookie Betts trade as an example of why this doesn’t make a lot of sense. They’d be wrong. If a team sets a limit for a player and the player won’t accept it, then a trade is not a foolish option.
Trading Betts didn’t work out but it was the lousy return, not the trade itself that was the issue. The Sox got little back except for salary relief (there’s that ownership again) for letting one of the top three players in baseball go. That was the biggest faux pas.
Another player who should go is J.D. Martinez, a good ballplayer in Boston but it’s time to move on. Also, Nathan Eovaldi can move on. A good pitcher when he can pitch but to injury-prone. The excision of the four players alone frees up mega bucks for the two additions mentioned.
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In addition, the team should seek to trade other poor assets like Chris Sale if only to ease the strain on the budget. It’s not like Sale has been very good in Boston at all anyway.
Michael Wacha had a nice season in Boston but setting him and Rich Hill free also gleans more cash for the big signings. But Wacha may be the exception to the rule.
Those are some initial thoughts as free agency gets underway. The Boston Red Sox have become irrelevant. If you think signing Judge and Ohtani changes that, let us know in the comments.