Red Sox GM search: Rays SVP Chaim Bloom emerging as a candidate (reports)

The search for the next Red Sox general manager (or president of baseball operations, if that’s the title they choose to give) seems to be gaining steam.

Late Thursday night, multiple outlets were reporting that Tampa Bay Rays senior vice president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom, a 36-year-old who has been with the Rays since he graduated from Yale University in 2004, has interviewed with the Red Sox and is emerging as a strong candidate.

Privately, members of the Red Sox front office did not respond to requests for comment late Thursday and have been undergoing the search as quietly as possible. There are also league rules that restrict teams from making notable moves during the World Series.

Sox owner John Henry said in late September that he expected to look outside the organization to hire a replacement for Dave Dombrowski, who was fired in August.

Henry said at the time that he preferred someone with experience as a GM.

“This is a tough job, this is a tough offseason, too,” Henry said then. “We talked about the challenge of (getting under the $208-million luxury tax threshold), but I think you would all agree this is a challenging offseason. To put one of the (internal) candidates in charge and responsible for that, that’s sort of a tough way to start your career as a general manager. So we are starting the search looking outward.”

Bloom was considered the runner-up to be the general manager of the New York Mets last offseason, when the Mets eventually made an unorthodox hire in former player-agent Brodie Van Wagenen.

His in-laws live in the Boston suburbs, according to a feature on Bloom written in Tablet Magazine.

“It’s easy to stereotype Chaim,” Rays GM Erik Neander told the magazine for the story, “because of his age and his Ivy League education, as one of those people,” referring to the analytical executives that have begun to take over front offices, “but Chaim is the furthest thing from them. He has deep respect for the game and knowledge of its history.”

Bloom started with the Rays as an intern after studying at Yale and has been part of an organization that’s been a trailblazer in Major League Baseball.

The Rays operated with a 2019 payroll of $60 million, lowest in the majors, but won 96 games and made it to the American League Division Series, where they lost to the Astros in the fifth game of a best-of-five.

The Rays have never operated with a payroll above $76 million but have made the playoffs in five of the last 12 years, winning 90 games or more in seven of those years, despite being heavily out-spent by their A.L. East competitors.

Perhaps more importantly, they’ve traditionally been so good at what the Red Sox have done so poorly, which is developing homegrown starting pitchers.

The Rays also invented the opener, a starting pitcher who only pitches for an inning or two before turning it over to the bullpen, a trend that other teams have begun to follow.

Asked why he’s stayed with the organization for a feature story in The Athletic earlier this year, Bloom said, “This organization is a really, really special place. I’m not even talking about the success we’ve been fortunate to have early this season and last year. But the people we have throughout the organization. It extends past the product on the field. There’s a lot of work that goes into it all, and I’m genuinely happy.

“We have 200-plus full-time employees with baseball operations, and to a person, they are very special people. It is really a family environment. There’s a lot of trust here, and we really try to have each other’s backs. It’s a great feeling to come to work every day and try to build something special.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/33Y5DnK