Inside The Red Sox

Red Sox's Lone All-Star Takes Shot At Chaim Bloom For Trade Deadline Blunder

Boston wasted one of the hurlers final seasons by punting at the trade deadline

Scott Neville

Red Sox's Lone All-Star Takes Shot At Chaim Bloom For Trade Deadline Blunder
Red Sox's Lone All-Star Takes Shot At Chaim Bloom For Trade Deadline Blunder /
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Former Boston Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom's reign as the head of baseball operations will be remembered for his retooling process, which required some strange trade deadlines.

After a year in which Bloom was ridiculed for attempting a rare buy-sell approach, the Red Sox entered the 2023 Major League Baseball Trade Deadline just 1 1/2 games back of an American League Wild Card spot. 

This time around he deployed a new strategy -- doing nothing. The lone move made was to acquire second baseman Luis Urías for right-handed pitching prospect Bradley Blalock in the waning minutes. The deadline inactivity upset the clubhouse, especially one of the most respected veterans in the game, closer Kenley Jansen.

"We do have a great team and if we would have had a couple of starters (at the deadline) we wouldn’t be talking about this right now," Jansen told WEEI's Rob Bradford on the "Baseball Isn't Boring" podcast. "We would be playing in a Wild Card game right now."

The 35-year-old is well aware that he does not have many years left in his career and did not appreciate Bloom punting on one of his final seasons when the players did enough to deserve help at the deadline. 

Bloom was not willing to meet the prices presented by opposing clubs for starting pitching and instead fell on the sword. It was respectable that the head of baseball operations elected not to blow up the farm system to save his own job but it likely would have benefited all parties had he invested some of the organization's prospect capital in the current roster.

With all that being said, Jansen's claim that they were a couple of arms away from postseason contention could be deemed a stretch. We'll never know.

More MLB: Red Sox Hurler Non-Commital About Coming Back When Asked About Free Agency

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Scott Neville
SCOTT NEVILLE

Scott Neville covers the Boston Red Sox for Sports Illustrated's new page "Inside The Red Sox." Before starting "Inside The Red Sox", Neville attended Merrimack College, where he earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Communication and Media with a minor in Marketing. Neville spent all four years with Merrimack's radio station WMCK, where he grew as a radio/podcast host and producer.  His propensity for being in front of a microphone eventually expanded to film, where he produced multiple short films alongside his then-roommate and current co-worker Stephen Mottram. On a journey that began as a way to receive easy credits via film classes, he received a call from "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" star Charlie Day. Day advised him to make a feature-length film, which he completed his senior year. While writing the film, Neville completed an internship for United Way as part of their NFL Partnership Program. Neville ran the blog for a team of interns and hosted an internet show called "United Way's NFL Partnership Series" where he interviewed NFL alumni. After college Neville wrote for SB Nation's "Over The Monster," a Red Sox sister site of the flagship brand. His work would eventually lead him to a job as a content producer with NESN, where he would cover all sports. After developing as a writer with the top regional network in the world, he was given the opportunity to join the Sports Illustrated Media Group in his current endeavor as the publisher of "Inside The Red Sox." The successful launch and quick rise of "Inside The Red Sox" led to Neville joining the Baseball Essential ownership group, a national baseball site under SIMG. Follow him on Twitter: @ScottNeville46 Email: nevilles@merrimack.edu

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