BOSTON – The Boston Red Sox fired Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom on Thursday as the team stumbled toward a third last-place finish in four seasons.
The team made the announcement before the start of a doubleheader against the New York Yankees, who took the first two games of the series to drop Boston into a tie for last.
“The decision was not made lightly or easily, particularly with the deep respect we have for Chaim’s character, for the professionalism and the integrity he has brought to our organization over the past four years,” President & CEO Sam Kennedy read from a prepared statement before his press conference. “We all know where we are in the standings. It’s a painful reality that fans feel as deeply as we do. Our fans deserve a winning, competitive team that consistently plays postseason baseball.”
Bloom was hired from the Tampa Bay Rays to help revive the farm system and bring financial stability to a team that was one of baseball’s biggest spenders. One of his first actions was to trade 2018 AL MVP Mookie Betts, on a mandate from ownership to get the payroll in order.
“The results we expect from our organization have not been there and we felt it was time for new leadership to help chart a different path forward,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy said Bloom was informed of the decision by Principle Owner John Henry, Chairman Tom Werner and himself Thursday morning.
The team said general manager Brian O’Halloran “has been offered a new senior leadership position within the baseball operations department.”
O’Halloran will run the department in the interim, along with assistant general managers Eddie Romero, Raquel Ferreira and Michael Groopman.
After going 86 years without a World Series championship, the Red Sox have won four since 2004, the most for anyone this century.
But they’ve done it with three different baseball bosses — Theo Epstein (2004, ’07), Ben Cherington (’13) and Dave Dombrowski (’18) — as they try to avoid the roller-coaster ride that has also seen them finish last in the AL East five times since 2012.
“We expected a team that would be in this thing, a postseason contender and unfortunately we all know we feel short of that,” Kennedy said. “We are in the results business. Results, ultimately, always matter.”
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