What chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said in his introductory Red Sox press conference
Bloom made it clear: his goal as chief baseball officer of the Red Sox is to “build as strong an organization as possible."
In his introductory press conference, Chaim Bloom made it clear: his goal as chief baseball officer of the Red Sox is to “build as strong an organization as possible in all aspects so we can have sustained long-term success and so we can compete in championships year in and year out.”
And he’s not just looking at the roster next year, or the year after that, or the players working their way through the minor-league system.
He’ll also be looking at “the processes and people in all aspects of what we have in baseball operations.
The backbone of our department will always be the people.”
The Red Sox made official their hire of Chaim Bloom as chief baseball officer on Monday morning and introduced him later that afternoon.
Watch Bloom’s introductory press conference here, courtesy of NESN.
Red Sox chairman Tom Werner said leadership had identified a list of about 20 candidates after Dave Dombrowski was fired in mid-September.
“In the end, there was only one we felt compelled to get permission to interview,” said Werner, “and that was Chaim Bloom.”
Bloom joins the Red Sox from Tampa Bay, where he helped the division rivals finish 12 games ahead of the Red Sox in 2019 despite working with a much tighter budget.
In Boston, the 36-year-old Yale graduate will be tasked with trying to keep the Red Sox under the $208-million luxury-tax threshold while also engineering a return to the postseason, which they missed this season for the first time since 2015.
As part of Bloom’s hiring, Brian O’Halloran will become general manager.
Bloom was complimentary of O’Halloran and his reputation among the organization.
“He leads selflessly and without ego … He is a model for everyone here,” said Bloom. “That I can now work closely with him is a privilege.”
“We believe Chaim is exactly the right person to lead the Boston Red Sox baseball operation based on a number of attributes we sought in this process,” said Red Sox principal owner John Henry. “We had done exhaustive work narrowing down candidates. That work led us to Chaim, who was the first executive invited to Boston for an interview. He made a strong impression on all of us and validated our initial research that he was the one to lead our baseball operation.”
Bloom, whose first name is pronounced HIGH-em, took over the No. 2 spot in Tampa in 2016.
