Red Sox admit they miss Chaim Bloom as Cardinals reap benefits of their mistake

Just a few days ago, I wrote about how the Alex Cora disaster in Boston is continuing to shine a light on how poorly Chaim Bloom was treated by the Red Sox, and now more information is pouring in about the dysfunction in Boston and how members of the Red Sox organization miss Bloom. Well, the St. Louis Cardinals are certainly reaping the benefits of that mistake.

According to Joon Lee, who has been doing some incredible reporting on the fallout from the Red Sox's surprise decision to fire Cora and five members of his coaching staff, shared that people within the Red Sox's organization miss Bloom for his people skills, compared to how Craig Breslow, who replaced Bloom after he was fired by Boston, treats others.

The Red Sox's fallout continues to show how Chaim Bloom was not the problem in Boston

As I wrote about just a few days ago, Bloom faced an uphill battle in Boston, from misaligned holdovers in the front office who contributed to his downfall, and most importantly, a lack of accountability from ownership, which Lee highlighted in his excellent reporting.

"What began with Betts became a pattern," Lee reported in his recent Substack piece on the crisis in Boston. "When decisions were difficult, communication became indirect. When the choice to prioritize financial flexibility over franchise stars proved unpopular to many fans, ambiguity shielded the front office from public backlash. Responsibility diffused outward through selective leaks rather than clear declarations of intent. This insulated ownership while forcing baseball operations, players or circumstance to absorb the blame." (Bold and italics were added for effect.)

Bloom has been quick to express gratitude for his time in Boston and has never come out to his own defense publicly, but when asked recently on the Dealin' the Cards podcast about that experience, his learnings seem to shed light on the dysfunction that the entire baseball world is currently witnessing.

"One of the things, trying to execute on that project [leading the Boston Red Sox] in a place like that, I really learned the importance of alignment, the importance of the whole organization being on the same page, "Bloom told me on the Dealin' the Cards podcast when asked about what he learned from his experience in Boston. "And you know, easy to say, that's not some headline like "Hey, it's really important for an organization to be aligned to have success", we all know that. But also just the responsability you have in this seat, not just to want it but to insist on it and to be forceful if you have to, and just making sure everything is pointed in the right direction, making sure it's crystal clear to people what we need to do and why, and insisting on that. Be very focused, very forceful, very disciplined with that. That is definitely something that I take out of that experience."

You can find the hour-long interview with Bloom on the Dealin' the Cards YouTube channel or wherever you get your podcasts.

The main thing for Cardinals fans to takeway here is that, though Bloom had things he could learn from his own leadership in Boston and has likely made adjustments to how he operates in this new enviornment based on that, things did not blow up with the Red Sox because he is a bad executive, Boston has just been a dyfunctional organization for awhile now, and he somehow was able to build a top farm system and brigthen their future in the midst of that.

Want evidence that the Red Sox have pushed away good executives? Uh, look at Theo Epstein and Dave Dombrowski and their track records since leaving the Red Sox. It's actually pretty crazy to see how much success Boston has had in terms of championships while John Henry has been in ownership, but there's also a reason they've had so many lows as well.

Luckily for Cardinals fans, Bloom's dismissal from Boston came at the perfect time for them to seek an outside voice like his, and the marriage between what this organization strives for and what Bloom wants to build seems to be a match made in heaven.

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