Obviously, the Boston Red Sox’s struggles of late aren’t only because they didn’t go out and make a blockbuster move for a first baseman.
The bullpen has seen better days — a change from a struggling starting rotation or offense, as all facets of the team have taken turns underperforming.
But as the New York Yankees have gained and taken ground on the Red Sox, with Boston desperately clinging to a playoff spot, chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom has received a lot of criticism for not going out and getting a first baseman.
Some even say the front office executive gave up on the team by not making a bigger trade.
“If you don’t believe in the team, you don’t look to add at all,” Bloom said, refuting that claim on “Ordway, Merloni and Fauria” during the WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Radio Telethon broadcasted on NESN on Wednesday.
“I mean why would you? Because anytime you’re looking to do that deadline, likely, you are putting a real big focus on the terms — especially when you’re talking about a rental player, you know? It’s almost impossible for the math so-to-speak for that to add up unless you have a belief in the team.
“It didn’t have anything to do with belief in the team,” Bloom added. “We believe in this group, it more had to do with what really makes sense for us to do at the end of the day. What’s a good baseball trade that we could feel good about what it’s doing now and also feel like we made a good deal.”
Boston did bring in some players. Notably Kyle Schwarber, who the team hopes can learn to play first base. But since that move, they’ve also brought in Travis Shaw to have even more depth in that corner of the infield, in addition to Bobby Dalbec and Christian Arroyo.
On Wednesday against the Minnesota Twins, Schwarber took J.D. Martinez’s spot as designated hitter as the latter played left field. All these position tweaks correlate to the Red Sox suffering on defense, though.
“We said this on the day we did it — that we were intrigued by the upside that (Schwarber) could do it, you know? I wouldn’t put anything past this guy,” Bloom said. “I think we’re gonna see him do it in the coming days. He’s been working out there for a couple of weeks. I think we’re getting pretty close to where we’re going to be able to do in the game. So we saw that as upside that, look, if that works, not only do we get one of the best hitters we thought at the trade deadline, but we can have played first base also. If it doesn’t, we still thought this is a guy that’s going to contribute to the team. Would it be a better fit if he were a natural first baseman? No question. That factored into the possibilities that we were looking at, but ultimately, it still has to add up, it still has to make sense.”
Schwarber will debut at first base soon. Hopefully the experiment works and things start to fall back into place.
