The 2022 Red Sox season hasn’t gone as planned, but Boston isn’t about to make sweeping changes at its most important power positions.
Sox CEO Sam Kennedy told The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal the jobs of both chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom and manager Alex Cora are safe going into the 2023 season. On-field results aside, it’s not terribly surprising with the club exercising contract options on Cora for 2023 and 2024, while Bloom has a long-term deal, per Rosenthal’s reporting.
“I am very comfortable saying Chaim and Alex will be back. And I am very comfortable saying there is a strong belief in the direction of the franchise from our ownership group,” Kennedy told Rosenthal. “That direction is continuing to build for the future but also continuing to invest at the major league level.”
One year removed from reaching the American League Championship Series, the Red Sox are unlikely to make it back to the playoffs. Fangraphs gives them a 1.5% chance of making the playoffs, and it seems they’re more likely to finish in last place than reach the postseason. Baltimore is currently six games clear of the Sox for fourth place in the AL East.
Kennedy also expressed disappointment about how 2022 has turned out, pledging the organization will do all it can to get back on track — and quickly.
“To be looking up at the American League East at this point of the year is painful and frustrating,” he told Rosenthal. “And frankly we deserve the criticism we’re getting. We’ve got to own that. It’s on us. But we’ve been around here a long time, and we’re prepared to turn things around quickly here as we head into ’23.”
There is plenty of work to do this winter for Bloom, Cora and the rest of the Red Sox front office. Not only are they tasked with finding ways to improve, but they also have a lot of roster holes to fill. J.D. Martinez, Nate Eovaldi, Kike Hernandez, Michael Wacha and Rich Hill are all free agents. Xander Bogaerts could and likely will opt out of his contract.
There will be plenty of offseason change for the Red Sox, but it apparently won’t come in the manager’s office or the GM chair.
