The Boston Red Sox have a lot of unknowns going into the 2023 season, but what fans do know is that Chaim Bloom and Alex Cora will return.
CEO Sam Kennedy confirmed as much to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal earlier this week, though an official announcement never was made by the Red Sox.
The 2022 season has been disappointing for the Red Sox, to say the very least. Between injuries to key players and the offense not living up to the hype, plus the bullpen having a slew of unreliable pitchers, Boston never found its groove.
Many wondered whether Bloom and/or Cora would return next year given the fact the Red Sox were two games away from the World Series last year and a year later it’s looking like they won’t make the postseason. But the duo indeed will be back, and Kennedy was asked why he committed to Bloom and Cora during his appearance on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” on Thursday morning.
“It’s interesting. A lot of people ask me, ‘Why did you speak about that?’ or ‘Why did you make that announcement?’ It actually wasn’t an announcement,” Kennedy said, as transcribed by Audacy. “It wasn’t something that was pre-determined. Ken Rosenthal just asked me the question in the context of an interview about the sort of state of the franchise. So, I just confirmed that Chaim and Alex are both under long-term contracts and they’ll both be back next year, and there hasn’t been any discussion or thought to the contrary.
“So, very easy question to answer, and that’s what we did. We have a lot of faith in both of these leaders on the field and in the front office. So, despite where we are right now — it’s been maddening, it’s been frustrating, in the bottom of the American League East — there’s a lot of good things going on in the organization and we’re optimistic about our ability to rebound and climb back to where we know we belong. That’s not where we are today, but we have confidence in Chaim and Alex and are looking forward to improving.”
There certainly are areas the Red Sox need to improve and that could happen in the offseason or they could look toward their farm system and see what they have in their prospects.
While we don’t know exactly what the team will look like in 2023, we do know the Red Sox will want to improve upon what’s been a disappointing 2022.