Buy Or Sell? Chaim Bloom Opens Up About Red Sox’s Trade Deadline Path

For the second year in a row, the Boston Red Sox are stuck in no man’s land with the Major League Baseball trade deadline approaching.

They simply haven’t been consistent enough to cement themselves as buyers. But they still remain within striking distance of an American League wild-card spot, making it hard to say definitively that Boston should sell before Aug. 1.

The next few weeks thus could go a long way toward determining the Red Sox’s path. For now, Boston chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom is canvassing the area.

“I think we’re going to need more time before the deadline to see exactly what makes sense for us to do,” Bloom told MLB.com in a Q&A this week. “We understand the reality of the division. It’s probably the best division in the history of baseball, but it’s where we play. We’re hoping to put the pieces together a little bit better than we did in the first half, have a lot of those individual bright spots add up to more team wins and put ourselves in a position to make the postseason. Obviously, we’ll need to see how we play between now and then and we can figure out where to go from there.”

“I think we’re going to need more time before the deadline to see exactly what makes sense for us to do.”

Chaim Bloom on the Red Sox’s 2023 trade deadline approach

The Red Sox entered the weekend with a 40-42 record. They’re in last place in the American League East, 15 games behind the first-place Tampa Bay Rays, a seemingly insurmountable deficit with three months left in the 2023 regular season.

Boston sits just five games back of the AL’s third wild-card spot, though. Not ideal, obviously. The Red Sox trail three division rivals (the Baltimore Orioles, New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays) plus the Houston Astros and Los Angeles Angels in the wild-card standings. But a winning streak — something the Red Sox have proven capable of at times this season — could completely change the narrative as Boston figures out how exactly to approach this year’s trade deadline.

“I think realistically we try to stay in touch with all 29 clubs at all times and see what people are thinking,” Bloom told MLB.com. “We know that the bulk of the action on the trade front is going to happen after the draft (which starts July 9). That’s not to say we aren’t having some conversations. We are, because you always want to understand what all of your competitors are trying to do, and get a sense of the different possibilities available to us. What the demand is for some of our players, but as far as that taking specific shape … Look, there’s always moves that could happen early, but the bulk of the action usually happens a lot closer to the end of July.”

In other words, we’re in wait-and-see mode. The Red Sox could be buyers. They could be sellers. Or they could fall somewhere in the middle, which is what happened last season when Boston reshuffled its roster without fully committing to either avenue.