Chaim Bloom Seeing Red Sox As ‘Underdogs’ Played Role At Deadline

Boston Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom played the odds during Tuesday’s Major League Baseball trade deadline.

The Red Sox were mainly quiet on deadline day, making just one move by acquiring more middle infield depth in the form of Luis Urías from the Milwaukee Brewers.

Not pulling off any monumental moves was a calculated decision by Bloom and how he views the Red Sox, who are just on the outside of a playoff spot, with 56 games left in the regular season.

“We really like what we’re building. You’ve seen it now,” Bloom told reporters, as seen on NESN coverage. “Like I said, it’s not something that we’re asking people to close their eyes and dream on. You’re seeing it more and more each night on the field, the core we’re building, what we’re building toward. Understanding that we’re underdogs this year right now where we are in the playoff odds, we just tried to stay true to that.

“Different things that could’ve meant. That could’ve meant going out and adding. It could’ve meant if we’re able to go get a core player — and I told you guys this leading up to the deadline — that it might result in guys leaving our club. But ultimately, at the end of the day, didn’t match up on any of those things and ready to roll with this group.

“Like I said, we like where our arrow is pointing and hopefully we can do some special things the rest of the way. And certainly feel very confident we’ll be able to continue to keep building on this next year and beyond.”

The Red Sox aren’t typically seen as “underdogs.” But their chances to make the postseason aren’t stellar at the moment. Boston entered Tuesday night 2 1/2 games behind the Toronto Blue Jays for the third and final wild card spot in the American League.

The Red Sox have just a 23.1% chance to make the postseason, per FanGraphs.

“Well, just look at the odds,” Bloom explained on why he used the underdog label. “We know what the odds are. We don’t have a playoff spot right now. We’re not sitting in a playoff spot. I think there probably is much belief in that clubhouse as I’ve seen in this clubhouse in a long time since we were going through the playoffs in 2021. We’ve got a lot of very positive things going there. … We know we got work to do. It’s going to be all in front of us.

“We’re going to have to play well and we’re going to get there if we get there by just doing the things that got us to this point by keeping one foot in front of the other, not worrying about distractions, just worrying about what we need to do and continuing to lean on that core and build that core and see where it all takes us.”

Despite their standing, Bloom believes the Red Sox can make the playoffs, but it won’t be easy to do so.

“Yeah I do, but obviously we’re not there right now,” Bloom said. “We got to go prove it. And there’s a lot of baseball left to be played, a lot of different things that can happen. I think everybody in there believes that. I believe that. But we have to go out and show it.”