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Coming off of a frustrating season, Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom knows the standard that’s set for the team and that 2022’s last-place finish was unacceptable.
As the team lays the foundation for 2023 in spring training, the CBO told 7NEWS his roster has something to prove after finishing last year with a record of 78-84.
Speaking in Fort Myers, Bloom said that while he’s enthusiastic for the upcoming season, he gets why some fans may not be sharing the same optimism.
“I totally understand why people aren’t – we weren’t good last year, we weren’t. We know we need to be better,” Bloom said. “Obviously, there’s a lot of different things that we have to work on. That’s why we’re here.”
Following months of signing players in key areas, along with locking down Rafael Devers, the CBO said he believes his roster will be competitive in the AL East.
“What I do feel we have is a really interesting mix of both veteran players who have a lot of accomplishments on their resume, young guys who are just starting out but who have tremendous physical ability – a lot of upside, they’re hungry – and really some guys in-between,” Bloom said.
When asked if he was feeling any pressure from ownership to return the team to prominence, Bloom said he always feels a need to advance the team, regardless of wherever the pressure may be coming from.
“I attack this every day, regardless of whether we just went to the ALCS or whether we finish in last place or anywhere in-between,” Bloom said. “We know what the standard is here – I’m not blind to that. I knew exactly what I was walking into in terms of that, but nobody’s ever going to put more pressure on me or set the bar higher than I set it for myself.”
When asked about goals for the season, Bloom told 7NEWS that at the end of the day, there is only really one thing a team can do in a season that can be considered an unqualified success: winning a World Series – something he, as well as manager Alex Cora, believes the team hasn’t yet earned the right to discuss.
“I think one thing that we’ve talked about, and I know Alex (Cora) and I feel the same way about this – we haven’t earned the right right now to start talking about that – we have a lot that we need to do to even think about that,” Bloom said.
The CBO also noted that while he is happy with the roster as it stands, he is not content and is always looking to add players, paricularly around this time of year with the new season right around the corner.
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