With Chaim Bloom and Alex Cora running the show, the Red Sox appear to be back

By Pedro Moura
FOX Sports MLB Writer

As his second season in charge began in February, Boston Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom sensed a difference in the personnel he had assembled in Fort Myers, Florida.

There was more chatter, more excitement. There was a chain necklace passed around for the coach of the day. COVID-19 protocols remained, but the focus was elsewhere.

"Nobody," Bloom said, "was allowing that to strip the game of its joy."

Fifty games into their second season After Mookie, the Red Sox are having fun again, and they’re playing pretty well, too, as winners of 30, losers of 20. Bloom was hired to build a consistent winner on a budget – not just a 2021 playoff team – so he strives to avoid becoming engrossed in any single stretch of play. Still, he appreciates the change.

"It’s not something I took for granted or, I think, anybody should take for granted after last year," Bloom told FOX Sports. "Not just because of how we performed but because of the grind that last year was. It seemed to me that it didn’t matter whether you were winning or losing. Everybody was on edge throughout the season, for a lot of different reasons. It was not as much fun as this game usually is, and I didn’t know what to expect coming into camp."

Then manager Alex Cora was back and setting a vibe, and players were following it.

Various Red Sox started calling the team "sneaky good," repeating it until it was undeniably true. "We already said it in spring training," outfielder Alex Verdugo said this week.

A collegial energy exudes from the team. On a recent Zoom, infielder Christian Arroyo braved several attempts at pronouncing the city Worcester, where the team’s triple-A affiliate moved this season, then begged for guidance from the assembled media. "Gosh," he said. "You can tell I’m from Florida, huh?"

The summer could bring regression or continuation. No one knows. Chris Sale’s return from injury should help. But the improved present casts a hopeful light on the future. Boston’s farm system, too, is on the upswing, and it’ll receive a boost from the fourth overall pick in the upcoming draft.

Because Bloom has declined to take on new long-term commitments, only two Red Sox, Sale and Xander Bogaerts, are guaranteed to be paid by Boston beyond next season. Because neither player’s deal is backloaded, each figures to be an asset for the 2023 Red Sox, at a total salary of just greater than $42 million – less, for example, than the average sum the Dodgers will pay Trevor Bauer alone over the next two years. The rest of the roster will be arbitration-eligible, paid near the minimum salary or subject to a club option. There’s flexibility there.

The Red Sox's active roster prioritizes on-field flexibility. Danny Santana, Marwin González, Arroyo and Kiké Hernández can all play several positions, and they do so regularly. Such versatility was a hallmark of the Rays teams Bloom helped run and the teams his former boss, Andrew Friedman, runs in Los Angeles. The hope is it’ll provide cover when the inevitable injuries strike.

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"You can just make more things work," Bloom said. "Your manager, your staff, has more options in game. You have more ways to avoid having to put guys in spots where they shouldn’t be. All of those things, although they’re really hard to measure, they add up over the course of the season."

For all of Boston’s successes, some hitting peripherals portend a downturn. The bottom half of the Sox's lineup does not strike fear into the opponent. Overall, only one team walks less than they do. They strike out at about an average rate, which is to say they strike out a lot.

"We know we swing a lot, but we have to get back to swinging at strikes," Cora told reporters this week. "If we do that, things are gonna get back to normal."

In that pursuit, Verdugo is the pacesetter. The centerpiece of the Betts return is one of the sport’s hardest players to strike out. The 25-year-old has also been an energetic performer since he debuted with the Dodgers in 2017 and particularly since he broke out in 2019, when he became one of the most celebrated players on a 106-win team. Before the Red Sox settled on him as the primary player they received from Los Angeles, they examined his past and concluded he would fit in the most baseball-crazed region on the continent.

Players have both thrived and withered in New England. The successful set, Bloom said, can not only absorb the energy emitted by Bostonians but also welcome it. "They’re not scared of it," he said. "That stood out from when we started doing background work on Alex, and it’s stood out even more since he came here."

Verdugo hit .308 in 2020, his best season yet. On their televisions, Red Sox fans could see the team had at least obtained a good player in return for the future Hall of Famer, who led the Dodgers to a championship. The hope is they will get a better sense of his presence in person in 2021. 

"As well as [Verdugo] performed last year," Bloom said, "we were still constantly reminded of how much more fun this would be when our fans could come to Fenway." 

Conveniently, when the Sox host the Marlins on Saturday, Fenway Park will host its first full-capacity crowd since Betts’ last game Sept. 29, 2019. Betts finished that game by scoring from first on a single. Verdugo, still throttling down his baserunning to protect a sore hamstring, probably will do nothing of the sort. But Hernández, another high-energy former Dodger, will lead off, followed by Verdugo, J.D. Martinez, Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers. It will be a fearsome first five. The crowd will be loud.

"It’s gonna be fun," Verdugo said. "It’ll help us have that extra adrenaline right off the bat."

Like they had in the spring.

Pedro Moura is the national baseball writer for FOX Sports. He most recently covered the Dodgers for three seasons for The Athletic. Previously, he spent five years covering the Angels and Dodgers for the Orange County Register and Los Angeles Times. More previously, he covered his alma mater, USC, for ESPNLosAngeles.com. The son of Brazilian immigrants, he grew up in the Southern California suburbs. Follow him on Twitter @pedromoura.