Red Sox’s Chaim Bloom receives vote of confidence from Sam Kennedy

FORT MYERS, Fla. -- Asked point blank if Chaim Bloom’s job was safe beyond the 2022 season, Red Sox president and CEO Sam Kennedy issued a vote of confidence for the organization’s chief baseball officer Monday.

“Chaim is our chief baseball officer and we do not anticipate any changes there,” Kennedy said.

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Bloom’s job security has been a topic of discussion since spring training opened last week. The 39-year-old executive has guided the Red Sox to two last-place finishes (and one ALCS run) since taking over in Oct. 2019 and the 2023 team is projected to once again finish last in the American League East. The first question of Bloom’s beginning-of-camp media availability was about his future in Boston.

“Good question,” Bloom responded. “You know, I haven’t thought about that. I don’t think about things that way. Not something that I think is productive to think about. Not something I control. What I can control is try to put us in a position to win and a position to do what we’re trying to do, which is to make our fans happy. So that’s what I’ve been focused on.”

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Bloom’s legacy is somewhat hard to judge at this juncture. While the results on the field have been substandard, the Red Sox hired him with the goal of improving the club’s long-term view. In that vein, it might be difficult to fire someone after just four years. If the Red Sox once again have a poor season, though, wholesale changes might be on the table.

For now, though, Kennedy said his top baseball operations officials are safe. His endorsement of Bloom was stronger than that of principal owner John Henry, who largely deflected a question from Boston Sports Journal’s Sean McAdam about Bloom’s job security and instead said “a better question” would be about how the organization is doing.

“I think the most important thing is for our baseball operation to have the resources that they need to be successful,” Kennedy said. “We all know that there’s a lot of pressure on us every single year. We had a down year in 2022. There’s no hiding from that. We really felt in 2021, we were on the right path. We had a magical season. We fell short of the ultimate goal.

“But we’re confident in this group. We’re confident in Chaim, we’re confident in (general manager Brian O’Halloran),” he continued. “John Henry said last night that baseball (operations) is about an entire organization. And that’s true. There’s so many individuals in our baseball operation that contribute and it’s a team effort. Our job in management and ownership in the front office is to get baseball ops those resources to be competitive and I think we’ve done that.”