It's doubtful that, in his wildest dreams, Chaim Bloom expected the Red Sox to be playing this well, this (relatively) deep into the 2021 season. Yet as the Red Sox closed out their first series of the season with the Yankees Sunday night, the Sox had a .603 winning percentage, were a mere game out of first place in the division, and giving every indication that they're good enough to remain in contention throughout the season.
While that's all welcome news, the team's surprising level of play brings with it its own challenges. While Bloom might have had in mind a chance to auction off some veterans on short-term deals at next month's trade deadline, that tactic is no longer in place. Bloom will have a responsibility to reward his roster with some external help for their playoff push.
The question is: how much will Bloom be willing to sacrifice from his inventory of prospects to improve the team's chances this October? And how much is too much when it comes to deviating from the long-term goal of attaining sustainability?
"It's a tough tightrope to walk, but it's where we want to be,'' said Bloom in a Zoom call with reporters. "Ideally, we have that tightrope to walk every year. If we want to keep ourselves out of the basement, we have to make sure that we're never throwing away our future. Otherwise, you get what'd you expect to get if you that. It's a heck of a lot better than selling off pieces because you have no chance.
"It's something we need to look at it. We always talk about this: that balance between now and the future and as much as we can, try to do things that help us on both fronts. That's obviously hard to do. It's usually not that simple. When there are tradeoffs, we just need to look at those tradeoffs really carefully. As much as we're in this for the long haul, every chance to make the postseason is important and we need to make sure we're respecting the chance we have this year as well all the chances we hope and expect to have in the years to come.''
It helps that the Sox just added three additional prospects -- pitchers Luis de la Rosa and Grant Gambrell and outfielder Freddy Valdez -- to the organization as part of the completion of the Andrew Benintendi deal in February.
"We think that all three of these guys are interesting prospects,'' said Bloom. "We're excited to add all of them to the organization. I think when you zoom out and look at the trade as a whole, we really got talent at all levels. If we're going to have this sustainable, championship contender that we really want to have, we just need talent everywhere. We can't look past any avenue to get that talent and that means we have to be willing to look for it whether it's years away or whether it's days away -- and everywhere in between.''
Getting five bodies for Benintendi helps deepen the prospect inventory, especially when you combine with some of the deals made last year when the Sox shipped out Mitch Moreland, Kevin Pillar, Heath Hembree and Brandon Workman.
"I certainly think we're in a better position with that now than we were,'' Bloom said. "Some of this is an objective look at where we are; some of it just my nature where I don't ever feel like we've assembled enough. But that doesn't mean you can never trade any of it. You have to look at the merits of every individual opportunity and see what you might be able to get and make those decisions.''
The Sox also could find some internal help, with the likelihood that Jarren Duran could make the jump to the big leagues in the second half of the season while Chris Sale inches closer to a return to full health.
"(Sale) could be probably more impactful than any addition we could possibly conceive of making,'' said Bloom. "But at the same time, I don't think we want to put ourselves in a position where we're reliant on him coming back. I think we build it without him and then when he's ready to roll, I'm sure we're not going to have any trouble finding a spot for him. You never have enough pitching and if we're able to layer on the impact that he brings, on top of a club that we already feel good about, that's a great position to be in.
Bloom noted that the Red Sox want to have a number of pathways to acquire talent for the organization and that investing in scouting and development is every bit as important as sinking money into free agency and the major league roster.
"You can't build a team just by whipping out your wallet,'' said Bloom. "Every consistent championship team in modern baseball has been built on a really solid foundation. And the teams that do it best, that talent is self-sustaining. And that means you've to have talent coming through at all levels of the system. I think one of the critical things, in a market like ours is, just because we have the ability to swim in the deep end of the pool, doesn't mean that's the only thing we should pay attention to. We actually have the ability to dominate every area of talent acquisition and talent development.
"We're not doing our jobs if we're ceding any ground to other clubs, thinking that certain types of prospects or certain players are only the domain of teams in certain types of markets. No, we should be able to do it all and we've got to try to do it all. If we see talent, even if that talent is in rookie ball or the Dominican Summer League, (we need to find that, too).''