From the day he was hired, Chaim Bloom vowed to build a team with sustainability -- that is, the ability to compete for a championship year after year. Then and only then, Bloom said, will he have achieved his goal.
Now that the Red Sox are done playing in 2021, having lost the American League Championship Series in six games to the Houston Astros, it's time for Bloom to assess the progress that's been made.
That may be easier said than done.
Are the Red Sox the team that finished eight games out of first and needed to sweep the Washington Nationals on the final weekend just to claim the top wild-card spot?
Or are they the team that got to within two games of winning the American League pennant and advancing to the World Series?
The answer isn't necessarily clear-cut. Teams can get hot at the right time in the postseason, and create the impression that, in the short-term, they're better than they actually are. There's a randomness to postseason results that skew perception.
So, as the Sox look back with some regret over their ALCS exit, knowing they were close to going up three games to one, only to see the series take a dramatic turn away from them, they also take pride in the enormous progress made over the 2020 season, when the Sox finished with the fourth-worst record in the game.
Put more succinctly: is the proverbial glass half-empty or half-full?
"We talk about randomness,'' said Bloom, "but these guys did it. And no one should take any of that away from that. We know that sometimes the ball bounced different ways in the postseason, or in the game generally. I don't like using the word 'random' when we talk about guys' accomplishments. (But) just because you accomplished it this year doesn't mean you get to start over in the ALCS next year; You've got to do it all over again.
"It is important to step back and look at the underlying things -- whether we want to call them or not, they might not be repeatable, and that's really important (to consider) as we assess ourselves. But I don't think we should take away from the accomplishments of what these guys did. Generally speaking, it's important to step back and when we look at ourselves as a team or we look at individual players, we try to strip away as much noise as possible and really get to the underlying abilities, what was the underlying performance?
"Now, saying that, what these guys did on a nightly basis, especially once we got to October, that matters and that shows something about the buttons that Alex (Cora) and the staff pushed, the way players competed. That's important. That shows you something. I don't think it has to be all one or the other. I think it's important to make decisions from a really grounded and evidence-based perspective. But also to remember, our atmosphere and environment matters.''
The Sox are, obviously, leaps and bounds better than they were a year ago, They have the basis of a strong rotation ready to return with Chris Sale, Nathan Eovaldi, Nick Pivetta, Tanner Houck and Garett Whitlock all under control. They have a stable, foundational duo for the left side of the infield in Rafael Devers and Xander Bogaerts. They have an outfield of Alex Verdugo, Kike Hernandez and Hunter Renfroe set to return. And they have Bobby Dalbec, who made great strides in the second half, ready to fill a significant role.
But the Tampa Bay Rays aren't going away, and neither are the deep-pocketed Yankees or Toronto Blue Jays. Simply returning the same roster and expecting to take another significant step forward won't be good enough.
"I think it's very important to make sure that the guys understand that there's still work to do,'' added Cora. "One of the things that caught my attention on the last night in Houston was the 'unfinished business'' attitude in the clubhouse. If you tell a lot a people that you guys will play six games in the ALCS when the season started, I bet a lot of people would say, 'We're in.' It's always disappointing (to finish short of a championship). But it wasn't a missed opportunity. It was more like: there's more work to do.''
Cora knows firsthand that it's no guarantee that another successful season will follow this one. In 2018, the Sox won 108 games, steamrolled through the postseason, maintained almost exactly the same roster....and finished out of the playoffs, having won 23 fewer games.
"Not every season is the same,'' Cora. "Although this year was a solid one, a good one for us, there's a few things that we have to keep getting better at, that we have to change. We're not going to stop, This is just s beginning, to be honest with you. It's a great learning experience. I know I learned a lot and we learned a lot about the players. It was a great, great season, but I felt it right away -- there's unfinished business. We're going to keep getting better and let's see where it takes us.''