Chaim Bloom will get his second chance as the lone figure atop a team’s baseball operations pyramid when he replaces the Cardinals’ John Mozeliak at the end of next season. Cardinals Chairman and CEO Bill DeWitt Jr. dubbed Bloom Mozeliak’s heir Monday.
Bloom, the former chief baseball officer of the Boston Red Sox, joined the Cardinals as an adviser to the baseball operations department in January. His primary charge had been to assess the club’s player development system.
Bloom now sits on deck as the Cardinals’ next president of baseball operations, and he’ll have a year to begin shaping the way the organization molds prospects.
In some ways, it’s a role tailor-made for Bloom. In some ways, it’s a similar role to the one he played that made him a rising star in the industry with the Rays. In some ways, it’s a distinctly different perch than he’d been afforded in Boston.
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“This is a chance to really get in deep in this area in a way that I just think is unique,” Bloom said of beginning his tenure by overseeing the overhaul of the club’s player development department.
A rebuild in Boston
Bloom, 41, spent four years as the top executive in the Red Sox baseball operations department prior to his dismissal on Sept. 14, 2023. The Red Sox fired him after a second consecutive last-place finish in the American League East.
Bloom’s tenure in Boston included three last-place finishes but also featured one playoff appearance that extended to the 2021 American League Championship Series.
The Red Sox went 272-274 during Bloom’s four seasons. His first season came during the pandemic-shortened season and after MLB suspended Red Sox manager Alex Cora for a year for his involvement in the Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal in 2017.
The Red Sox also reduced their payroll from an approximate $236 million in 2019 to approximately $181 million in 2023.
Bloom oversaw a rebuild in Boston that included the departures of homegrown stars Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Andrew Benintendi and Jackie Bradley Jr. to a 10-year contract extension in 2023.
Baseball America ranked the Red Sox farm system 22nd of 30 MLB organizations entering 2020. That ranking rose to 10th entering 2023.
Bloom also headed the Red Sox baseball operations department when the team drafted current No. 1 overall prospect in baseball, minor league outfielder Roman Anthony.
Player development pedigree
A native of Philadelphia, Bloom graduated from Yale University in 2004. While a student at Yale, Bloom interned and wrote articles for the baseball statistics and analysis website Baseball Prospectus.
Bloom began his front office career as an intern with the San Diego Padres and then in the Major League Baseball legal/corporate partnerships department.
Bloom got his foot in the door with the Tampa Bay Rays, again as an intern, in 2005. He climbed the rungs from assistant director of minor league operations in 2008 to director of baseball operations in 2011.
In 2014, Bloom became vice president of baseball operations. His responsibilities expanded to include personnel, player development, international scouting, contract negotiations, salary arbitration and strategic planning.
Following the 2016 season, Bloom became senior vice president of baseball operations. He and senior vice president of baseball operations/general manager Erik Neander together headed the baseball operations department until Bloom went to Boston following the 2019 season.
In 2018, for their general manager position.
Some of the top prospects in the Rays farm system between 2009 and 2016 included pitcher David Price, outfielder Desmond Jennings, pitcher Jeremy Hellickson, pitcher Matt Moore, outfielder Wil Myers, pitcher Jake Odorizzi, shortstop Willy Adames and .
Moore, Myers, Odorizzi, Price and Snell went on to earn All-Star selections in the majors. Myers and Hellickson each won AL Rookie of the Year honors.
Snell has won two Cy Young Awards and two ERA titles, while Price also won a Cy Young Award and a pair of ERA titles.
A head start in St. Louis
DeWitt said Bloom signed a five-year contract to serve as president of baseball operations that starts after the 2025 season.
Bloom remains an adviser for the time being and will oversee the “reset” of the player development system. Since coming aboard as an adviser, Bloom developed a plan for improving the Cardinals farm system.
Now, he’ll be on the ground floor of implementing that plan before he takes over the entire baseball operation.
DeWitt promised “significant new investments” in staffing, programs and infrastructure, including a new facility at the club’s spring training complex in Jupiter, Florida. The team is scheduled to break ground on that new facility in April, according to DeWitt.
“Things move and change,” DeWitt said. “As Chaim says, if you don’t keep up, you’re going to fall behind. So this is a matter of catching up to a degree and building to a degree.”
Bloom said the process of hiring new leadership for the player development system has already begun. The Cardinals are looking to add an assistant general manager to head up player development and to have input in the additions in that apartment.
With general manager Michael Girsch shifted to vice president of special projects, Mozeliak will absorb Girsch’s previous duties next season.
Presumably, Bloom would either assume those duties or make a hire for the general manager position when Mozeliak steps down after next season.
More than 10 top executives in the Red Sox baseball operations — from the general manager and assistant general manager levels to the analytics, minor league operations and scouting departments — were holdovers from the regime prior to Bloom.
In Boston, not only did several of the senior executives in baseball operations predate Bloom’s hiring, but many also predated Bloom’s predecessor Dave Dombrowski. That front office was arguably more entrenched than the one Bloom will join with the Cardinals.
It appears Bloom may have more of an immediate hand in shaping the top levels of the front office and player development department with the Cardinals than he did in Boston.
Expectations on player development
During Bloom’s tenure in Boston, he increased the baseball operations staff. The research and development department (analytics staff) grew from 14 entering 2019 to 33 entering 2023.
The Red Sox also added personnel in sports science, mental skills and sports medicine/sports performance. The coaching staffs of the minor league affiliates also increased size under Bloom’s leadership.
The Cardinals already have vowed to add staff in player development.
“It’s actually remarkable, even over the course of my career, just how much faster this arms race has gotten behind the scenes,” Bloom said. “That doesn’t mean every single new thing that comes into the game is something that you want to go all in on but certainly a lot of things have been.
“It really just comes out of 30 clubs competing to see how well they can develop players, how much better they can make these guys. Whether it’s teaching methods. Whether it’s combining performance and medical and on-field coaching to achieve better outcomes, to individualize training more. Whether it’s data. Whether it’s equipment. All these things are brought to bear in different ways.”
While he didn’t use the phrasing, Bloom seemed to describe a reimagining of the so-called Cardinal Way.
“That’s part of the tradition of this organization, innovation,” Bloom said. “A lot of these things that are a tradition now, they were new and different at one point when the St. Louis Cardinals starting doing it.”
As the Cardinals prepare to enter a new era with their player development system, Mozeliak praised retiring assistant general manager/director of player development Gary LaRocque.
“He really ran an excellent farm system, and he did it with the resources he had,” Mozeliak said. “When you look at the players that we’ve been bringing up, I disagree with the statement that someone says they’re not prepared. They might not perform right away because there is a learning curve and not every player comes to the big leagues and succeeds right away. It’s a hard game. It’s a tough league.”
Mozeliak asserted that the upcoming investments in player development aren’t a reflection that things were done wrong in the past. Instead, he pointed to those investments as a sign of a changing market where players now prepare differently.
The Cardinals will aim to be on “that innovative side of maximizing player performance,” Mozeliak said.