When imagining a way forward, think a remix on the Rays model
Chaim Bloom’s arrival as the Red Sox chief baseball officer after a career spent in the Tampa Bay front office came with assumptions he’d change his new organization’s operating practices to imitate those of its shoestring-budget rivals. After roughly 18 months, those suspicions haven’t goneaway.
Boston has traded franchise player Mookie Betts, turned over more than half of its 40-man roster and redefined the lineup as an exploration of the limits of versatility and an exercise in shape-shifting. Yet the dismissive utterances about the “Boston Rays” rarely acknowledge the similarities of performances by the two franchises over more than a decade.
Starting with the 2008 season — in which the Rays beat the Red Sox in a thrilling seven-game ALCS — the Sox are 1,086-921 (.541), the fourth-best record in the majors. The Rays (1,083-925, .539) rank fifth. Both teams have six playoff appearances and have reached the World Series twice. The Red Sox, of course, have the most important advantage with two championships, but they’ve also endured four last-place humiliations — against one for the Rays. The Rays are two straight postseason appearances and one AL pennant deep into what appears to be a wide-open, multi year window of contention.
That’s despite the Rays perennially residing near the bottom of the league in payroll. As is typically the case, the Red Sox are vastly outspending their division rivals.
Thegoal for the Red Sox is not to replicate Tampa Bay’s form of roster building. The Sox have the market and resources to acquire players who simply aren’t accessible to the Rays.
Their goal is to deploy the strategies that have made Tampa Bay successful — helping players from other organizations to realize untapped potential, getting meaningful contributions fromevery spot ontheroster, formingaroaring talent pipeline to withstand injuries — while mixing in others that the Rays cannot afford.
In 2014, the Rays saw a window closing on the core that had steadily contended from 2008-13. Their farm system was in disrepair. The team went to work creating the next core.