Bloom takes a gamble
Did NY GM Cashman just fool the new guy?
There’s more to the Adam Ottavino trade than the mere novelty of the Red Sox and Yankees completing just the third swap between rival franchises in more than 30 years.
Ultimately, this trade will tell us if one of the most savvy and experienced general managers in the game, Brian Cashman, took advantage of one of the newest and inexperienced, Chaim Bloom.
Did Bloom just make Cashman’s job easier by releasing him from luxury tax jail and freeing up the Yankees to spend their final few dollars on more dire areas of need? It’s certainly possible.
“Cash has been doing this a long time,” Bloom said. “He’s really good at what he does. He’s a pro.”
It’s also possible Bloom took advantage of the Yankees’ unusual financial bind, flexed his new bigmarket muscles and added close to $8 million in salary on a chance that Ottavino will have a better season in 2021 and/or prospect Frank German will develop into a power right-handed reliever.
That’s what makes this trade so fun — yes, fun, a word that isn’t often said about the Red Sox these days.
It’s the first time in Bloom’s tenure he made a trade where his team was the one acquiring the impact player. Rather than sending proven stars away for younger unknowns, Bloom essentially purchased a prospect and a 35-year
old reliever who is coming off his worst career season in exchange for a player to be named later or cash considerations.
Ottavino said Monday that he needs to reshape his breaking ball if he’s going to return to the dominant form he embraced in 2019. If he does, the Red Sox can say they got a star reliever on an affordable one-year deal from their rivals.
If he doesn’t, and if the Yankees are as good as they look on paper, Cashman will have the last laugh.
“I wasn’t as concerned, I don’t think any of us were, about what it meant for the Yankees,” Bloom said. “It’s very hard to be great if you’re too busy worrying about everybody else. We have to worry about ourselves.”
The Yankees were already over the luxury tax threshold and eager to get underneath it after two straight years of paying escalating taxes on their expensive roster. Trading Ottavino accomplishes that goal. Now the Yankees have a few bucks to spend to put finishing touches on a team that has been boosted this winter by the additions of two-time Cy Young winner Corey Kluber, former Pirates pitching prospect Jameson Taillon and the resigning of batting title champion DJ LeMahieu.
It’ll be a terrible look for Bloom if he did the Yankees a favor. It’s why there’s just as much pressure on Ottavino to perform as there was for Alex Verdugo after being acquired for Mookie Betts.
At least the Red Sox are using their financial might to their advantage this time. Whether it works out or not, they can’t be knocked for trying to add quality players and paying in dollars, not prospects, to do it.
And if it doesn’t work out, Cashman will score a critical point against his new rival executive to the East.
Said Bloom, “If we’re not willing to do something that helps us because it helps them, or worse, if we’re worried it might not go as we expect and it blows up in our face and we look bad, then we’re just playing scared and we’re not going to play scared.”