Red Sox seem to be hearing, ‘No thanks’

According to wellsourced, hard-working baseball scribes, Mike Hazen and Amiel Sawdaye (Diamondbacks), Brandon Gomes (Dodgers), Sam Fuld (Phillies), Derek Falvey (Twins), Michael Hill (Marlins), Jon Daniels (Rays, Rangers), Raquel Ferreira (Red Sox), and James Click (Blue Jays, Astros) are among those not interested in becoming the next head of baseball operations for the Boston Red Sox.

It makes one think that maybe this job’s not as great as the Sox think it is.

In this spirit, I’ve done a little recon of my own and discovered things are actually worse than they appear.

It turns out that the list of those not interested in replacing Chaim Bloom is quite a bit longer.

Representative George Santos also said no to the Sox. As did Matt Patricia, Mike Lindell, Ime Udoka, Adam Gase, J.T. Watkins, Jimmy “Hotfingers” McNally, Keyser Soze, Sam BankmanFried, Ed Davis, Judge Richard Berman, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, plus Peter Gammons.

Red Sox CEO Sam Kennedy promised that the search for Bloom’s replacement would be “robust.”

Swell. But who knew it would be this hard to find qualified folks interested in taking over the baseball operation of the once-vaunted Boston Red Sox?

Every day, it seems, we get a report of another prospective candidate who told the Sox, “I’m good. No thanks.”

It started when we first learned that Theo Epstein was not interested. OK. That made sense. Theo wants to return to baseball as part of ownership. Theo’s not walking through that door to take orders from Kennedy, his high school classmate. Understood.

Then the Arizona Diamondbacks went on a playoff tear and GM/team president Hazen — who was born in Weymouth and spent 11 seasons (200616) with the Sox — signed a contract extension, taking himself out of consideration for a return to Boston. Ditto for Sawdaye, Arizona’s assistant GM.

In the blink of an eye, Daniels (senior adviser of the Rays and former Texas GM), Gomes (Dodgers GM), Fuld (Phillies GM), Falvey (Twins president of baseball operations), and Hill (former president of baseball operations for the Marlins) all said they had to wash their hair.

Most of these folks are known only to Bloominati and other card-carrying seamheads.

But it’s a tad embarrassing that they’d all rather stay home than agree to interview with the Sox.

When Kennedy spoke after the season, he boldly stated, “If you want to run a baseball organization, this is where you want to be. You want to be in Boston.

Why? Because it matters more here than anywhere else. So if you’re not up

for that challenge, thanks but no thanks.”

Turns out a lot of folks are saying, “No thanks.”

Joel Sherman, estimable reporter for MLB Network and the New York Post, wrote Tuesday, “The Red Sox have had difficulty recruiting top candidates to replace Bloom . . . There is a sense within the game that ownership has become more absentee as it pursues other business avenues and also that manager Alex Cora has growing influence on personnel decisions. That has potentially chilled the market.”

Sherman’s info echoes an email I received from a longtime former GM who wrote of “word apparently spreading across the baseball industry that the last two to hold that Red Sox position [Dave Dombrowski, Bloom] accomplished what they were asked to do . . . and yet were dismissed.”

There are plenty of good candidates still out there, including former Red Sox pitcher Craig Breslow (Cubs assistant GM), Josh Byrnes (formerly Sox, now Dodgers), Thad Levine (Twins), Neal Huntington (former Pirates GM), and Kim Ng, the highestranking female executive in baseball who parted ways with the Marlins Monday.

Ng was an assistant GM with the Dodgers when Cora played there from 2001-04.

Cora has say in this hire. As do longtime Sox executives Eddie

Romero, Ferreira, Brian O’Halloran, Mike Groopman, and Ben Crockett. And don’t forget that the management-larded Sox are considering hiring two leaders instead of just one. This is what you do when you steer an organization that has 44 vice presidents and 35 analytics experts.

Confused by the cluster of names and the chain of command?

Join the club.

And apply for the job.

There’s no rush.

This robust search has no pitch clock.