*Photo from the Boston Globe*
Boston Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom went on Boston area sports radio station WEEI to discuss the Mookie Betts trade and MLB's investigation into the 2018 World Series championship team. If the 2020 season doesn't get played, the Los Angeles Dodgers will be one of the biggest losers of the season, due to the fact that they traded for Betts, and with him being one year away from free agency, he would hit the free agent market without ever playing a game in Dodger Blue if the season is cancelled.
Because of this, the Red Sox would suddenly become the winners of the blockbuster deal, as the Dodgers would only have David Price and half of his salary if the season were to be cancelled, with Betts hitting the open market. Meanwhile, the Red Sox would have 3 exciting prospects in Alex Verdugo, Jeter Downs, and Connor Wong under team control for years to come, with Verdugo already being at the major league level. On the radio, Bloom denied that he had any foresight of the regular season possibly being in doubt due to the worldwide COVID-19 Pandemic.
Bloom said on the radio that "Obviously at the time we made it, we definitely thought that we were prioritizing the long view and the big picture for all the reasons we said at the time, I cannot sit here and tell anyone I had my Nostradamus hat on enough to know that a global pandemic was around the corner. Very unforeseen advantage of perhaps taking the long view."
Bloom also discussed MLB's investigation into the 2018 team, saying that As you guys know, given that it is an ongoing process, there obviously isn't much we can or should say about it, I would say we still are at the same point where we think everybody is to reserve judgment until we see what comes out of it. It is obviously frustrating that we don't have that outcome yet. But with what is going on in the last month, I think it is understandable." Red Sox interim manager Ron Roenicke also recently commented on the investigation on a media conference call, saying that "It'd be nice to get that done before we come back again."
MLB launched an investigation into the 2018 Red Sox when they were accused of stealing signs as then-manager Alex Cora was also implicated in the 2017 Houston Astros sign stealing scandal that led to them winning the world series that year. Cora was since fired by the Red Sox after Houston's punishment came out, which included a loss of their first and second round draft picks for the next two years and a $5 million fine, and the one year suspension of manager AJ Hinch and GM Jeff Luhnow, who were subsequently fired. Commissioner Rob Manfred announced that the investigation into the 2018 Red Sox is complete, and that the results will be released before play resumes, but that has taken a backseat to dealing with the fallout from the Pandemic.
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