29 Oct Getting to Know Chaim Bloom

The Red Sox hired 36-year-old Chaim Bloom to run their baseball ops department on Friday. Bloom helped construct a Rays roster that won 96 games and defeated the Oakland Athletics in the American League wild-card game before taking the Houston Astros to a fifth and deciding game in the division series despite opening the season with a payroll of $60,646,776, the lowest in MLB. After winning the 2018 World Series and beginning the year with the highest payroll in baseball — reportedly $221,646,148 — the Red Sox missed the postseason. Bloom, 36, has spent the past 15 seasons with the Rays, beginning with an internship in 2005. He worked his way up to assistant director of minor league operations in 2008 and director of baseball operations in 2011, where he worked in contract negotiations, budgets and oversight of the team’s league support staff and international scouting. The Rays promoted him to director of baseball operations in 2014, and he has held the role of senior vice president of baseball operations since 2016. The Red Sox hired Bloom as Chief Baseball Officer, succeeding Dave Dombrowski as head of their baseball operations, with Brian O’Halloran to be named general manager and reporting to him.

Here is what you need to know about Chaim:

• Born February 27, 1983 (age 36) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

• Because his name has a CH in the beginning of it, according to the Rays’ website, he is the only executive to have a pronunciation guide in his bio.

• Grew up in Philadelphia.

• Attended Jewish day school at Akiba Hebrew Academy (now known as Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy) in Philadelphia, graduating in 2000.

• Graduated from Yale with a degree in classics (Latin).

• Met his wife, Aliza (Hochman) while at Yale.

• Bloom, his wife Aliza, and their two sons, Isaiah and Judah, lived close to Tropicana Field in part so he could easily return on Friday nights to make Shabbos with his family.

• Tells everyone that he keeps Kashrus.

• Hired by the then- Devil Rays as an intern in 2005.

• Also held internships in the San Diego Padres baseball operations department and with Major League Baseball in the legal/corporate partnerships department.

• In October 2005, was hired by the Rays full time to work in Minor League Operations

• Promoted to Assistant Director of Minor League Operations in 2008.

• Promoted to Director of Baseball Operations in 2011, and Vice President of Baseball Operations in 2014.

• In 2011, because of Rosh Hashana, Chaim had to miss the Rays playoff-clinching win over the Yankees in Tampa, which coincidentally kept the Red Sox out of the postseason.“Leaving town that morning to go to Boston to spend Rosh Hashanah with my in-laws was one of the more difficult things we’d done in my career,” he recalled in the profile. “Basically, I decided that my commitments to my family were more important than being around for a game whose outcome I was at that point not going to be able to influence.”

• Has held the title of Senior Vice President of Baseball Operations since being promoted in 2016.

• Bloom is very open about the fact that he’s Jewish and has kept a jar of gefilte fish in his office, one he has had since Pesach 2006–07. He said he would eat the contents when Tampa Bay won a World Series.

• Was runner-up for the Mets GM position last off season that went to former player agent Brodie Van Wagenen.