Editors’ Note, Wednesday, Nov. 23 at 1:37 p.m. ET: The Red Sox signed left-handed reliever Joely Rodríguez to a one-year contract, reportedly worth $2 million, with a club option for 2024. This story has been updated to include the deal.
The pressure is on for a splashy hot stove season in Beantown. Three seasons of Chaim Bloom leading the Red Sox front office has yielded one playoff appearance, a run in 2021 from the wild-card game to the ALCS. Bloom’s predecessors, Dave Dombrowski and Ben Cherington, were fired by the end of Year 4 despite each winning a World Series.
That seemingly sets up next season as the make-or-break campaign of Bloom’s tenure. Boston could either qualify for the playoffs and give the appearance of a team on the up and up or fail to take advantage of an expanded postseason field and almost certainly doom Bloom to a pink slip.
