Appointed as Dave Dombrowski's successor as Boston's chief baseball officer in October 2019, one of Bloom's first orders of business with the Red Sox was to determine the future of franchise star Mookie Betts. Bloom and the Red Sox - unable to come to terms on a long-term extension with Betts - ultimately traded him to the Dodgers in February 2020 (along with David Price) in exchange for Alex Verdugo, Jeter Downs, and Connor Wong.
As announced at the beginning of last offseason, longtime president of baseball ops John Mozeliak has stepped aside and passed the torch to former Rays and Red Sox executive Chaim Bloom, who'd previously been a senior advisor with the Cardinals. Bloom's end-of-season press conference spelled out what had already become abundantly clear over the past 12 months: this will be an offseason unlike any the Cardinals have experienced in recent memory