As the chief baseball officer in Boston, Chaim Bloom got a reputation as being hesitant, indecisive, and lacking confidence in closing a trade.
After the Red Sox sacked Bloom late in the 2023 season, that criticism stuck to him after he left Fenway Park.
I have felt all along that Bloom – as a first-time leader of a baseball operation – probably wasn’t fully prepared for the chaos and toxic shock of working for a volatile and meddling team owner and a bunch of front-office people hired by the previous regime. (So much for loyalty.)
Despite all of that, Bloom fulfilled ownership’s No. 1 priority – turning a decrepit, failing farm system into one of the very best in the majors.
I sincerely believed that after getting his nose bloodied, his jaw broken and his ribs cracked – metaphorically speaking, of course – Bloom would be truly ready for his next shot at running a baseball team. The pain would make him better at the job in his next time around.
After two years of evaluating everything about the Cardinals’ baseball structure – and dramatically upgrading the player-development operation and adding considerable brainpower in key jobs – Bloom was ready for the next part: getting on with the necessary rebuild at the major-league level to bring the baseball team to life.
And that would include making trades designed to subtract from the presence and enhance the future. That’s what rebuilding is supposed to be all about.
On Tuesday, when Bloom made his first major trade as the St. Louis president of baseball ops, it was nothing like the reputation slapped on him in the Boston years.
Indecisive? No.
Hesitant? No.
Lacking confidence? No.
Did Bloom have the conviction to make the trade he wanted instead of worrying about the reaction of critics and saboteurs? Yes, he did. He went for it. He got it done. Bloom
Bloom did not hem and haw. When the Red Sox made the kind of offer Bloom was seeking in return for starting pitcher Sonny Gray, the new baseball boss in St. Louis acted quickly … aggressively pressing the button on the deal, without anxiety or delay. He got the damn thing done. And who knows what’s next? Bloom may finalize another trade before the Thanksgiving meal is served.
Quote of the day: “Nobody who gets into this game has any guarantees, but I feel the more fully we commit to what we need to do, the better it will go and the quicker we will get there,” Bloom said on a Zoom conference with reporters. “I don’t view this as something that’s just about patience. I view it as something we have to attack with urgency, and we have to do that every day.”
In exchange for Gray the Cardinals received Boston’s No. 5 overall prospect, hard-slinging lefty Brandon Clarke, who has a 100 mph fastball and a wicked slider. The second pitcher headed to the Cardinals in the transaction was right-handed pitcher Richard Fitts, who projects as potential No. 4 or No. 5 starter in the 2026 STL rotation.
This was the kind of return I envisioned in the Gray deal. I’ve been saying this all along: I thought Bloom would seek two pitchers.
One that’s ready for a spot in the big-league rotation. That would be Fitts. Another pitcher, a prospect, who has pure talent and substantial upside but isn’t ready for the majors. That would be Clarke, who pitched at the Class A level in the Red Sox system last season. This is interesting: though Clarke is the more highly regarded of the two, earlier this year FanGraphs had Fitts (5th) rated ahead of Clarke (7th) on Boston’s top prospects evaluation.
Let’s take a closer look:
RICHARD FITTS
Nearly 26, he’s a snap-in-place starter who is capable of getting better. I wouldn’t dismiss him as a potential impact starter because Fitts averages 96 mph on his four-seam fastball, has a sharp vertical break, a sinker that moves, and quality extension. He also has a total of six different pitches in his toolbox.
I’ll be curious to see what Cardinals pitching director Matt Pierpont – an industry star – will do to reorder Fitts’ arsenal to make him more effective. I have one thought on that after looking at the Statcast data. In 2025, Fitts had an impressive 40.4 percent whiff rate on his sweeper but only threw it 11 percent of the time. More sweepers!
In 14 major-league starts for Boston over the last two seasons, Fitts had a 3.97 ERA and an adjusted ERA that was five percent above league average. Fitts persevered through injuries last season, and that can’t become a pattern. There are concerns over his durability.
Here’s an assessment from the astute R.J. Anderson at the CBS Sports site:
“So much of pitching revolves around keeping batters honest and creating tough optical angles. Fitts has both dynamics working in his favor. He threw five pitches at least 9% of the time last season, and all of them graded as average or better in the eyes of the analytic models … Fitts marries that broad arsenal to an interesting release point. He ranked in the 70th percentile in extension, or distance from the pitching rubber to release, yet his higher arm angle enables his pitches to have a steeper angle to them than what is typical for pitchers who get a similar distance down the mound.”
BRANDON CLARKE
Clarke, 22, is a lottery ticket. He made FanGraphs’ Top 100 MLB Prospects list in late July. His stuff is electric, but he needs an offspeed pitch to offset the heat. He’s had injuries. If he doesn’t reach a high-end level as a starter, some scouts believe Clarke could eventually be converted into a high-leverage reliever with a vicious strikeout punch. His talent is abundant.
Clarke was utterly dominant at the low Class A level last season. He moved up to high-A, and his ERA inflated, but that was more about a persistent blister on his pitching hand, and a fingernail that kept breaking off. But even with that issue, Clarke finished the season with an overall rate of 14.2 strikeouts per nine innings, only four hits allowed per nine innings, and faced 174 batters without giving up a home run.
Here are a couple of independent assessments of Clarke:
Eric Longenhagen, FanGraphs: “Clarke is one of the many prospects in this system who generates something approaching elite extension down the mound; in Clarke’s case, that’s a shade over seven feet. His delivery is more cross-bodied now than it was when he was drafted. The line on his heater is absolutely brutal around the hands of left-handed hitters … he’s going to be an All-Star if he can sharpen his fastball command or develop a good third pitch, like a change or split.”
Geoff Pontes, Baseball America: “Clarke possesses some of the best power stuff in the minors. He mixes both four-seam and two-seam fastballs, with the two-seamer the better of the two. He generates outlier velocity on both, sitting 96-98 mph and touching 100 at peak. Clarke’s best pitch is an upper-80s sweeper with one of the most outlier combinations of velocity and movement among the sweeper genre. The pitch blows up Stuff models and overwhelmed opposing hitters in 2025.”
THE OVERVIEW
1. I’m not sure what the entire fan reaction is out there, but I’m fine with what Bloom did here. He’s wagering on talent and upside to prevail. He’s wagering on both pitchers overcoming injury risk. Compared to the previous management regime’s desire to play it safe and settle for average or mediocre performance. Bloom? He factors in the risk assessment, yes, but prefers to take a chance on more elite talent. This aggressiveness is overdue.
2. Respect to Gray. Respect to the fans who were disappointed in the trade. But I honestly don’t know what folks had anticipated in return. Gray is 36. He’s on a downward trend. In 2023 with the Twins, his ERA+ was 57 above league average. In his first season with the Cardinals (2024) that adjusted ERA+ dropped to seven percent above league average. In 2025, Gray’s adjusted ERA+ was four percent below league average.
Gray’s strikeout rate is robust but it dropped from 2024 to 2025. His walk rate is low, and he had the best strikeout-walk rate in the majors this past season. Gray’s sweeper is fantastic pitch, but Gray’s four-seam fastball has been extremely hittable over the last two seasons. In 2024, hitters smacked it for a .333 average and .567 slug. Last season, opponents walloped the Gray four-seamer for a .370 average and .573 slug.
And what about Gray’s road performance in his two seasons with St. Louis? In 24 road starts over that time Gray had 5.07 ERA, was pummeled for a .470 slugging percentage, and was struck for a high average of 1.7 home runs per nine innings. Gray pitched well at spacious Busch Stadium, and over the last two seasons, manager Oli Marmol clearly set things up so Gray could make more starts at home (36) than on the road (24.) How will Gray fare at Fenway Park?
3. Again, what did people expect Bloom to extract from the Red Sox for Gray? I suppose the Red Sox deserve credit for holding onto their top two pitching prospects, but why would Boston part with one of them to rent Gray for a season? Gray could retire or leave as a free agent after 2026. But Bloom landed two starters who were among the top seven of the ranked Red Sox prospects earlier in the year.
Fitts can’t become a free agent until after the 2031 season. We’re not sure when Clarke will reach the majors, but once he does he’ll be under contract control for at least six seasons. So Bloom traded one year of contract control for Gray – in a rebuild, mind you – for potentially 12-plus years of combined contract control for Clarke and Fitts if they do well enough and last long enough to continue pitching for the Cardinals.
4. Bloom and Cards chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. partnered in this. DeWitt gave Bloom permission to send $20 million to the Red Sox to defray the $40 million obligation to Gray in 2026. This deal doesn’t happen without that commitment. DeWitt will save money, yes, because the Cardinals offloaded $20 million when shipping Gray to Boston. Without picking up a large part of the tab, DeWitt would have undermined Bloom’s rebuild by insisting that Gray spend 2026 in St. Louis. But DeWitt – who is determined to see the Cardinals get back to developing their own quality starting pitching – signed off on this deal because he wants more talented pitching prospects added to the STL system.
5. And Bloom and staff have already brought in an impressive quantity of young pitching.
Through trades: Richard Fitts (Red Sox),
Brandon Clarke (Red Sox), Nate Dohm (Mets), Mason Molina (Rangers), Frank Ellissalt (Mets), and Skylar Hales (Rangers.)
The last two drafts, coordinated by Randy Flores: Liam Doyle, Tanner Franklin, Cade Crossland, Braden Davis, and Brian Holiday (injured.)
They all join another set of pitchers who were already in the STL system: Quinn Mathews, Tekoah Roby, Brycen Mautz, Ixan Henderson, Tink Hence and Chen-Wei Lin.
And I’d imagine that we’ll see more on the way through additional trades made by Bloom this offseason. And hitting prospects will be part of the haul.
6. Yes, the rebuild is underway. The Gray trade confirmed it. I suppose by now most fans have figured that out, but just in case the Gray transaction made it official.
“We have somewhere we need to go and we’re not there now, and the way to get there is building on our core talent and (obtaining) promising, young talent that can be with us for many years and have their best ahead of them,” Bloom said. “When (long-term and short-term goals) run in opposite directions, we’re going to choose the long-term because that’s where this organization needs to be. We’re trying to get back to a certain place and stay there.”
7. Though hardly unanimous, the Cardinals have generally received positive reviews from national baseball media.
Chad Jennings (The Athletic) gave the Cardinals an “A” grade for this move. There were some A minus or B+ marks as well.
Jennings said the Gray trade worked well for both teams but he gave the Cardinals a slight advantage.
“The Cardinals are where the Red Sox were five years ago. They’re resetting, and another year of Gray would have been a waste,” Jennings wrote. “They’re paying down his enormous salary but are getting two big arms in return, one of whom (Fitts) can immediately move into Gray’s rotation spot. Fitts isn’t an ace, but he’s a solid option with the raw stuff to potentially fall back into a multi-inning relief role. Clarke is farther away but offers greater upside, and again, has a solid floor as a hard-throwing reliever. Two big arms are a quality return for an overpaid rental.”
8. On the other side of the opinion aisle: Keith Law (The Athletic) was dismissive of the pitchers acquired by St. Louis.
“They’re both inventory arms, good guys to have in the system, but not likely to be difference-makers as they are right now,” Law wrote. “Given that, this seems more like a salary dump for the Cardinals than a move focused on talent acquisition. Even with what the Cardinals are paying of Gray’s salary, they still clear about $21 million, which would be better used trying to boost the offense after they finished second-to-last in the National League in home runs in 2025.”
9. Trade grades are fun, but … we won’t know how well or poorly Bloom did on this trade for two or three years. Young pitchers break. Young pitchers surprise. Young pitchers develop into something much better than anticipated. Young pitchers who are touted turn into flops. It’s volatile stuff.
So for those of us who think Bloom did well – OK, we’ll see. For those who took five seconds to declare this Bloom trade an instant failure … OK, swell, and now we wait to see how it turns out. That’s the reality.
I’m sure I’ll have more to say about the trade on Wednesday, perhaps in my daily weekday video here on STL Sports Central.
Thanks for reading …
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015.
Before that Bernie spent a year at the Dallas Morning News, covering the Dallas Cowboys during Tom Landry’s final season (1988) plus the sale of the team to Jerry Jones and the hiring of Jimmy Johnson as coach.
Bernie covered every Cardinals’ postseason game from 1996 through 2014 and was there to chronicle teams that won four NL pennants and two World Series. He provided extensive coverage on the “Greatest Show” St. Louis Rams and has written extensively on the St. Louis Blues and Mizzou football and basketball. Bernie was/is a longtime voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Heisman Trophy and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STLSportsCentral, catch him regularly on KMOX (AM or FM) as part of the Gashouse Gang, Sports Rush Hour, Sports Open Line or Sports On a Sunday Morning shows. And you can catch weekly “reunion” segments here at STL Sports Central featuring Bernie and his longtime friend Randy Karraker.