The Boston Red Sox are in a tough place right now.
The organization announced Thursday it fired chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom after four years on the job. The Red Sox finished last in the American League East under Bloom in 2020 and 2022, and they might do so again in 2023 as Boston is tied with the rival New York Yankees for fifth place in the division entering Thursday.
It's been five years since the Red Sox last won the World Series, and the franchise doesn't appear remotely close to competing in those types of October games anytime soon.
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However, getting back to that level remains the team's ultimate goal and its focus during the upcoming search for Bloom's replacement.
"I think there's alignment around the ultimate goal, which is playing baseball in October and winning World Series championships. How you get there, there's obviously going to be disagreement," Red Sox CEO Sam Kennedy said Thursday at.
"And the best organizations challenge, push and question. That goes on all the time here. But I believe there is alignment on what we believe is our ultimate goal or our North Star -- it's winning championships and playing baseball in October. It has been since the day we got here in February of 2002, and that will never change as long as this ownership group is in place, I assure you."
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It's not just winning World Series titles. Even the best-run teams, such as the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers, aren't appearing in the Fall Classic annually. The Red Sox, at the very least, should be playing games that matter late in the season, and that hasn't happened in three of the last four seasons.
"We need to be competitive. We need to be playing for a postseason spot, playing meaningful games in September and playing baseball in October," Kennedy said. "Those are the expectations. We're not going to rest until we're back at that stage."
Bloom did not meet expectations during his time in Boston, but he is far from the only person who deserves blame.
"This is a really painful day for a lot of reasons, especially the personal side of it," Kennedy said. "There's blame to go around. There's blame on me, our ownership, there's blame for the on-field staff. I'm sure some of the players would say they haven't performed up to expectations. We all fell short of our collective goals, so there's a lot of blame to go around."