The Boston Red Sox made the shocking move to fire Chaim Bloom a few days ago and it has led to a lot of questions. There has been plenty of debate as to whether or not Bloom, ownership, or the players have ultimately been to blame for Boston's struggles, but it doesn't change the fact that the Red Sox are now in need of a new face to run the team ahead of a pivotal offseason.
The Red Sox have already said that they expect the search to replace Bloom could take a while and there is also the problem that Boston doesn't exactly have a great reputation around the league when it comes to their ownership. However, that hasn't stopped people from speculating on who could or should be on Boston's radar to run the team.
Let's rank all of the rumored candidates to replace Chaim Bloom worst to first
To be clear, it is very clear that most of speculation surrounding the Red Sox's top job is sportswriters just throwing darts at a board this early on. Boston isn't going to tip their hand too much at this point and most people are just taking names they know, manufacturing some sort of connection/logic, and then throwing it out there. This is far from an exhaustive list both in terms of the names being thrown around right now as well as who will ultimately be considered. This is a first glance, not a definitive final ranking.
Let's rank the rumored candidates to run the Red Sox in a purely unscientific way and before someone asks again, Theo Epstein isn't on the list. That isn't going to happen, so stop asking.
Billy Eppler
Eppler's name has shown up as a potential Red Sox option and that is an objectively terrible idea. Eppler has a decent resume on the scouting side, but he failed with the Angels as their GM and spent a ton of Steve Cohen's money in route to an all-time disappointing season for the Mets in 2023. Eppler's future with the Mets may be in doubt, but Boston should stay far, far away from him.
Alex Cora
One of the early names to come out after Bloom was surprising Red Sox manager Alex Cora. Cora has expressed an interest in a front office role in the future, but having him run the Red Sox's front office going forward seems like it would be actual malpractice. Maybe Cora could work his way up to that in the future somewhere, but he doesn't actual front office experience and (hopefully) shouldn't be a realistic option.