AP source: Red Sox to hire Rays’ Bloom as top baseball exec

BOSTON — The Boston Red Sox have hired Tampa Bay Rays executive Chaim Bloom as their new chief baseball officer, a person with knowledge of the decision told The Associated Press on Friday. The Red Sox followed with three straight AL East titles — a first in franchise history — and won a club-record 108 games last season en route to their fourth World Series championship since 2004. But this year’s team finished 84-78 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2015 despite the highest payroll in baseball — a total of $243 million. Among Bloom’s assignments will be getting the Red Sox under the luxury tax threshold of $208 million, which team president Sam Kennedy has called “a guidepost for our budgeting.” And the new baseball boss will have to do it while trying to sign a longterm deal with 2018 AL MVP Mookie Betts, who is eligible for arbitration and expected to get a raise to about $30 million next year.