This is The Baseball Hour with Tony Mazz podcast.

Hey, it's Tony Mazz.

Welcome into the baseball hour.

From time to time, we like to do some interviews with people around baseball, specifically the Red Sox.

While back, we did an interview with Alex Cora.

So I thought it would be a good time to check in with High and Bloom, given the way the season has gone.

Obviously, as the chief baseball officer of the Red Sox, Bloom oversees the roster construction,

effectively serves as the general manager.

So, uh, you know, within the last little bit here, I was able to connect with High and Bloom via

Zoom.

And, uh, we touched on a number of things from the influence of analytics in the game, the

influence of the or the role of analytics with the Red Sox to issues directly affecting this team this

year. We covered a wide range of topics. So I won't babble on too much here. But in any case,

here is my discussion with Hyam Bloom. Okay. So Hyam, let's start here. There are obviously a, you know, there's a tremendous use of analytics in the game today. And obviously you come from an organization that excelled at it. So let me just try to ask you generally speaking here. Do you think that the Red Sox operate on a balance between old and new, you know, that is to say

analytics and traditional scouting. And what about, you know, the idea that analytics have

sort of taken over the game. What is your sort of whole take on that? Yeah, it's a really

interesting question. Obviously something I think everybody who follows the game thinks about. And, you know,

I think I've challenged the premise that it's old versus new. I think when we're looking at it

the best way, we're not looking at it like that. You know, I think, you know, you go back throughout

the history of the game. There have always been different things brought into the game. And people

have always been trying to get as much information as they could.

And I fully believe that, you know, you take a branch Ricky who was as much of a pioneer on this

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