I agree with this take on Verdguo. I actually was hoping he'd be extended.
However, even with that backdrop, what I really liked was that once the decision was made NOT to extend him, they dealt him - and actually got something that is a legitimate starting pitching prospect - in return.
I have no idea if it will work out. I have really no idea if Fitts is objectively good (though relatively, at least to the Red Sox starting pitching prospects, he's "good"), but I like that a move was made to actually try and do something to improve the rotation long term. Which I think makes it totally unlike every move I can recall Bloom making with the exception of the Workman for Pivetta deal.
As
@JM3 and others have mentioned, it's not at all a Bloom deal. It's the kind of deal I was hoping Bloom would have made more of (see 2022 with Eovalidi, Wacha, anything for Strahm, JD Martinez, having moved Sale if that was indeed possible or 2023 with Paxton, Duvall and Turner). He actually did a decent job when he tried to get controllable pitching (Pivetta), the problem was, excepting signing Monegro in 2020, that was really the only time he accomplished it.
Even when he did move short term vets he wasn't planning to extend, he never seemed to get back pitching (Mookie, Vazquez, Renfroe) and when that was coupled with not bothering to expend real draft capital on pitching, nor acquire controllable pitching in trades, nor spend on the FA market to get controllable pitching, it's no shock that at this point the Sox have a rotation with one legitimate top half pitcher, one that is a reasonable bet to be a 4/5, and (before Fitts) one top prospect that had even a handful of games at the upper levels of the minors. Also, I think it's notable that none of Bello, Crawford, Houck, Perales or Gonzalez were acquired by Bloom.
It's like there was an organizational decisions that not only defense but more amazingly starting pitching was totally irrelevant and not worth acquiring.