Potential Red Sox manager candidates

edoug

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Jul 15, 2005
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I have vague memories of “Mensa”... maybe I’m wrong?
You probably are right. After, probably Gammons, wrote something about Cora's intelligence it became a running joke here. Mensa must've been referenced a few times.
 

jon abbey

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Cora's birthday is today, that was three minutes after midnight.
 

E5 Yaz

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Alex Cora was born on one of the rain-postponed days of the '75 Series
 

Blue Monkey

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Larussa??? I don’t know if I could stomach that. Would definitely be a tough pill to swallow. I think he’s a great manager but I have no interest in seeing him in a Sox uniform.
 

MikeM

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May 27, 2010
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I'd prefer Cora, but I've been selling myself on the idea over the last couple of days that Gardy wouldn't be terrible or have the disaster potential worth losing any sleep over.

Just in case and all.
 

mt8thsw9th

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Jul 17, 2005
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I have vague memories of “Mensa”... maybe I’m wrong?
You probably are right. After, probably Gammons, wrote something about Cora's intelligence it became a running joke here. Mensa must've been referenced a few times.
Someone had a Photoshopped image of Alex Cora as the Roadrunner with "Genius!" next to it, or something similar to that. I think people referred to him as Einstein, or some variation of that, in game threads and other smatterings around old(er) SoSH.
 

Al Zarilla

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Gardenhire is 59 going on 70, or looks like it anyway. The comparisons to Grady Little would be off the charts. Hopefully, Gardy is like your backup school when you’re accepted to Stanford and Cal.
 

edoug

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Jul 15, 2005
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Someone had a Photoshopped image of Alex Cora as the Roadrunner with "Genius!" next to it, or something similar to that. I think people referred to him as Einstein, or some variation of that, in game threads and other smatterings around old(er) SoSH.
Thanks
 

Van Everyman

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Apr 30, 2009
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Gardenhire is 59 going on 70, or looks like it anyway. The comparisons to Grady Little would be off the charts. Hopefully, Gardy is like your backup school when you’re accepted to Stanford and Cal.
"Gardy" can be rearranged to spell another terrifying word.
 

CoffeeNerdness

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Jun 6, 2012
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Pretty interesting that the Minnesota writer who broke the 'Gardenhire is in the final three candidates' just hours after Farrell was canned was 100% right. Really doesn't seem like anyone else is going to be interviewed.
 

drbretto

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Apr 10, 2009
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If it's true that DD made up his mind during the season, he's had plenty of time to see who he wants. It looks to me like he was targeting Cora all the way and had to have a couple of backup plans just in case.
 

Moviegoer

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Feb 6, 2016
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If it's true that DD made up his mind during the season, he's had plenty of time to see who he wants. It looks to me like he was targeting Cora all the way and had to have a couple of backup plans just in case.
Woulda been nice if there were batter backups then.
 

pjr

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Jul 17, 2005
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From -
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/10/the-red-sox-managerial-search.html

"The club is expected to conduct a second round of interviews before making any offers of employment, per Evan Drellich of NBC Sports Boston (via Twitter). There’s a sense inside the organization, though, that Cora is the front-runner, Drellich further writes. ESPN.com’s Buster Olney (Twitter link) hears that both Cora and Ausmus are “at the center of conversations,” with expectations being that it won’t take long to name a new manager."
 

JimD

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Nov 29, 2001
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So, Cora covers the requirement to interview minority candidates, I guess?
 

soxhop411

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Dec 4, 2009
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SOX are apparently interviewing beloved Red Sox, nick punto for the manager position later this week
 

soxhop411

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Dec 4, 2009
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You're really off your game tonight, dude. Step away from the computer
What?
I have been banging the Cora drum since JF was fired. I can’t make a joke every once in a while? If nick punto was really hired as our manger many heads here would explode. Like they did when the pats signed Tebow.
 

DisgruntledSoxFan77

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Jun 12, 2015
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What?
I have been banging the Cora drum since JF was fired. I can’t make a joke every once in a while? If nick punto was really hired as our manger many heads here would explode. Like they did when the pats signed Tebow.
Sure, we look forward to your comedic efforts whenever you're ready
 

Leather

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Jul 18, 2005
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Not Gardenhire, Christ. He’s the anti-metrics manager.
 

geoduck no quahog

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Don't understand why Hale isn't being considered.

Haven't been able to speak with him over the dinner table, but everything I've read the past several years is very complimentary.

Big Red Sox ties, won't be cowed by the media, tons of experience, well respected by players...and more.

What's up?
 

drbretto

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Wasn't one of the things they were looking for someone who has not coached this team before? I'd have to guess he didn't get a shot because they wanted someone fresh.
 

Kielty's Last Pitch

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Oct 6, 2017
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Don't understand why Hale isn't being considered.

Haven't been able to speak with him over the dinner table, but everything I've read the past several years is very complimentary.

Big Red Sox ties, won't be cowed by the media, tons of experience, well respected by players...and more.

What's up?
It's been 6 years since Tito left Boston, and still no managerial job despite all the vacancies filled over that period of time. He didn't do himself any favors getting tossed out of a game for throwing a tantrum because Nunez had something in his eye.
 

Al Zarilla

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Wasn't one of the things they were looking for someone who has not coached this team before? I'd have to guess he didn't get a shot because they wanted someone fresh.
That reeks of a new kind of prejudice, in this day of you have to be careful about every single thing you say. I’m not sure I heard that one from DD. What he did say, I believe, was that there was nobody in the organization right now that was under consideration. Not the same.
 

drbretto

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I very well may have misunderstood that same comment, but I don't see how that's prejudice. If they're looking for a new direction, isn't it normal for them to want someone who wasn't here under the same managerial philosophy? I really can't see this being motivated by anything other than baseball reasons.
 

joe dokes

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Jul 18, 2005
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I was thinking Dragy.

Hire Gardenhire is sort of a palindrome.

José Alexander Cora seems like the right man for the job.
From the seat on the couch, and given teh candidate pool of which we are aware, it seems like Cora is better suited for this team's future. When I see Gardenhire, I smell Tom Kelly, old school. As for Ausmus, while his reputation isn;t the best, I look back at Francona when he got here after 4 straight sub-.475 seasons. Ausmus is a bit older, with the same amount of experience and more success. In other words, we'll be calling for the head of the new guy by Patriots Day, no matter who it is.
 

Kielty's Last Pitch

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Oct 6, 2017
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As for Ausmus, while his reputation isn;t the best, I look back at Francona when he got here after 4 straight sub-.475 seasons. Ausmus is a bit older, with the same amount of experience and more success. In other words, we'll be calling for the head of the new guy by Patriots Day, no matter who it is.
That is an excellent point. I think people tend to forget, Tito had a dismal tenure with the Phillies prior to getting hired by the Sox. Ditto Joe Torre with the Mets/Braves/Cards.

Managers are no different than players, they use past experience to improve.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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That is an excellent point. I think people tend to forget, Tito had a dismal tenure with the Phillies prior to getting hired by the Sox. Ditto Joe Torre with the Mets/Braves/Cards.

Managers are no different than players, they use past experience to improve.
The big thing with Tito, and Torre to an extent, is that there was some time between those bad tenures and the successful job. The concern I'd have for Ausmus would be that he's going immediately from one job to the next without a whole lot of time to reflect on what he did poorly and might want to change. Such an immediate change could allow him to blame the personnel (which undoubtedly was a part of the failure in Detroit) rather than assess his own strengths/weaknesses.
 

Snodgrass'Muff

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The big thing with Tito, and Torre to an extent, is that there was some time between those bad tenures and the successful job. The concern I'd have for Ausmus would be that he's going immediately from one job to the next without a whole lot of time to reflect on what he did poorly and might want to change. Such an immediate change could allow him to blame the personnel (which undoubtedly was a part of the failure in Detroit) rather than assess his own strengths/weaknesses.
I'm more concerned with his comments with regard to analytics back in 2014.

Caputo asked Ausmus a rather pointed question about his opinion on sabermetrics, to which Ausmus said that advanced statistical data is more for analysis "after-the-fact ... it doesn't blend too close into game action." While he acknowledged that "there's data that I will look at, that we will use during the course of a game," he noted that "it's the players who win or lose the games." Ausmus referred directly to the fact that "people got the thought that, because of my age and my background, I'm a sabermetrician," but dispelled this idea by adding, "I'm really not."
https://www.blessyouboys.com/2014/1/6/5282146/brad-ausmus-sabermetrics-tigertalk

The concern is two-fold. Either the Red Sox are still a team that employs and embraces analytics more than most (a thought put in doubt by Henry's comments last year and Dave Cameron's this year) and Ausmus would be a bad fit for the organizational approach.

Or, more frightening, he would be a fit for the new approach and the team is genuinely de-emphasizing analytics as a tool and will continue to fall behind the curve in the following years.
 

joe dokes

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The big thing with Tito, and Torre to an extent, is that there was some time between those bad tenures and the successful job. The concern I'd have for Ausmus would be that he's going immediately from one job to the next without a whole lot of time to reflect on what he did poorly and might want to change. Such an immediate change could allow him to blame the personnel (which undoubtedly was a part of the failure in Detroit) rather than assess his own strengths/weaknesses.
That is a good point -- post-managing time away & watching might serve some guys well. Although, as you suggest, Torre had the not-too-shitty-Braves interregnum immediately after the mets. OTOH--He was a 36y/o player manager when he took over a colossally shitty mets team in '77 that got shittier when they dumped Seaver in mid June.