Alex Cora is back as Sox manager

MartyBC

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I thought he was a very good manager during his earlier stint with the team, and I expect he'll be a very good manager again. But I don't enjoy rooting for people who break the rules.
agreed but then i would have to give up all professional sports, ncaa, politics, religion, journalism, the stock market, etc. make it a great weekend!!
 

gryoung

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“However: any patriot fan who is disappointed at Cora being re-hired who is not simultaneously calling for Belichick to be fired is a pure, unadulterated hypocrite.”

Not quite.

If Belichick had been suspended, then rehired by the Pats, I would have been as disappointed.

But, he wasn’t suspended.

Do I think he knew about the various allegations? Absolutely.

Is there a cloud hanging over the franchise? Yes. Just look outside the Patriots fan bubble.
 

Rich Garces Belly

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So I’m not a fan of the hire as I had said before. But, in the Athletic article announcing the hire they said that MLB told the Red Sox that Cora was the most forthcoming person about the Astros situation.

My issue is I prefer Fuld because he and Chaim have an already established connection, he was a great teammate and a player who gave it all and I’ve been a fan of his ever since he legged out a double at Fenway in a blowout win and if he stayed at first he would have hit for the cycle, but he said he wanted to get into scoring position. He loves the analytics and I think he will make an amazing manager and I wish it was here.
 

InsideTheParker

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So I’m not a fan of the hire as I had said before. But, in the Athletic article announcing the hire they said that MLB told the Red Sox that Cora was the most forthcoming person about the Astros situation.
I wonder if you could just quote that section for those of us who don't subscribe. I would like to send it to a friend.
 

InsideTheParker

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When the interview process started, Alex Cora was not considered internally to be the favorite to return as Red Sox manager. In fact, many in the organization fully expected someone else to get the job.

The Red Sox knew Cora, they liked Cora, and many of their top decision-makers wanted him back, but the final say-so was in the hands of chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom, and there was little certainty he would ever come around to the same conclusion. When initial interviews revealed an impressive group of eight other candidates — a much stronger candidate pool than when Cora was initially hired in 2017 – a reunion seemed even less likely.

According to team sources, though, the hiring process began to shift in the past week as Bloom and Cora talked many times both on the phone and face-to-face. Bloom asked tough questions and openly discussed Cora’s strengths and weaknesses. Cora addressed his role in the Houston sign-stealing scandal and talked about the lessons he’d learned in the fallout. At one point, according to one source, Cora flatly asked Bloom, “Do you trust me?” If not, Cora told him, Bloom should hire someone else. Bloom said he did.

By Thursday morning, Bloom requested a final Zoom call with his top lieutenants: general manager Brian O’Halloran and assistant general managers Raquel Ferreira, Eddie Romero and Zack Scott. He wanted to talk through, once again, his thoughts on Cora and the possibility of bringing him back. By Thursday night, Bloom’s decision was made. News of Cora’s hiring broke on Friday morning and was announced officially on Friday night. It’s a two-year contract with a team option for two more.

“Our conversations were lengthy, intense, and emotional,” Bloom said in a released statement. “Alex knows that what he did was wrong, and he regrets it. My belief is that every candidate should be considered in full: strengths and weaknesses, accomplishments and failures. That is what I did with Alex in making this choice.”

The reunion came at the end of a lengthy process, one that introduced the Red Sox to promising young baseball minds but brought them eventually to a familiar candidate many observers believed to be an obvious choice. Although the final decision seemed inevitable, those inside the organization say it was never that simple.

“It wasn’t a dog-and-pony show,” one source insisted.

In the earliest stages of their search, the Red Sox vetted many names, some of them grizzled managers and others less experienced coaches. They settled on eight initial candidates: Phillies director of integrative baseball performance Sam Fuld, Marlins bench coach James Rowson, Pirates bench coach Don Kelly, Yankees bench coach Carlos Mendoza, Diamondbacks bench coach Luis Urueta, Twins bench coach Mike Bell, Padres associate manager Skip Schumaker, and Cubs third base coach Will Venable.

The Red Sox also decided they would reach out to Cora when his suspension was lifted at the end of the World Series, but Bloom “didn’t yet know if it made sense to consider him for the job.” If any candidate were getting a courtesy interview, some thought it might be Cora.

True to their word, the Red Sox ownership group basically stayed out of the process. It was no secret that owner John Henry, chairman Tom Werner and president Sam Kennedy liked Cora — they’d said so publicly many times since he was let go in January — but sources said ownership did not pressure Bloom to bring Cora back. They were in the loop, of course, but it truly was Bloom’s decision. The feeling within the organization was, if Bloom wanted someone else, ownership would support that choice.

One thing ownership made clear was it had no objection to the optics of Cora returning after two sign-stealing scandals, including one the Red Sox were punished for, and a season-long suspension. The negative public relations side of Cora’s return was never a significant hurdle.

“He owns, and has learned from, his past mistakes,” Kennedy said in the team’s statement, “and with his incredible talent, he will build on the deep bonds he’s fostered over time to make us better in the years to come.”

That said, Cora’s ties to illegal sign-stealing were impossible to ignore. The issue had to be discussed and considered, especially since the Red Sox themselves had been found guilty of a lesser sign-stealing infraction when Cora was manager in 2018. To bring him back, Bloom and the Red Sox had to feel confident Cora would not leave them vulnerable to another scandal and further humiliation.

Ultimately, they came to believe that Cora understood the gravity of the situation and had come to terms with his own role in what happened in Houston. If something similar were to happen again on Cora’s watch, his career in baseball would be finished. Cora knew that. The Red Sox believed they could trust him not to let that happen.

“This past year, I have had time to reflect and evaluate many things, and I recognize how fortunate I am to lead this team once again,” Cora said in his own official statement. “Not being a part of the game of baseball, and the pain of bringing negative attention to my family and this organization was extremely difficult. I am sorry for the harm my past actions have caused and will work hard to make this organization and its fans proud.”

Bloom and Cora had worked together for three months last winter, so their interview process was not an introduction, but it was an opportunity to address issues left lingering after Cora’s sudden departure. Bloom and O’Halloran flew to Puerto Rico to meet with Cora face-to-face last Friday, and Bloom and Cora kept talking after Bloom’s return to Boston.

In the final days of the search, the decision came down to three finalists: Cora, Fuld and Rowson. One of the Red Sox executives who pushed for Cora throughout the process told Bloom he ultimately would be happy with any of the options. All three had impressed the organization. All three seemed to be deserving managers. All three came with upside as leaders of the Red Sox clubhouse. But Cora was still that executive’s top choice when Bloom asked his inner circle to rank the final three candidates.

Of the nine candidates the Red Sox interviewed, Cora was the only one with major league managerial experience, and that experience — with all its ups and downs, its flaws and its championships — wound up being a factor in his favor.

“He’ll be a better manager than he was in 2018 (because of his experience),” one source said.

The Red Sox are about to find out just how much better. They’re planning to reintroduce Cora in a virtual news conference next week. He’s already the second manager Bloom has hired.

In his first year on the job, Bloom has proven to be deliberate and thorough in his decision making, and also collaborative in his process. His decision to bring back Cora, sources said, was not forced upon him, and it was never inevitable. Cora is back as manager only because Bloom was truly convinced Cora was the right person for the job.

“He loves the Red Sox and the game of baseball,” Bloom said in the team’s statement, “and because of that we believe he will make good on this second chance. I join our whole organization in welcoming Alex back to Boston and Fenway Park.”
Maybe it's because I'm on my phone but I can't find the part where MLB says Cora was most forthcoming about the scandal.
 

patinorange

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I like the move. I think it’s important that he is bilingual and seems to connect with the younger players. And the Boston pressure doesn’t seem to phase him at all. I can’t wait to second guess his every move and call for his head if they are not in the playoff picture in September!
 

Rovin Romine

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I'm in the not-thrilled camp. Maybe Cora does a real mea culpa over the fact he's a cheater, and also shows some 2018 skill instead of the 2019 drunken wobble out of the gate. It's a low bar, but there's a very real chance he just screws it up. Anywhichway, he'll be a walking question mark for some time, and a potential stain on, or embarrassment to, the organization and the franchise.

I'm willing to give him a chance if Bloom is, but he should be on a one-year contract with the shortest leash imaginable.
 

Harry Hooper

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Maybe it's because I'm on my phone but I can't find the part where MLB says Cora was most forthcoming about the scandal.
Gammons talks about it here.

On a side note, he mentions major enthusiasm in the organization for Wong at catcher.
 
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Earthbound64

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Laser Show

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No one else watching this?

Been impressed with Cora's candidness and ownership of the situation so far.
 

Laser Show

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Cora is shying away from specifics but has repeatedly made a point to take responsibility. Stuff like "I have to live with this the rest of my life" and "this is not a comeback story."

He did just give a very candid answer about why he did not bring the system from Houston to Boston. Paraphrasing a bunch, but he basically said that when he arrived in Boston his conversations with the league and the front office made him realize which way the wind was blowing on the "gray areas" and that it wasn't worth it to him to do something similar here.
 

Laser Show

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Good Twitter thread from Mastrodonato
View: https://twitter.com/JMastrodonato/status/1326241049367416835?s=19


"Alex Cora on why he didn't bring the trash-can banging scheme to Boston in '18?

"I didn't feel like we needed to do something like that, honestly. I know people won't believe me, 'why not bring here if it was that effective?' I don't know. I decided in the offseason not...

... to bring it here. We had conversations in ST about a lot of stuff from BOH to Dave to MLB. At that point people were starting to talk about what was going on around the league. It wasn't worth it. All of a sudden there's an article out there. There's a guy out there (Fiers)..

...who decided to take a step and say what happened. I paid the price. The way I can put it, I decided no, we don't need to do that. The organization was loud and clear about the sign-stealing stuff, what happened before, and they walked me through it...

... in the meetings in ST with MLB. When I talked to them, it was like wow, I better not even try to do something like that."
 

mauidano

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He's going to be answering the same questions over and over from the national media all season long.
 

nvalvo

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Is it? Wasn't his answer: "I thought I was likely to get caught if I continued to do something I knew was cheating/wrong."
I'm with PP on this.

As we learn more about this period in the history of the game, I think we're going to learn that the 2017 Houston club was a milder outlier on these issues than appears at present. So while I don't think their actions were in a "grey area," I think they differed in extent rather than kind from activities that were technically illegal but tacitly accepted.

(Edited for clarity: I think that communicating signs in real time from the dugout using trash cans is clearly unacceptable, while communicating to the batter that you have the signs by standing on the bag with your right foot rather than your left and then signaling the pitch or location by the manner in which you take your lead, is traditional and fine. But if you step back, or try explaining that difference to a casual fan, is it really that obvious? Especially as we learn more things about the uses of machine learning in advanced scouting, etc.)

But even so, the entire sport was in a process of responding to the enforcement challenge of having live video in the clubhouse for replay purposes — only a few seasons old at that point — and making the rules more explicit about how it could and could not be used. The league memos that went around in 2018 were part of that process of establishing norms, and so I don't think that shaping up in response to those memos shows "no moral core." I think it shows a recognition before being punished that the norms were in flux and that things that one might have seen as acceptable boundary pushing before were now clearly outside the revised bounds, and adjusting one's actions accordingly.
 

Rovin Romine

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As we learn more about this period in the history of the game, I think we're going to learn that the 2017 Houston club was a milder outlier on these issues than appears at present.
Did other teams use real time video to cheat their way to a WS win?

Clearly I'm in the minority here, and that will be my last comment on the thread. (Although I wonder how forgiving you all would be if the Astros had jobbed the Sox, and Cora was subsequently hired by the Yankees - I'll take my answer off the air.)
 

shaggydog2000

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Did other teams use real time video to cheat their way to a WS win?

Clearly I'm in the minority here, and that will be my last comment on the thread. (Although I wonder how forgiving you all would be if the Astros had jobbed the Sox, and Cora was subsequently hired by the Yankees - I'll take my answer off the air.)
So only one team's cheating counts each year?
 

nvalvo

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Did other teams use real time video to cheat their way to a WS win?

Clearly I'm in the minority here, and that will be my last comment on the thread. (Although I wonder how forgiving you all would be if the Astros had jobbed the Sox, and Cora was subsequently hired by the Yankees - I'll take my answer off the air.)
Umm... yes? Or many of them try to, anyways.

See, for instance what Boston got in trouble for in 2018, which involved in-game video (if not precisely "real-time"), and which was immediately met by an outpouring of people around the game saying that most or all franchises do basically the same thing. Every team has advanced scouts decoding opposing signs. Every team uses video to pick up tips. Every team's base runners communicate signs when they can.

As I wrote in my edited post, I see a moral distinction between what Houston did and what Boston did, but it's the communication from dugout to batter's box rather than the use of video where that distinction lies.

Cora's comments in London in 2019 made clear that he believed Beltrán and the Yankees were stealing Boston's signs, even if he couldn't figure out how. I learned from some reporting on the Astros situation that the Mariners had cracked a bunch of teams' third base coach signs. Reading between the lines in all of these stories, there's clearly a lot we don't know about yet.

I don't think your position is unreasonable, but that's why I wrote what I wrote.
 

jon abbey

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Cora's comments in London in 2019 made clear that he believed Beltrán and the Yankees were stealing Boston's signs, even if he couldn't figure out how.
Actually it was never clear if Cora meant that NY was stealing their signs somehow or if Beltran knew what Cora was doing to steal signs and counteracted it somehow.

(And to be clear, this is not a NY/BOS thing and I would have hired back Cora if I was BOS also, it's that that Cora press conference in London was puzzling/fascinating from the moment it happened, and I have posted about it a handful of times since.)
 

santadevil

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Cora's comments in London in 2019 made clear that he believed Beltrán and the Yankees were stealing Boston's signs, even if he couldn't figure out how. I learned from some reporting on the Astros situation that the Mariners had cracked a bunch of teams' third base coach signs. Reading between the lines in all of these stories, there's clearly a lot we don't know about yet.
And I know I was taught this from a young age by my coaches and I teach my kids to keep an eye out for as well when playing
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't
 

nvalvo

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Actually it was never clear if Cora meant that NY was stealing their signs somehow or if Beltran knew what Cora was doing to steal signs and counteracted it somehow.

(And to be clear, this is not a NY/BOS thing and I would have hired back Cora if I was BOS also, it's that that Cora press conference in London was puzzling/fascinating from the moment it happened, and I have posted about it a handful of times since.)
I'll have to listen to it again, but I don't doubt what you're saying. It was a very elliptical comment, with plenty of potential ambiguity.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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Is it? Wasn't his answer: "I thought I was likely to get caught if I continued to do something I knew was cheating/wrong."
Yeah I'm not taking much negative from his contrition, but I can see where some may.
But yeah, stealing signs has been around forever, that's why we see the catcher flash five with a guy on second base or the third base base coach do his dance. I'm not sure Cora was exactly corking bats or injecting anabolic steroids.
 

lexrageorge

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Stealing signs has been going on forever, and I don't believe that it will end anytime soon. Houston's actions were over the line, but did not spring up out of nowhere; players and coaches across MLB were finding ways to circumvent league rules to make sign stealing easier. The silly Apple watch scheme was just one example out of many; noone can make a straight faced argument that the Sox and Astros were the only teams doing "stuff". I have to believe that a majority of the Houston players involved in TrashCanGate felt that other teams were either doing the same thing, or would start doing similar things in the near future. Doesn't make their actions right, and Manfred was dead to rights to hand down the punishments he did.

Cora paid a significant yet fair price for his actions. And I expect that there would be zero leniency if he was found to be involved in anything untoward in the future.
 

OurF'ingCity

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Also clear he has no moral core. If I had heard that before the hiring, I'd have been completely in the "fuck this guy" camp.
I'd argue his response actually shows that he does have a "moral core" because he's clearly being completely honest about what happened. Would you prefer if he had said "after 2017, I looked into my heart of hearts and decided that the trash can scheme was bad and wrong and shouldn't continue"? That would be obviously false and self-serving. I actually appreciate Cora's honesty.
 

section15

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My take on this ... back in 2018, Cora walked into a situation with much greater talent,, yet much higher expectations.

He's now walking into a rebuilding situation with a whole lotta uncertainty>

2021 - if he wins 90+, "good job". 80-90 "ok, expected, not bad for a rebuild." If it's less than 80 - sub-.500 he could be a scapegoat.
Let's just hope that Chaim lets him run the team.
 

JimD

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My take on this ... back in 2018, Cora walked into a situation with much greater talent,, yet much higher expectations.

He's now walking into a rebuilding situation with a whole lotta uncertainty>

2021 - if he wins 90+, "good job". 80-90 "ok, expected, not bad for a rebuild." If it's less than 80 - sub-.500 he could be a scapegoat.
Let's just hope that Chaim lets him run the team.
The Red Sox were the equivalent of a 65-win team this season - there is no way Cora is on the hot seat if the '21 club wins fewer than 80 games.
 

Green Monster

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The Red Sox were the equivalent of a 65-win team this season - there is no way Cora is on the hot seat if the '21 club wins fewer than 80 games.
Say What?

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section15

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He did just give a very candid answer about why he did not bring the system from Houston to Boston.
There are fans sitting immediately above and next to the Red Sox bullpen in Fenway. It's in essence, embedded in the seating area.

Banging on garbage cans as a signaling device is too obvious. At Fenway, too many eight-year-olds would be asking the bullpen staff "what are you doing?" and the ten-year olds would tell them.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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Narrator: What the fans don’t know is that the famed Fenway “Bullpen Band” of Papelbon, Timlin, Okajima, et al, were sending signals to the batters all the way back in 2007, varying the pace of the beat depending on what pitch was coming next
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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There are fans sitting immediately above and next to the Red Sox bullpen in Fenway. It's in essence, embedded in the seating area.

Banging on garbage cans as a signaling device is too obvious. At Fenway, too many eight-year-olds would be asking the bullpen staff "what are you doing?" and the ten-year olds would tell them.
What would the bullpen have to do with it? Houston was banging trash cans in the hallway behind their dugout. Fans can't see that.
 

effectivelywild

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What would the bullpen have to do with it? Houston was banging trash cans in the hallway behind their dugout. Fans can't see that.
Fenway gives the ten-year old children (the same ones that in this example above would be clued into sign stealing and able to tell their two years younger siblings about it; ten-year olds have mystical abilities allowing them to identify cheating that adults can't immediately see) a video feed into the hallway behind the dugout.

I'm kind of surprised you don't know about this. How long have you been on this board?