Ongoing Manager Search 2020

Manramsclan

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This article about John Gibbons and his potential candidacy for Red Sox manager is not something I wanted to see.

I can't imagine a worse fit for Boston. A guy who if you google "John Gibbons fight" you see more than one entry.
 

santadevil

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This article about John Gibbons and his potential candidacy for Red Sox manager is not something I wanted to see.

I can't imagine a worse fit for Boston. A guy who if you google "John Gibbons fight" you see more than one entry.
If that came to be, I may actually switch rooting interests

Whenever I think of John Gibbons, it was the numerous interviews in this pose
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74R_avYla_4


Laid back in the chair, looking like he's ready to fall out at any moment, and basically saying to the interviewers that you need to come see me and hang over my desk and reach out to hear my amazing comments
Also looked and felt sloppy and lazy to me...and as mentioned, the fights
 

Yelling At Clouds

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One of the terms of suspension is zero contact with anyone in the game. So maybe it's not that Bloom and any other GM is adhering to some "formalism", maybe it's Cora isn't picking up the phone even if they do call. They've got nothing to lose but Cora likely does. It's probably a silly analogy, but when I was a kid, if I was grounded, I couldn't talk to or see my friends. They could certainly call my house all they wanted, but I couldn't answer, even if it was to make plans for the day after my punishment ended. Because maybe just by talking on the phone, I'd be extending my punishment by a few more days.

Besides, if Cora is their man, then what's the harm in waiting until the second after the World Series ends? It's not like he's going to get snatched out from underneath them. If they can't talk to him, nobody can. Interview everyone else in the meantime and know that Cora's there as a fallback if they don't like anyone well enough.
Right. If we're all speculating about it here, and reporters are openly speculating about it, then I'm guessing other teams have figured this one out, too. Why even bring him in for an interview if you think he’s already got a new (old) job lined up?
 

YTF

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This article about John Gibbons and his potential candidacy for Red Sox manager is not something I wanted to see.

I can't imagine a worse fit for Boston. A guy who if you google "John Gibbons fight" you see more than one entry.
Chaim didn't seem impressed enough to hire Gibbons last year. I'm guessing the reason is that he had guy's already in mind for this season that he values more. Staying within the organization and hiring Roenicke as a placeholder made perfect sense.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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Dec 4, 2005
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Sam Fuld will be in this. NH native I believe.
He is, I played high school ball against he and his brother; they went to Oyster River High School and played travel ball for the Tritown Rangers. His brother was bald as a 50 year old by the time he was a junior in high school. Didn't know them at all except third party, but never heard much bad said about them.
 

canderson

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Isn't it unusual to retain nearly every coach when firing the manager? Cause apparently that's happening here - the bench and bullpen coach aren't being retained but the rest are invited to stay.

@IanMBrowne
Jerry Narron and Craig Bjornson will not be returning to Red Sox coaching staff. Interestingly, all other coaches were invited to return even though we don't know who the next manager is.

View: https://twitter.com/IanMBrowne/status/1315669801650606082?s=20
 

Rovin Romine

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That is a little weird. Narron was a 2020 hire though, so he might be tied to Roenicke. Bjornson was a 2018 hire from the Astros, where he had previously worked with Cora.
 

soxhop411

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Isn't it unusual to retain nearly every coach when firing the manager? Cause apparently that's happening here - the bench and bullpen coach aren't being retained but the rest are invited to stay.

@IanMBrowne
Jerry Narron and Craig Bjornson will not be returning to Red Sox coaching staff. Interestingly, all other coaches were invited to return even though we don't know who the next manager is.

View: https://twitter.com/IanMBrowne/status/1315669801650606082?s=20
That is a little weird. Narron was a 2020 hire though, so he might be tied to Roenicke. Bjornson was a 2018 hire from the Astros, where he had previously worked with Cora.
View: https://twitter.com/IanMBrowne/status/1315672725072097282


AKA , its going to be cora but we cant announce its cora until he is no longer suspended
At the very least, it is interesting that nearly Alex Cora's entire coaching staff has been invited back with even a vacancy for Ron Roenicke to possibly return as bench coach.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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I don't think it's unusual to invite the coaching staff to stay on, at least until they have a new manager. It gives the new guy a chance to keep some of them around if he wants. I can't imagine the hiring process (whether it's Cora or someone else) is going to take so long that they'll be in limbo until it's too late to find another job. But in the meantime, if an opportunity presents itself to them, they're free to move on.
 

donutogre

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2018 Cora? (108-54, Finished 1st)
2019 Cora? (84-78, Finished 3rd with essentially the same club)
How 'bout 2018-2019 Cora? 192-132, a .593 winning percentage. Seems pretty good to me.

For the record, I'm more of the mind that a clean break would be smart, but I do not doubt that Cora has managerial skills for sure. Split the difference between 2018 and 2019 and you still have a pretty damn good manager.
 

curly2

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2018 Cora? (108-54, Finished 1st)
2019 Cora? (84-78, Finished 3rd with essentially the same club)
It doesn't have to be Cora in 2021. I'm OK with bringing in someone new. But 2019 featured a pitching staff, especially the starters, that was ridden hard in the 2018 postseason in pursuit of a championship -- which was the right thing to so.

The Giants won the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014, and missed the playoffs the following season every year. Bruce Bochy didn't get dumber, and then suddenly get smart again. With three rounds of playoffs (in non-COVID years) it's really tough to do well the year after winning it all, which makes what the Yankees did winning four out of five the more remarkable.
 

Rovin Romine

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It doesn't have to be Cora in 2021. I'm OK with bringing in someone new. But 2019 featured a pitching staff, especially the starters, that was ridden hard in the 2018 postseason in pursuit of a championship -- which was the right thing to so.

The Giants won the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014, and missed the playoffs the following season every year. Bruce Bochy didn't get dumber, and then suddenly get smart again. With three rounds of playoffs (in non-COVID years) it's really tough to do well the year after winning it all, which makes what the Yankees did winning four out of five the more remarkable.
Repeat performances are tough, but all of the Giants WS opponents made it into the next post-season.
 

DeadlySplitter

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Cora is able to be hired on the 25th, 26th, 28th or 29th, depending on when the World Series ends. It's the 12th already, and there's been no rumblings of candidate interviews.

Could be a tight lid this time from the media, especially when interviews will most likely be Zoom and there's no "paper trail" of people entering/leaving Fenway. Or...
 

curly2

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Repeat performances are tough, but all of the Giants WS opponents made it into the next post-season.
But I don't think they worked their starters as hard as Cora had to/chose to. Sale, Eovaldi and Porcello each made multiple starts AND multiple relief appearances, and Price made five starts and a relief appearance and warmed up hot a day before he started.
 

Rovin Romine

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But I don't think they worked their starters as hard as Cora had to/chose to. Sale, Eovaldi and Porcello each made multiple starts AND multiple relief appearances, and Price made five starts and a relief appearance and warmed up hot a day before he started.
There are a lot of factors involved between the 2018 and 2019 outcomes. To the extent we give Cora credit for 2018, he should also take some share of the disappointing outcome for 2019. That was basically my entire point in raising the issue in the first place.

It's rather like the 2013 Farrell fetish. Of course 2014 wasn't anything he could influence! Or 2015. Or the dismal post season showing in 2016 and 2017. He was also a great manager, a legendary one.
 

lexrageorge

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There are a lot of factors involved between the 2018 and 2019 outcomes. To the extent we give Cora credit for 2018, he should also take some share of the disappointing outcome for 2019. That was basically my entire point in raising the issue in the first place.

It's rather like the 2013 Farrell fetish. Of course 2014 wasn't anything he could influence! Or 2015. Or the dismal post season showing in 2016 and 2017. He was also a great manager, a legendary one.
Except that I think we can give Cora a bit of a mulligan, in that he did not cause both Sale and Price and Eovaldi to miss significant chunks of the 2019 season with injuries. Or the fact that their bench was a non-factor all season.

All managers have disappointing seasons if they manage long enough. It's an unavoidable part of the game. And there were some warning signs with Farrell that we did not see with Cora.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Except that I think we can give Cora a bit of a mulligan, in that he did not cause both Sale and Price and Eovaldi to miss significant chunks of the 2019 season with injuries. Or the fact that their bench was a non-factor all season.

All managers have disappointing seasons if they manage long enough. It's an unavoidable part of the game. And there were some warning signs with Farrell that we did not see with Cora.
Was it (the injuries) entirely out of his control or did the way he slow played all three in the spring contribute to their injuries later on? Maybe that doesn't impact Price's cyst issues late in the year, but he did miss time with tendonitis earlier in the year that could have been alleviated. I think RR's point about dinging him in 2019 as much as crediting him in 2018 is valid.

I'm also not on the bring-back-Cora bandwagon. I'd rather Bloom find his guy. If it turns out that his guy is Cora, c'est la vie. But I hope the lack of rumor/news thus far doesn't mean that they're defaulting back to Cora.
 

JBJ_HOF

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Gammons has been much more on top of Sox stuff since Dombroski left, I think he had been froze out, much like the rest of the front office.
 

lexrageorge

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Was it (the injuries) entirely out of his control or did the way he slow played all three in the spring contribute to their injuries later on? Maybe that doesn't impact Price's cyst issues late in the year, but he did miss time with tendonitis earlier in the year that could have been alleviated. I think RR's point about dinging him in 2019 as much as crediting him in 2018 is valid.

I'm also not on the bring-back-Cora bandwagon. I'd rather Bloom find his guy. If it turns out that his guy is Cora, c'est la vie. But I hope the lack of rumor/news thus far doesn't mean that they're defaulting back to Cora.
We tend to put a lot on the manager, but the reality is that the manager has a relatively marginal impact on the game. Not sure Joe Maddon does any better with the 2019 team. The slow ramp up in Spring Training that year was really an organizational decision, and was based on the unprecedented workload the team's starters had during the 2018 playoffs. Sale's elbow was a walking time bomb that several posters here predicted, and Sale's shoulder issues predated 2019. Eovaldi has been injury prone his entire career. Cora did not cause Rick Porcello's FIP to climb by nearly a run. Nor was Cora responsible for the black hole at 2B or Pearce's injury- and age-related decline.

By the same token, Cora benefited greatly in 2018 from outstanding performances by Betts, JD, Price, and Sale.

We can more accurately assess the manager by the moves he makes during the game and the general vibe of the clubhouse during good times and tough stretches. By those measures, Cora scored well. To be honest, I'm not sure Roenicke scored badly in those areas either, but I think it's harder to judge a manager when the team is horrific.
 

Rovin Romine

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We tend to put a lot on the manager, but the reality is that the manager has a relatively marginal impact on the game. Not sure Joe Maddon does any better with the 2019 team. The slow ramp up in Spring Training that year was really an organizational decision, and was based on the unprecedented workload the team's starters had during the 2018 playoffs. Sale's elbow was a walking time bomb that several posters here predicted, and Sale's shoulder issues predated 2019. Eovaldi has been injury prone his entire career. Cora did not cause Rick Porcello's FIP to climb by nearly a run. Nor was Cora responsible for the black hole at 2B or Pearce's injury- and age-related decline.

By the same token, Cora benefited greatly in 2018 from outstanding performances by Betts, JD, Price, and Sale.

We can more accurately assess the manager by the moves he makes during the game and the general vibe of the clubhouse during good times and tough stretches. By those measures, Cora scored well. To be honest, I'm not sure Roenicke scored badly in those areas either, but I think it's harder to judge a manager when the team is horrific.
I agree with the overall points, and wanted to add that Cora seemed to be a decent-to-very-good in-game manager. Overall, pitching regressed, but the offense actually improved. (And while not conclusive, Cora underperformed on the pythag.)

But that aside, I think my biggest reservation about Cora is that he failed at assessing/preparing the team for 2019. I'm pretty sure I had the feeling then, as it was happening, but just hit google to see what Cora said about the dismal start. It's like he genuinely believed what he was doing was going to work. And I can't really square that with "baseball genius."

At 1-3: "We did the same thing. It’s easy to second guess now. It’s a program. You have to be disciplined." https://www.boston.com/sports/boston-red-sox/2019/04/01/alex-cora-red-sox-starting-pitching-comments
At 6-11: It doesn’t concern me. It’s just a bad start," he said. "We’ve shown flashes, Eduardo [Rodriguez], David [Price]. Today we one-run game, didn't make some pitches and they hit that ball out of the ballpark, changed the whole thing. For a while there if you start looking after that Arizona game we were pitching better and keeping the ball in the ballpark and not too much damage, not too much hard contact and today was the exception obviously. We’ve got to keep working at it. We go to New York tonight and have a two-game series.
https://www.radio.com/weei/blogs/ryan-hannable/boston-red-sox-manager-alex-cora-not-concerned-with-bad-start-to-2019-season
Undated? video of "it's gonna get better:" View: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x75w1gb


And a retrospective article re: the Cora Taper-up comparing it to other clubs.
https://www.masslive.com/redsox/2019/10/alex-cora-keeps-defending-boston-red-soxs-spring-training-plan-says-some-top-mlb-starters-had-tapered-workloads-is-he-right.html
 

soxhop411

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But seriously. It’s been almost a month and we have heard of only one candidate tied to the manager opening (Cora). There have been no other external names or even interviews since we fired Roenicke.

Seems odd that if they were not going to hire Cora we would have at least heard about other candidates by now.
 

Bob Montgomerys Helmet Hat

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But seriously. It’s been almost a month and we have heard of only one candidate tied to the manager opening (Cora). There have been no other external names or even interviews since we fired Roenicke.

Seems odd that if they were not going to hire Cora we would have at least heard about other candidates by now.
They might be targeting coaches on Tampa's staff. They're in a bubble.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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But seriously. It’s been almost a month and we have heard of only one candidate tied to the manager opening (Cora). There have been no other external names or even interviews since we fired Roenicke.

Seems odd that if they were not going to hire Cora we would have at least heard about other candidates by now.
Why is it odd? Most of the scoops that reporters get is by hanging out at the ballpark and talking up the staff. Or getting tips on what coach/manager/player just got off a plane at Logan. None of that is happening. Interviews are probably happening over Zoom. As long as no one intentionally goes out of their way to leak something, we're unlikely to hear about it. There have been no rumors about any of the managerial openings in the league right now. I don't think we can apply any precedent to these unprecedented times.
 

soxhop411

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They might be targeting coaches on Tampa's staff. They're in a bubble.
Why is it odd? Most of the scoops that reporters get is by hanging out at the ballpark and talking up the staff. Or getting tips on what coach/manager/player just got off a plane at Logan. None of that is happening. Interviews are probably happening over Zoom. As long as no one intentionally goes out of their way to leak something, we're unlikely to hear about it. There have been no rumors about any of the managerial openings in the league right now. I don't think we can apply any precedent to these unprecedented times.
I get what you are saying but we don’t even have any “Sox are interested in interviewing ____ “ reports. It’s been completely silent save for Cora.

Re other manager openings: there have been rumors for CHW opening (Hinch, Cora, and TLR).
And we just had news today on DET opening
View: https://twitter.com/mlbtraderumors/status/1318008925015445506
 

soxhop411

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I can’t tell if Vazquez is trolling or if he really wants us to be more hated than the Astros.
“I would love Alex Cora to return as manager," Vazquez said, “and the bench coach to be Carlos Beltran.”
Count Red Sox catcher Christian Vazquez among those who want Alex Cora to return as the club’s manager once his suspension expires at the end of the World Series.

Appearing on a Facebook Live entitled “Baerga y sus amigos” with former major-league infielder Carlos Baerga, Vazquez lobbied for Boston to bring Cora back.

“I would love if Alex comes back,” Vazquez said in Spanish. "I would love that. I think Alex brought so many positive things to the team. We need a leader to continue and Alex is a leader.

“Alex listens and understands," Vazquez continued. "He knows so much about baseball. He’s like a father to all of us. He brought us together, the team, in 2018, having the year we had. I think he deserves another opportunity to return to a winning team as manager. I think he deserves that.”

Later in the chat, Vazquez even named his preferred bench coach -- former big-league slugger Carlos Beltran.

“I would love Alex Cora to return as manager," Vazquez said, “and the bench coach to be Carlos Beltran.”
https://www.masslive.com/redsox/2020/10/alex-cora-returning-as-boston-red-sox-manager-christian-vazquez-would-love-it-and-floats-carlos-beltran-as-bench-coach-too.html
 

The Gray Eagle

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"Support of owners, players, and fans" leaves out the guy who presumably will be doing the hiring. Now that Lucchino is gone, I have to hope that this time, ownership won't piss all over the new GM's hiring of his own manager.
 

lexrageorge

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Imagine they hire the Cora clone Urueta instead of just Cora himself. What a disaster.
Why would that be a disaster? If Bloom feels that Urueta is the best candidate for the job, then he should get the job. Cora made the bed he's sleeping in.
 

joe dokes

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Zona90

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If the Dodgers lose the World Series and Dave Roberts gets fired, would Roberts be a candidate?
 

jon abbey

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If the Dodgers lose the World Series and Dave Roberts gets fired, would Roberts be a candidate?
He is paid through 2022 even if he is fired, so I’m guessing he’d take a year off at least.