8:10pm: The Boston Globe’s Tim Healey writes that John Soteropoulos, who had been on Cora’s staff as assistant hitting coach, will technically be a lead hitting coach. It’ll nevertheless be mostly a collaborative group that includes Simonetty and Hetzler. Tracy indicated they’re also planning to promote Low-A hitting coach Nelson Paulino to work with the MLB group. The 53-year-old Paulino has coached minor league hitters in the Boston system for nearly three decades.
1:10pm: The Red Sox announced that they have added three new coaches to their staff today. José David Flores is now the interim bench coach. Pablo Cabrera is the interim first base coach/outfield instructor. Jack Simonetty has been hired as an interim hitting assistant. Chris Cotillo of MassLive first reported the news on Flores and Simonetty while Alex Speier of The Boston Globe was first on Cabrera.
The moves are in response to the stunning Red Wedding-style massacre that occurred in Baltimore this weekend. The Sox fired manager Alex Cora as well as his hitting coach Peter Fatse, assistant hitting coach Dillon Lawson, bench coach Ramón Vázquez, third base/outfield coach Kyle Hudson, and major league hitting strategist Joe Cronin. Also, run prevention coach Jason Varitek is being reassigned to a different role within the organization.
Some of those positions were quickly filled, at least on an interim basis. Chad Tracy was called up from the minors to take over as interim manager. Chad Epperson became interim third base coach. Collin Hetzler was added to the hitting staff. That still left the overall coaching group far lighter than before, but today’s additions effectively get the staff back to previous levels.
Flores, 55, has a decent amount of previous MLB coaching experience. He was infield coordinator for the Cubs from 2012 to 2017. He was the first base coach for the Phillies in 2018, then served as third base coach in Baltimore for the next two seasons. The Sox hired him to work as bench coach for Triple-A Worcester, a job he held from 2022 to 2024. He was promoted to the big league staff as first base coach going into last season.
The other two hirees are far less experienced and are joining a big league staff for the first time. Cabrera, 28, was hired by the Red Sox in 2023 to work as a coach for Double-A Portland. He then worked as defensive coach in the club’s Fort Myers complex, before getting promoted to infield/outfield defensive coordinator for this season.
Simonetty, 26, was hired as a video and technology associate for Worcester in 2023. His title was player development associate in 2024. Last year, he served as assistant hitting coach for Single-A Salem. He began this year as hitting coach for the Florida Complex League Red Sox.
The Sox will now play the majority of the 2026 season with a big chunk of the staff being hired mid-season for interim roles. Whether any of them can stick around depends on what happens in the coming months and who is in charge in 2027.
Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images
A 28 year old first base coach? Inconceivable.
OK, I’ll bite…
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Now I have Public Image LTD’s “Fat Chance Hotel” stuck in my head, and it kicks butt. Thanx!
some useless holiday this turned out to be!
life is pain, princess
Pretty sure Enjoy SL is referring to the movie Princess Bride.
Classic 80’s and very quotable
Coaches do not need to be old guys. All about the talent.
Never said they needed to be, guy. It’s just extremely rare. Thanks for chiming in with obvious non sequiturs tho!
Guy – It’s not about age, it’s about experience which translates to knowledge.
How does a 26-year-old gain much real world experience? He’s just a Breslow clone, he has his degree in sports analytics but actually working with real life players is completely different. That more than anything is why so many players are complaining about the Sox coaching staff, and why so many are getting messed up like Campbell, Tibbs, Grissom, etc.
Genuinely interested in what Red Sox fans think of this. I always thought most Managers jobs were largely about atmospherics, with a bit of tactical stuff. FO were a different story, because they picked the roster. Teams go through rough patches…is this expected to bring and end to them? The team does have a lot of talent.
He was past his sell buy date. He wasn’t making meaningful change in the team. Time for someone new
Exactly
This
As a life long Red Sox fan I can tell you this.
This team was constructed by Craig Breslow, not Alex Cora. Breslow traded their best player last year for a bag of balls.
He let Bregman walk over a no trade clause.
He added zero power over the off season.
Even at the press conference he said this was an organizational decision but Sam Kennedy corrected him by saying this was Breslow’s decision.
Oh and Varitek basically told them they can shove their “reassignment” offer where the sun don’t shine. The guy turned down manage opportunities over the years to remain with the franchise he’s been with for 30 years and gets disrespected like this.
Breslow will be fired in the off season and I hope he never works another day in baseball
Things seemed good last year with the same coaching staff. So what went wrong between last year and this year? I don’t know, but I have a theory: I have no doubt that Cora wanted Bregman back this year as he really wanted him last year. That didn’t happen. Then angry Alex Cora starts sabotaging games by making bad lineups and bad bullpen moves such as bringing in Weissert instead of Whitlock. Why would Cora do this? He was trying to get Breslow fired thinking that ownership would choose him over Breslow. I think Cora may have done this to get Bloom fired too. However, it didn’t work and Breslow fired Cora. Just my speculation. It seems to add up, but I can’t prove it.
BTW, Devers (.562 OPS) and Bregman (.710 OPS) would not be helping this team much and both have HUGE contracts. Maybe Bregman would provide veteran leadership, but you need more than leadership for the contract he signed.
You were right about one thing, it’s just your speculation
Suit- I tend to agree with you about Cora forcing ownership’s hand in a power struggle with Breslow. I think he also thought he had Kennedy on his side as he has on the past, but if Kennedy sided with Cora this time and the team missed the playoffs that would put him on the hot seat.
Cora has in the past done things to show up his GM/POBO. Hes left relievers (and starters for that matter) in too long. He has favored veterans over younger players (even though this years team is clearly tilted toward Anthony). Finally, its obvious that the lineups were an issue. Cora just the other day said something to the effect of, ‘i can only player who’s on the roster’. In effect calling out Breslow….you can only embarrass your boss so many times!
Finally, with the exception of Story, you could see that Cora lost the team. That mound visit on Friday to Bello….nobody even looked him in the eye.
Way too much looking for conspiracy theories here dude. Professionals do not do what you just conjured up.
But it does seem to resonate at least with me.
baseballguy, and who says Cora is a professional? He’s already a known cheater…
Hey Dude, those are all facts. Cora once used a relief pitcher for 70 pitches because he was mad that Breslow brought up a different RP than the one that he wanted. Cora was constantly showing up the GM/POBO on the field and then blaming it on the roster.
Guess youve never worked with someone that you thought you were better than, even if that person was your boss, huh?!?!
If you dont understand power dynamics just because its occurring on the baseball field maybe you dont need to comment….
Dewey- I liked Cora enough to excuse some of the faux pas I’ve seen on the field in the past.
Then, I read the book ‘Winning is Everything’ about the Astros. Cora is a smart and charismatic guy, who is also overly cocky, disrespectful and insubordinate. He constantly undermined his manager and “friend” AJ Hinch when he was bench coach, got drunk on team flights and threatened to fight team personnel, ran a cheating operation….
Good riddance!
Absolutely no one is naive enough to think Cora was the only problem with the Red Sox. Firing him doesn’t magically fix everything. No one is saying that it will, so we can save the snipes at Breslow – fair as they are – for a separate conversation. This is about Cora. Whatever damage has been done by Breslow, it can also still be true that Cora was doing more harm than good and that change was necessary because he was losing the team and risking the long term development of our top prospects.
Cora obviously felt like he was untouchable, and thought he’d have ownership backing him in a power struggle where he could outlast Breslow and survive this mess. Maybe even use it as a stepping stone out of the dugout and finally ascend to that front office job he’s always said to have wanted once the current guy in the chair was out of the way.
Bres has finally gotten one thing right in a very big way in taking a stand for his own regime and cleaning house. You can’t have a front office and a coaching staff trying to pull in different directions. Breslow still has time to make his tenure with the Sox a success, but if that’s going to happen you need an organization that has one agreed upon vision from the top down with everyone moving in that direction. Absolutely cannot have a manager undermining you with insane lineup tinkering to try and prove how much smarter he is than you.
Dirty – Cora got away with so much for so long, not a surprise he kept pushing the envelope. His illogical decisions definitely point to him undermining Breslow, just like he did with Bloom.
Yup. Also really disappointed to hear how Duran and Story reacted in front of the media after the news broke. I understand they’re humans and allowed to feel about it however they do, but they need to step up and not have the 21 year old Roman Anthony be the first guy addressing questions from reporters after something like this goes down. Really unimpressive level of leadership from the guys who are supposed to be the team’s veterans if you ask me. I heard on the broadcast tonight that Story got to have that talk with Breslow today so I hope the hatchet is buried and that’s the end of it. If sour grapes become an ongoing issue with certain guys we may sadly be heading for a 2012-esque trade deadline. I hope it doesn’t have to come to that because I really like Duran in particular, but just like with the coaching staff you just can’t keep guys around if they’re going to insist on being downers.
Dirty – All I heard from Story is he had questions, I didn’t hear anything from Duran.
What about Whitlock? Everyone gives him a free pass.
Breslow had meetings with Story and others. The fact he flew to Toronto, and he acknowledged communication deficiencies on his end, is a good sign.
I didn’t hear anything inappropriate from Story or Whitlock. The air has definitely been cleared, two men talking things out …. as it should be.
I didn’t hear about Whitlock, what did he say or do?
Again, my issue isn’t that the guys were shocked and a little upset. If that’s how they feel that’s how they feel. The communication to them about it could’ve been handled much better and obviously they liked AC quite a bit.
Trevor went too far with his comments IMO. Upset or not it’s not the place of a shortstop who’s got an OPS+ of 50 with 4 errors in 3 weeks of action to be publicly questioning “the true direction of the franchise.” He is plenty justified in having that conversation with Breslow behind closed doors. You never put dirty laundry like that out in the media. I’m glad they talked it out today and I also saw that Breslow was apologetic and striving to improve on the communication front. That’s definitely a good thing. So like I said, hopefully everything that’s needed to be said has been said and that’s that. I can move on and forget it if he can.
Duran was reportedly changing in and out of several outfits, side eyeing reporters and completely brushing off their questions with the silent treatment. That’s just too immature for a 29 year old in his 6th season. You don’t have to pretend it’s all butterflies and rainbows if that’s not how you feel about it, but you can at least say the right things for the microphones so the 21 year old with 404 career plate appearances to his name isn’t the first guy speaking on behalf of the clubhouse.
FPG
I liked Tracy’s comments saying he will go with Mayer full-time at 2ndbase regardless of who’s pitching. Have to find out if this guy can be an everyday player.
Very excited for tonights matchup with Tolle vs. Yesavage. 2 great young prospects. The Sox looking to add to there season long winning streak. When I mentioned the other day that something had to give I didn’t think it would be the manager . When the manager is already in place then you hire a CBO/GM type there is probably going to be friction. It’s not his guy. I am surprised it happened in April, but let’s face it ,it looks like it had to happen. There is a chain of command and they should be in lock step in how they want to run the ballclub , for better or worse. Let’s get #4 tonight.
cdc – hi!
Tracy has been awesome so far, I am so happy right now.
Remember after the Yankees sweep I posted a prediction the Sox would win at least 4 games on this road trip? Looking pretty good right now!!!
Dirty – Here’s Whitlock:
According to testimony from Whitlock, both Henry and Kennedy remained silent during the meeting, and Breslow only spoke for two minutes before interim manager Chad Tracy spoke for another few minutes.
Whitlock also revealed that the Red Sox players were not given the freedom to ask upper management any questions during the meeting. “They made it very clear that we get paid to play baseball and we need to just focus on playing baseball,” Whitlock said, per The Boston Globe’s Tim Healey.
FPG
Just heard Cora turned down the Phillies job…
DD named Don Mattinhly interim manager.
what the heck happened to duran? did the driveline guys screw with his approach? this is a recent 9-war player who looks lost
dasit – I think/hope Tracy will continue to play him every day and bat him leadoff. He actually hit the ball hard last night, just didn’t find any holes.
i think tracy gets it. the line-up needs stability and they need to find out what they have in mayer
dasit – Yeah imagine going to work every day and never knowing what you’ll be doing or if you’ll even be working at all. It’s a crappy feeling.
“traded their best player last year for a bag of balls”
It’s wild how many people have no idea how awful Devers is playing, his stats make Marcelo Mayer look like Babe Ruth.
Getting ride of Devers was a great move!
I am with you except for your last sentence.
Cora was not the problem here. Despite what some seem to think, he is a good manager.
Phantom – Far too much evidence to suggest otherwise.
The players like him because he tries to be their BFF instead of their manager.
That’s basically the only reason why he held the job so long.
I do think he’s a better manager than some Sox fans give him credit for. In years where things went right, I think he generally pushed more of the right buttons than the wrong buttons. But it’s a natural part of the game that every manager’s tenure tends to run its course and we were definitely at that point with AC.
I thought his style might be good for helping the kids adjust to the Show since he’s more laid back compared to the high pressure of playing in Boston but I was wrong. The proof is in the pudding, they’ve looked dreadful on the field. If Cora winds up on a team with more established vets who are already set in their roles on a big league roster and accountable to themselves for their training and preparation, I won’t be surprised to see him succeed again somewhere else. As far as the Sox are concerned, I think a more familiar face like Tracy will be a good thing for guiding the youth movement.
Dirty – I haven’t had time to do a deep dive into the events that led up to the firing, but to your point about Cora helping the kids …. he recently threw shade on them by basically saying the younger players with the big contracts have no motivation and that makes it hard to manage. Bello seems to be one of those kids he was talking about.
The whole Bello game was weird, Cora visiting the mound and Bello being left in to give up all those homers and then his anger when he was pulled …. I need to rewatch it, probably during the offday Thursday.
Definitely the familiarity with Tracy is a good thing, but unfortunately Driveline is still there.
Very disappointing to hear Driveline wasn’t given the boot. Guess we have to hope against the odds that their approach starts working…
FPG – my problem with Driveline is the one size fits all approach. if you strip away the bio-metrics they are trying to create an army of baseball robots instead of accentuating the best of what each player does and minimizing the bad.
If you watch Harrison pitch now, or Priester last year, it not entirely different mechnically, its just more latitude to pitch in a comfortable way for that individual.
Sad – I totally agree. I’ve written enough on Driveline and don’t want to rehash it all, but another big negative is information overload and max everything …. swing for the fences with every pitch regardless of situation, throw pitches as hard as you can as often as you can. Not good performance-wise or health-wise.
Fever, yes, exactly. I know they think their approach is super galaxy brained but trying to “optimize the launch angle” to maximize home runs for guys like Duran and Durbin is …well, a word I probably can’t use here. I’ll describe it instead as so smart it’s actually dumb.
As much as the overly analytics-inclined like to try and make it out to be, baseball is not rocket science. Just let those two hit line drives into the gap. For Durbin it’ll result in a steady diet of singles and doubles and for Duran you’ll get a boatload of doubles and triples. Believe it or not, fans find that exciting too!
Dirty – Hearing what Tracy says and seeing what he is doing, I haven’t been this happy since October 2018!
The same two lineups, no pinch hitting, running more, leaving starters in games longer, giving Mayer AB’s against LHP, Roman 3rd, Duran leadoff, Contreras 2nd, Abreu cleanup, Story 5th …. it’s a dream come true!!!
Quite pleased myself. Mayer looked really comfortable at the plate yesterday, loved to see it! Same for Duran, sucks that he had an 0-fer because that won’t reflect he had a couple of really good swings but just didn’t quite get the results for them. So far, so good on Chad Tracy!
Fever- The one change I would consider making to the lineup is getting M0nasterio in it more often. He is hitting better than Story or Durbin, and with consistent playing time I think he could continue to have a bigger impact.
I understand why you would want Duran leading off and he is making contact, but if he doesn’t start getting on base I would think you need to consider Rafaela in that spot. Duran has huge potential in that position so things should turn around.
My hope is they will start getting into a groove with Tracy at the helm. I think Cora’s constant changing of the batting order was really throwing things off.
Uncle – I think they need to give Story one more month to figure it out, then I would go with Mona more often. Keep in mind Mona is just a career .676 OPS hitter (87 OPS+) so he’s well below average and he’s not young – he will be 29 in a month. It’s ridiculous how much the Red Sox hyped Durbin & Mona, they were acquired for their versatility more than anything.
As for leadoff, which do you think is the more important qualification? Baserunning skills? High OBP? Or best hitter?
For me, it’s always been a mixture of baserunning & high OBP. Rafaela is 0-for-3 in SB attempts and his OBP on the team is only 5th right now, so I don’t view him as a good leadoff candidate.
You know my thoughts on Tracy, he’s been awesome in his 3 games so far. Lineups are perfect, he’s not constantly pinch hitting for matchups, and his handling of the pitching staff has been good.
Fever- I agree that Tracy seems like the right guy. I think he is stuck with the limitations of the team he was given. Bello had another poor outing and the bullpen is not going to hold up with the amount of usage they are getting. There are so many question marks in the lineup. It is going to be tough to turn the season around. It was nice to get the 3 wins, but losing the series to the Jays doesn’t help build confidence or momentum.
Getting rid of Devers was a great move! Getting a bucket of balls for Devers and rid of that contract, his bad attitude, lack of desire to play, and constant whining… that was a very successful move!
Kyle Harrison struck out 11 yesterday for Milwaukee. They definitely received more than a bag of balls for their fading overpaid slugger.
Good point Hank, though to be fair Harrison is a beneficiary of the famed Brewers pitching lab. They helped him add a big wrinkle to his game with his changeup that hitters haven’t been able to figure out. Bailey has done a good job as pitching coach but we have no idea if he would’ve unlocked him like they have. I lean towards guessing they wouldn’t have since they gave up on him so quickly. Knowing that I have a hard time staying mad at that.
On the other hand, to give away Tibbs for what we got out of Dustin May is absolutely sickening.
Dirty – Honest question, who do you think Bailey has helped unlock their potential?
BTW – Not Chapman.
I was really impressed with the work he did with Gio last year, for starters. He was a guy I was nervous about falling off all year because his results far outpaced what I had for stuff. But he held up, and I think credit belongs at least partially with Bailey helping him tweak his mechanics that really kicked off his strong midseason run.
I don’t know what to make of Bello at this point. He seemed like he took a genuine step forward last year especially with his poise which I would also give Bailey credit for coaching him up….but he has completely fallen apart so far this season so I’m not sure what’s going on there. Have they broken him? Is he ignoring them? But prior to this April I’d have him on the list.
In 2024 he had Houck, Kutter, and Pivetta each firing on all cylinders. It’s unfortunate health has gone off the rails for the former 2, but I think each took noticeable steps forward. Hopefully they’ll still be able to build towards something resembling that whenever they’re able to return.
⁸The Red Sox developed Connelly Early. He was not highly regarded coming out of college.
Dirty – Giolito was a very good pitcher prior to his 2022 injury, I view last year’s success as simply a continuation because he was healthy (until the end of the season).
Yeah Bello seems to have the same mental issues he had in 2024 and prior.
Definitely when Bailey first came aboard the pitching staff was awesome for the first couple months. I think the league was caught offguard by Bailey’s new approach, but adjusted to it in the second half.
Gio was awesome before, but it’s also fair to say he was broken when he arrived in Boston. Not just from the injury that caused him to miss all of 2024, he also pitched full seasons in 2022 and 2023 and was horrible. No doubt in my mind that working with Bailey was instrumental in fixing him.
Dirty – He was horrible those two years because of the underlying injury, his velo was down etc.
Some people think Bailey caused the injury, but it was pre-existing. Of course Breslow ignored the prior two years performance and thought he could “fix” Giolito.
The mistake the Sox made wasn’t trading Devers, he’s been dreadful for us here in SF, the idiocy was then dumping James Tibbs, who is currently on fire in the minors and will more than likely be roaming outfield for the Dodger$ soon enough. And Kyle Harrison has finally been fixed by the Brewers and is starting to look like he’s on his way to being a dominant lefty. Meanwhile SF is stuck with your overpaid slug who has apparently forgotten how to turn on the inside fastball.
Tell – Raffy has been performing at a high level for many years, are you seriously giving up on him after just one month?
I haven’t been following him closely, has there been any mention of injury? He played hurt most of last season and missed most of ST.
One month?? Pretty sure we’ve had him a bit longer than that.
Tell – Are you seriously saying he didn’t produce last year despite all his injuries and learning a new position?
He did the minimum after a horrid slump that cost us loads of games. Superstars don’t need to adjust for 6 months. Besides, he was DHing most of the time. Had he performed like he’s capable of we would’ve at least been in the post season. But last year is last year, this year he’s way worse. Something has changed. He’s being slammed with inside heat and just can’t get around on it. Hoping they can somehow dump him and call up Eldridge. Hey, maybe Boston wants him back!
Tell – Despite being injured most of the season, he led MLB with 163 games played and put up an .851 OPS last year.
Sorry, but it’s kinda silly wanting to dump him after just a month of this season.
The RS have been under .500 since the start of 2022. I don’t dislike Cora, but it also doesn’t feel like he is anything special.
Concur.
When the Sox are annually leading the league in errors, strikeouts, chase rates, worst RISP BA, chase rates, etc… that stuff can’t be pinned on the GM. That’s a bad manager and a bad staff not getting his team ready to go.
Nothing against AC personally, but they’ve finished last in too many seasons for him not to finally take the fall.
It was a long time coming in my view. By the way Tek reportedly turned down the new assignment .
If the team starts winning, I don’t care who’s running the team.
Cora tweeted Happy on X. That tells me there had to of been tension between Breslow and Cora. Breslow is the head of baseball operations what he says goes. Obviously Breslow felt the offensive side of the ball was severely underperforming and needed a wake up call. Im glad he did it now and not July, the season can still be saved with one hot winning streak.
bum – Cora didn’t want to work for Breslow anymore, and he’s got 12 million reasons why he didn’t care about being fired.
BTW – Cora walked it back, sending a “goodbye Boston” tweet out.
FPG You can hate the front office and still have love for the fans. Im glad the divorce is happening now and not in July.
bum – Agreed, but it’s an awful look to tweet “Happy”. If he truly loved the Boston fanbase he wouldn’t be “happy”.
Calling it now, Red Sox go 81-53 the rest of the way, get a WC spot, Chad Tracy wins AL manager of the year, and also the governor makes me the official mascot of Massachusetts
This is more conceivable than most people think. I’ll rest easy with your optimism matching mine.
Meow – I have good news and bad news.
Good news: The Massachusetts mascot will be a cat.
Bad news: DJ Kitty already has the job.
I’ll arch my back and hiss at him, that’s the spirit of Meowsachusetts
Is MeowMeow actually Mike Birbiglia?
I see this happening if the pitching staff turns it around. Boston has really good pitching they only need a mediocre offense.
As a Cardinals fan, thank you Boston for Chaim Bloom!
Here comes Pujols opportunity to manage
Much better choice than Molina would ever be…… but Pujols is not a good choice for manager.
Maybe not manager but he should get an opportunity as a hitting coach. Both Pujols and Bonds should at least be hitting coaches.
If bloom traded puljols in his prime ala mookie youd feel differently
I think the call to trade Mookie came from Henry. I also think Henry rushed the deal through, the haul was horrible as it basically became Verdugo for Mookie. I don’t hold Chaim Bloom responsible for that one as I think superstars are an ownership thing. Mookie hasn’t exactly been a top 5 player in LA though either.
The Cardinal problem is that we also gifted the Reds Tito Francona, and he’s more valuable than Bloom.
But you got Bloom and we got Contreras, so call it even.
What a fabulously asinine comment.
Why don’t they just choose their coaches in tbe June draft?
Why don’t they just choose new coaches in the June draft?
Breslow seems to be an extremely popular figure in Boston.
Popular like Covid was a few years ago maybe
How long has Darragh been waiting to use the Red Wedding reference in an article?
I don’t know, but I’m very disappointed that it wasn’t the Boston Massacre.
The Yankees own that term from 1978.
Better yet…. that wonderful, infamous, legendary…. ALCS of 2004…. when Boston came back from the dead in Game 6 and finished off the NYY……. You are never going to top that! A wonderful time in baseball…..
Carrabis used it first. Before Passan actually.
Breslow should have traded Cora, but then again, his transactions have done more harm than good. Not sure we can blame him as he seems more like a “yes” man for ownership no longer interested in winning the WS!
Fenway Sports Group is a conglomerate — Boston Red Sox, Liverpool FC, NESN, Pittsburgh Penguins, RFK Racing, SportsNet Pittsburgh. Not every sportsball team can be owned or operated by a hedge fund billionaire.
The Red Sox certainly can operate by themselves. How do you think FSG was able to buy those other entities….
All articles keep saying ( shows also) Tek is being reassigned within the organization…I see the conversation going as…”Jason how would you like to be our 3rd catcher?? No?? …..We are parting ways with Jason and thank him for all he’s done for the Red Sox organization throughout his career…..
So is Tek gone or not? I keep reading both
Ted & Olm – Tek claimed he was never offered a re-assignment, and he’s not planning on staying with the organization per Cotillo & McAdam.
I think the situation is fluid. Tek needs to do some soul searching and figure out what’s most important, his career or staying with his 29-year employer. I’m sure he’s still very emotional, he took the firings the hardest.
As for the Red Sox, I gotta believe they understand the optics of firing a wildly popular longtime Red Sox legend and not offering him another job. They were smart enough to retain guys like Rice, Pedro, Ortiz …. gotta believe they will do the same for Tek, right? Right? Right?
FPG… Boy I sure hope so!!! But I have a better chance at picking a Derby winner this Saturday than Tek taking over for Cora this past Sunday or him even considering it… For what it’s worth I hope Tracey pulls a Steve Fisher, That would be a hell of story!! T minus 5 days…!!!🏇
🤣😂💥 so awesome
Calling it a massacre might be going a bit too melodramatic
Red Wedding-style massacre? what the hell is that referenced to ?
Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones
I had never heard of it either….. I am one of the 50% of the free world population that never watched any of Game of Thrones.
You did not miss much.
Guy – Me neither, I never cared for medieval stuff.
The Purge would have been a better analogy.
@FPG & BBG1: Same. I’ve been to Medieval Times and King Richard’s Faire, which have been fun. Maybe someday on GoT.
Steve – I went to MT in Toronto, it was okay. But watching it on TV is boring to me.
@FPG: The wife and I took our daughter to the one in NJ last summer. It was better than I was expecting. The little one absolutely loved it, she eats everything with her bare hands anyway lol
loved the Red Wedding reference
Cora guided the team to the playoffs three times in 7 full seasons and finished last the rest of the time. I don’t get the mourning over his firing. They said on the pregame show yesterday: “Managers are basically hired to be fired”
Rsox – 2 of the 4 times they missed the playoffs, they didn’t finish last (2019/2024) … they actually finished 3rd.
But your overall point is spot on.
baseball is played by human beings and clubhouse vibes matter. yes breslow built an anemic lineup but there was clearly something not right with the team and in the last 2 weeks cora left crochet and bello out to dry. everyone freaked out about the devers trade but the team took off after he left. i predict this will be addition by attraction
subtraction duh
Attributing the takeoff to Devers leaving is confirmed bias at its peak. So many variables.
Are you reading what your players are saying about communication this time around. Very similar theme.
not my players i’m a yankee fan. the red sox were 37-36 with devers and 52-37 without him. of course a variety of things contributed to this improvement but management obviously felt the clubhouse drama was enough of a distraction to salary dump a top-20 hitter (at the time). my overall point is that when people completely dismiss clubhouse issues they sound like they’ve never had a job. baseball is a daily grind. the team lives together, travels together, etc. just because you can’t measure the impact of interpersonal tension on performance it doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Eeewwww. Yankees fan. I’m never buying the Devers leaving, Boston starts winning argument. Sh@ts me. Grossly unfair assumption.
That clubhouse drama was supposedly created by poor communication. Now this little affair has both Story and Whitlock standing up and publicly criticising the FO over communication. I’m thinking there might be a theme.
whatever the reason for the clubhouse drama/tension (i think breslow is a disaster) the question is whether it can effect team performance. i believe it can. the red sox would need to be among the worse teams in history to NOT improve over the rest of the season so breslow should be able to make the case the blood-letting was a net positive (whatever the actual truth)
I would think it can.
It’s weird. Breslin is an ex player so I would have thought communication with players would be a strong point. Apparently not.
Breslow
dasit – Yeah this reminds me of the old saying “A team is never as good as they look winning, nor as bad as they look losing”.
The defense and pitching is just too good to be a bad team. As usual Cora failed to properly prepare the team for the season, that was the root cause of the awful start. A few injuries (Oviedo, Slaten, Gray, Romy) didn’t help.
foppert – Jimmy Breslow? ;o)
foppert – It’s not weird. If I hint why, my post will be removed. LOL!
crochet/ranger/gray/early/tolle
cole/fried/rodon/shlittler/warren (or weathers)
come july the yankees and red sox might be battling for best rotation in the sport
dasit – The Yankees will call up Gil every time they play the Red Sox. LOL
provided the temperature is lower than 45 degrees
So I assume we should here from Tom Werner stating that we are going ” full steam ahead”, or are they sticking with the “fresh starts and necessary changes” line now that we have replaced the manager. So glad I didn’t purchase MLB TV to watch the sox. Well who knows how the rest of season will pan out, this could be a blessing in disguise. God willing.
Good lord, Joe Cronin must be 120 years old.
…Mets prob will pick him up.
Well, his 1236 managerial wins and .540 winning percentage would be an improvement over Mendoza’s record.
Hope they had passports.
Canada Customs lines can be hours long….
Not one!
Not two!
But threeee new coaches!
Thank you for this opportunity Boston!
-The Count
Line up looking more like I expect it to look defensively. I think Anthony at DH is better than him in the field. Hitting 3rd is also better than lead off.
As a NYM observer I thought in some screwed up way BOS GM Bloom at the time regrettably traded Mookie knowing they still had Devers and they didn’t want to pay 2 long term mega contracts. I believe Devers signed an extension after Mookie was traded.
Devers has a personality that take a lot of patience to put up with etc. but I got the sense he was mostly upset that a outside FA player Bregman was signed and he was expected to move to 1B to accommodate the new guy.
It is was true Bregman is a better defensive 3B but I think Devers might have felt ambushed and disrespected. I get the suck it up and do what’s best for the team mindset expected of Devers he knew some other teams would be interested and he was content to move on and even play 1B as a permanent move given some mental and physical reps to prepare himself. As personal pride he didn’t want to embarrass himself and hurt his new team. My sense of that spilt milk under the bridge so to speak.
Lastly I would be interested of thoughts of BOS fans IF there could be a trade match between the NYM and them. Assume McLean, Benge, Tong not available and Crochet, Anthony not available.
I really like Raffaella but might accept Duran.
What players in a package might interest BOS?
Maybe None.
I think my team NYM should all get eye tests as a start. Ship Be Sinking and On Fire for 2026 campaign. Titanic II maybe. 😉 Argh.
Seriously though I think BOS will be OK and probably get a Wild Card in a competitive league. Once Anthony settles in and gets more comfortable the whole offense will do better.
Could always use more BP depth like every team.
Mason Miller is a Beast with SDP of course you know this. He ain’t going nowhere
AND I wouldn’t be surprised IF DET holds on to Skubal for the whole year. They get at least a compensating pick and can still negotiate plus who knows what new CBA rules will happen
Your analysis is a little off. Betts was traded before the 2020 season and that was more about the Henry trying to see how they could run a franchise like the Rays. Devers saga is more tied to Bogaerts. Bogaerts was another casualty to the whole,”let’s be cheap” strategy and he was offered an offensive contract extension and eventually went to the Padres. Devers got the contract he did more to make sure homegrown players didn’t start wondering why bother if they weren’t going to get a payoff.
As for Devers attitude, frankly when you’re the highest paid player and you’re homegrown, there are expectations. One is to be a leader and Devers was far more content in ducking his head.
As for any trade the Red Sox make during the season, it comes down to one word: power.
The Devers trade wouldn’t look so bad if they had kept the pieces they acquired or acquired better pieces w/ those players.
Tibbs is crushing baseballs in AAA for LAD & Kyle Harrison looks like a legitimate mid rotation starter.
Unfortunately Durbin is playing terrible and Dustin May was a terrible pickup last year as a rental.
Sounds lie Cora was already offered the Phils head coaching job but declined!
Stunning? Nope
Long over…… Absolutely!