In a stunning early-season move, the Red Sox have announced a massive shakeup of their coaching staff. Manager Alex Cora has been fired, and many of his coaching staff have also been let go. That includes 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.
Triple-A manager Chad Tracy will become the interim manager for the big-league club. Per the club’s announcement, Chad Epperson will serve as the interim third base coach, and Collin Hetzler will also join the major league hitting staff. Meanwhile, game planning and run prevention coach Jason Varitek is being reassigned to a different role.
Red Sox owner John Henry issued the following statement:
Alex Cora led this organization to one of the greatest seasons in Red Sox history in 2018, and for that, and the many years that followed, he will always have our deepest gratitude. He has had a lasting impact on this team and on this city. He has led on and off the field in so many important ways. These decisions are never easy, but this one is especially difficult given what Alex has meant to the Red Sox since the day he arrived.
I want to thank Alex, our coaches, and their families for everything they have given to this organization. They have been part of this club in a way that goes beyond the field, and they will always have our respect and gratitude.
The Red Sox are off to a brutal 10-17 start in 2026. They are currently in last place in the AL East. That kind of performance is well below expectations for a club that earned a Wild Card spot in last year’s playoffs and made several moves to upgrade the roster during the offseason. It is difficult to say how much of that blame is on Cora as the manager, but evidently, the club felt a massive shakeup was necessary to break out of their slump.
Cora has served as the team’s manager since 2018, save for a one-year absence in 2020 while serving a suspension for his role in the Astros’ 2017 sign-stealing scandal. He compiled a 620-541 (.534) record in his time leading the Red Sox. His first season was undoubtedly his best, as the team won 108 games and defeated the Dodgers in five games to claim their fourth World Series title of the century.
Since returning from his suspension, the club’s performance under Cora has been less consistent. A 92-win season in 2021 was followed by last-place finishes in 2022-23, a .500 season in 2024, and 89 wins in 2025. Nonetheless, he is regarded as one of the top managers in the game and widely respected by his players. The team signed him to a three-year, $21.75MM extension in July 2024, which covered the 2025-27 seasons. The $7.25MM annual salary made Cora one of the highest-paid managers in the game.
The extension was also notable because it followed a recent change in baseball operations leadership. Chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom was fired in September 2023. He was replaced by Craig Breslow. Given the change in top brass, it was fair to wonder if Cora would stay beyond 2024, the last year of his contract. The fact that Cora was extended through 2027 signaled confidence in his leadership and a desire for continuity under Breslow. In that context, Cora’s departure less than halfway through the extension is even more surprising.
In the end, the team’s performance this year may have simply been bad enough for club executives to want a change. Red Sox hitters have batted just .226/.306/.335 through their first 26 games, not including today’s blowout win. That amounts to a 78 wRC+, which ranks dead last in the Majors. Among their qualified hitters, Wilyer Abreu (130 wRC+) and trade acquisition Willson Contreras (115 wRC+) are the only ones performing at an above-average level. The other hitters range from below-average to downright dreadful.
It is still very early in the season, so small sample sizes need to be taken into account. However, the fact that the team’s offense is collectively struggling to this extent is more worrisome than if merely one or two players were underperforming. As with Cora as manager, it’s hard to say how much of that falls on the coaching staff, though it is noteworthy that most of the departing staff members are hitting coaches rather than pitching coaches.
On the pitching side, pitching coach Andrew Bailey and bullpen coach Chris Holt will remain in their roles. Red Sox pitchers have underperformed just like the hitters, though the club is undoubtedly banking on positive regression as the season goes on. Garrett Crochet is off to a rough start, including a 10 earned run shelling on April 13, but he is one of the top five starters in the game and will surely recover. The team signed Ranger Suarez to a five-year deal over the offseason, and he is due for positive regression as well.
Like the offense, the rotation has talented young players like Connelly Early, Brayan Bello, and Payton Tolle at its disposal. However, the club may have greater confidence in the pitching staff’s ability to rebound due to the track records of veterans Crochet, Suarez, and Sonny Gray (who is currently injured). The bullpen, which has a 3.73 ERA, similarly features veterans Aroldis Chapman and Garrett Whitlock. In contrast, most of the offensive struggles are from talented players with shorter track records, such as Caleb Durbin and Ceddanne Rafaela, as well as veterans who have struggled in recent years, like Trevor Story. Thus, the offense may have a greater need for new coaches, while the pitching staff (or at least the rotation) is more likely to recover on its own.
Time will tell if the managerial and coaching changes will bring about improved performance from the Red Sox. In order to match last season’s 89 wins, the club would need to play at 95-win pace the rest of the way. That is a significant challenge, of course, but perhaps not an insurmountable one with the young talent on the roster. As for Cora, he may look for a new managerial gig or even a role in a front office. He has expressed interest in front office roles before, including around the time of his July 2024 extension. Given his overall track record, he is a lock to find another role in baseball if he wants it.
Jeff Passan of ESPN was first to report the firings of Cora and Vázquez. He also reported the firing of Hudson. Julian McWilliams of CBS Sports was first to report on Fatse and Lawson’s firings, while Chris Cotillo of MassLive was first on Cronin. He also added that Bailey and Holt were staying in their roles. Gabrielle Starr of the Boston Herald was first on Tracy’s promotion, and Ari Alexander of 7News Boston clarified that Varitek was being reassigned rather than fired.
Photos courtesy of Peter Aiken and Dale Zanine, Imagn Images
Holy moly….
After the way Bello pitched yesterday, I was wondering if the players may have quit on Cora.
I think they did a while ago.
Suit- my thoughts exactly. Bello seemed to ignore him on the mound and the proceeded to continue getting bombed
Pretty sure Bello would’ve stopped the bleeding of he could. Like the manager or not he is still playing for his own well being.
Bello signed a 6 year/$55M contract. His well-being is secured.
I was watching. The mound visit by Cora in the fourth came across to me as a bit odd. He was doing a lot of speaking and there wasn’t much responding. It all seemed a bit off.
Bello said something to Cora to the effect of “vete a la mierda”. I don’t think there was much mutual respect there.
I did not expect this.
And I couldn’t be happier.
Cardinals Nation would be happy to see a veteran manager such as Alex Cora as the Cardinals Manager!!
Plus they’d love to pay the Air Fare for Oli Marmol to leave St. Louis and head to Boston!!!
I don’t think you can blame Cora for Bello getting rocked, he does that for the love of the game.
Is about time. Cora can be a strong manager for a veteran club, as we saw in 2021, but he has no idea how to manage this group. He leaned heavily on Bregman last year.
The season is lost, but hopefully the players can start to make progress again, as individuals and as a team.
The season is lost? History would suggest otherwise. In 2024 the Astros started out 7-19. Over the final 136, they won more games than any team in MLB, lost the division by one game, and made to postseason as a Wild Card.
The roster doesn’t have that kind of talent. They needed a fair amount of luck to make the post-season starting from 0-0.
I have a feeling that Cora lost the respect of the team a while back. I don’t think we ever found out what the issue was with Narvaez that led to him being benched. You wonder if he called Cora out for something. It shows you that management felt the coaching staff was more responsible than the players for the slow start. Now we will see if new coaching can turn things around. It is interesting that the Sox have one of if not the best offensive game of the season on the same day Cora is fired.
Uncle, yesterday’s ninth should be ignored given it was off a position player, still a nice win but don’t overstate what happened.
Dewey- Had not realized he was a position player. That would definitely make a big difference. Still interesting that they had done better offensively even before the ninth than recent games for Cora’s last.
The offense was never going to be great, but it should be a little steadier than it has been. Cora spent an awful lot of effort trying to make chopped liver into filet mignon, and the end result was worse than what he started with. Maybe Tracy can allow a mediocre lineup to be simply mediocre?
The starting pitching has been the real disaster this year.
I heard talk about Breslow saying there’re was a “pervasive sense of a lack of accountability” among the coaching staff. That they neither held themselves nor players to a higher standard. Of preparation or performance. That is why he cleaned house.
Replacing that many people will leave a philisophical void unless Breslow steps in and is very vocal about what he expects from the players and new coaching staff. He doesn’t have to go public with that, just behind closed doors.
He promoted the Worcester staff, as far as I can tell. The development team there has done great work over the last few years, so I wouldn’t worry too much about a philosophical void.
Ummm, only four runs were given up by a position player…
Listening to TK and Bagwell (on Astros broadcast) talking about this yesterday, they said that there’s likely something wrong. When this many are fired, something is deeply wrong. Players must have a lot of complaints.
That’s fair, fans also have a lot of complaints, about the players, the manager, the GM, and especially ownership. The Chief Weasel, Sam Kennedy, is at the heart of the problems with the team. Too bad he can’t be fired.
It feels like the organization has been fighting itself for a few years now, perhaps ever since the Bogaerts departure. Maybe this can help get them back on the same page?
Or the front office is just that terrible. Either way it’s not a good look for our Red Sox.
Players quitting on Cora is such a moronic statement. If anything he is a player manager. Players can just suck its a thing. Bello is as over rated to begin with. And probably why rumors of him on the block were true.
Certainly some players were not happy to see the change, but there may have been tensions in the clubhouse. They have given Cora plenty of leeway in the past, it would be interesting to know what made this different. Could just be the fan frustration and management not wanting to have all of the offseason moves come across as bad. It sounded like their main message was that they have the talent to succeed and just need a new voice to get them there. Only time will tell.
Uncle: I am curious as to what went wrong this year. Many of the coaches had been around for years. This was Fatse’s 5th year as hitting coach. Things went well last year. So what changed this year?
Fba- how many games have you watched? Cora platooned the life out of Anthony. Mayer, Duran. He made terrible bullpen decisions, he pulled Belli out of every meaningful start the kid ever had and screwed over Devers
Good riddance to bad rubbish
Uncle- obviously I have no way to know this, but only a bunch, i’d say that Cora was sitting Anthony more than his back hurt, and thats the straw that broke the camel’s back. Its bad enough hes been batting him first, that was a bridge too far
Suit- Breslow deserves no praise for the team he constructed, but Cora has been showing him up for two years now, leaving relievers in to get pummeled, batting guys out of order, overpaying utility players and those lineups….Cora is a pompous perk!
That “talk” he had with Bello in the third inning Friday was all you needed to see. The players basically ignored him
The offense was mediocre last year — a 103 wRC+. They were a little better in 2021 and 2024, and a little worse in 2022-2023. Struck out 22%+ of the time every year, never walked more than 8.4% of the time. How many players delivered their best game under Fatse? How many of them improved as soon as they left the team? I don’t think he was awful, but there are probably some players who would have done better with a different coach. Always are.
I feel like Bregman was big for them and losing him hurt them a lot.
I agree. I think he provided leadership and motivated the team to push themselves. Definitely seems like a different team this year. Hopefully the change will help.
Bello was telling Cora off behind his glove. He didn’t hide his mouth well enough because several Spanish language podcasters have commented on what he told Cora.
Interesting.
And yet Carlos Mendoza still has a job.
He’s next to go.
Hopefully. Mendoza is almost as bad as Cora.
Not for long. He is fired by mid season.
Joe Morgan is still alive! I wonder if he’d be up for another stint as Red Sox manager. He did great taking over the team in the middle of the season. I’ve never seen anyone play so many weird hunches and have them almost all work out! Lol.
Six, Two, and Even!
He’s 95.
Joe Kerrigan or we riot!
Morgan died at age 77.
RIP
@robw5555: former Red Sox manager, not former Cincinnati Red
Forever cheater
yup. Glad the a-hole is gone, even if there’s a real chance that benefits the team.
Yupp, look at those 2018 player stats. Everyone had a career year and has yet to replicate it; Betts, JD Martinez, Benintendi, etc.
And for some reason Betts does not wear the cheater label.
MLB’s investigation of the 2018 Red Sox went on for months and uncovered no evidence of cheating. They admitted this in their report when they said they have a “factual dispute”, “largely have no direct evidence” and “no written record, recording or other contemporaneous evidence of the underlying events”. If there was any evidence, the facts would not be in dispute. The conclusion of cheating “on at least some occasions” was clearly based on speculation as MLB’s investigation failed to document a single occasion of cheating by admission, eye witness or any other means. Reporters have unfortunately focused on the conclusion and not the lack of evidence. This was all very unfair to the Red Sox and Red Sox fans.
You say it’s unfair to the Red Sox and their fans, yet Sam Kennedy said, “John and Tom took full responsibility and apologized to those guys for what happened,” & “Tonight, I want to join them and apologize to the other clubs around the league and to our fans.”
So he said on the record that they apologized, knowing that what they did was not fair.
Their video scout decoded opponents’ signs during the 2018 regular season which was a violation of Major League regulations.
Manfred barred the scout to ever be in the video room plus they stripped the Red Sox of a draft pick.
Those bloated stats those 3+ guys had were clearly evidenced by their sign decoding.
So, what’s good for the goose (Astros, Bonds, Sosa, Black Sox, McGuire, etc.) is also good for the gander (Red Sox).
MLB never established that the 2018 Red Sox did anything and they admitted that as I explained above with quotes from MLB’s report (“factual dispute”, “largely have no direct evidence” and “no written record, recording or other contemporaneous evidence of the underlying events”). You should read MLB’s report. John Henry had nothing to apologize for as nothing was found – no instances of cheating or any evidence in the report. The commissioner issued a “finding” and he can “find” something either with or without evidence.
I need see that evidence of wrongdoing before I condemn anyone.
The report concluded there was no illegal sign stealing in the 2018 postseason as every video room had a MLB monitor during every game. It looks like John Henry thought he was apologizing for very infrequent stuff during the regular season which is what MLB’s report concluded (without evidence).
“What I regret most about all of this beyond the toll it took on our organization is the position it put our fans in — having for months to wonder if the 2018 championship could actually be the result of unfair play,” Henry wrote to Speier. “It’s clear from the report that these isolated occurrences in 2018 happened during the regular season. The report references how often those instances called into question had an opportunity to take place and within the context of the overall season all one has to do is the math to see the net potential result. But I’ll let others do the math.”
masslive.com/redsox/2020/04/red-sox-owner-john-hen…
Cora will forever be known as a cheater
Interesting.
People said the same about the Padres after the first 10 or so games and then things started going right.
Ding dong the cheating B*tch is dead
Yankee fan here.
This team was built pretty poorly. Their pitching and defense approach has been a disaster. This reeks of a bad GM throwing some blame around.
I like it, bc F*** the red sox, but this is a bad move to me. It’s April.
WOW!!!!
Raz – Wow indeed!!! Red Sox Nation has been waiting for this day since 2019!!!
Sucks to see Tek go, but he will land on his feet.
Fever, Tek isnt gone, he’s in a different role…
GaSox – Thanks, yeah I posted before Passan added that part. I do wonder if Tek accepted the new role already.
Fever,
You gotta be happy that Cora is gone now, but Red Sox are in a bad spot. Still early but whoever is the new manager has a tall task ahead of them. Honestly, I never thought they’d fire Cora considering how much ownership liked him.
Acoss – Ditto, I never imagined it happening this soon.
Would be hilarious if this is the first trade deadline where the Sox acquire at least one impact player ….. Cora hasn’t gotten real deadline help since Schwarber in 2021, and even then he was on the DL for a while.
Glad to hear Tek is still with the organization. I know he’d do fine but I don’t want to see him anywhere else. Probably true what mafia said that he’s too close to this mess to be made manager right now, even though he would be the first choice for most of us. Good luck to Chad Tracy, he’s got a big mess to clean up.
dirty – I just read a good article stating there’s been no discussion between management and Tek about the new role. He has no idea what the new role is, and won’t be told until “a later date”. There’s no guarantees he will accept it. He also took the news very, very hard.
I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s an empty position created just because they don’t want the optics of a franchise icon and fan favorite getting dumped by the franchise he’s been with for nearly 3 decades. If he doesn’t accept the position and he leaves, Sam Kennedy can say “If Jason Varitek wanted to be here, ultimately he’d be here.”
I wonder what that new role is. Glad he is still with the club.
Varitek is every part of this mess and should’ve been let go as well. Not re-assigned. He preaches the crazy analytics now. The team whiffs a ton. Most of the offense is hitting under .230. The team batting average is .233. The youth isn’t as good as advertised. I’ve been skeptical of them for a while. Varitek was a game-planning coordinator. Whatever he was doing was not working out. The numbers are awful.
The pitching is atrocious as well. That’s another issue. Andrew Bailey deserves the blame there. Ridiculous to retain him and dump everyone else.
But giving Varitek this free pass because he is a fan-favorite and has been with the organization for almost 30 years is a bad look.
The Red Sox need to fix everything from top to bottom.
Ultimately, until John Henry starts to care again, nothing will change. This is just shuffling a deck of cards. The team will be in the same place in 2027.
Who cares about optics. In fact, optics have been garbage for this franchise for a while.
This is 2026. Not 2004. Varitek wasn’t doing anything special in a role the team created to keep him in the organization.
Just because someone played well for a team, it doesn’t give them a free pass to stay.
If Tom Brady was coaching the Patriots and stunk up the joint, I’d call him out as well.
With the exception of the Celtics, all the Boston teams are or were coached by fan favorites this year. It isn’t a free pass if they are bad at their job.
Well, if they’re in a better spot, you ought to be glad. Right?
Sell – Optics are very important to every team, you want to keep your longtime stars in the fold after retirement. Why do you think Ortiz, Rice, Pap etc are still employees under the Red Sox umbrella and guys like Pedro are still part of the franchise as “Special Assistant”.
GaSox – Per Cotillo, Tek declined the new position.
Like I said elsewhere, him not being named interim manager means his desire to manage will have to come with another team.
It was probably an insulting optics-only reassignment offer so Kennedy can say “If Jason Varitek wanted to be here, ultimately he would be here.”
I’m still hoping for David Ross coming aboard during the offseason.
Red Sox ownership are cheap, cheap, cheap. they liked him as long as they could because they owe him for this year and next. they only gave him the heave ho because they players said “no mas”
Someone had to go to shake things up. Can’t fire Breslow because he knows starting pitching. Not only did he build the Sox rotation but Atlanta and Milwaukee as well.
Cora had Durbin and IKF and still couldn’t win!
Didn’t have Grissom though. Anyone check oit his stats? SSS. Not going to last but incredible
AI – i dont like Breslow either, but, Cora took weird and obvious decisions to so Breslow up on the field. You can’t do that to your boss
Breslow is alright. He can find pitching. Just needs to keep it or trade it for something other than utility players.
GM – Haha … you had me there for a minute with the rotation building. I appreciate your humor, it helps dull the pain of reading another Sale pitching line (6 IP, 1 H, 9 K, 0 ER).
Cheap because they are pouring their money into a European soccer club/
I think that Tek needs some minor-league managing experience. I would run with Tracy first.
I saw somewhere that he’s being reassigned instead of let go. I don’t want to see Tek in another uniform. Honestly, I want him to be the manager, but he’s probably too close to all this. Plus just because I want it doesn’t mean he does.
Why would Varitek make a good manager? Because he called a good game as a catcher? He couldn’t even do his job as a game planning coordinator or whatever it is called. Good riddance if he moves on.
Sell- We don’t know how much say Varitek actually had and if anything he was doing was a significant factor. It could be that Cora was a control freak and made most of the decisions, leaving Varitek waiting to get an opportunity. I think if he did have a major impact in the season being so bad he would be gone as well. Maybe we will start hearing things from the players. I don’t think he was kept just for optics. We also don’t know how he will be used with this changed role.
Same goes for Bailey. I don’t know how much of the issues with the pitchers was tied to the work he has done with them or was it tied to the quality/health of the staff along with how Cora used them. I agree that the pitching has not been impressive and was surprised they kept Bailey. They obviously felt he has the potential to help turn things around.
We should get a better feel now that Cora is gone.
Uncle- Breslow hired Bailey and he stayed. Pretty telling, no?
Also, Cora stepping out of line this week and saying he was negotiating and talking to agents this past off season…you dont show up your boss like that in any walk of life…
Fever- I did not see this coming. Was this done before or after their big win yesterday? I did not see the game just the box score. It was obvious that they needed a change. Things were different this year and I think Cora had run his course and was losing the team. Once you lose the players it gets pretty hopeless.
Uncle – After, The Holy Trio was waiting for Cora and the coaches in the team hotel after the game.
Did you see the tweet from Cora last night? He knows he won’t be out of work for very long, he will probably return in 2028 with some other team.
FPG
Breslow keeping his guy Bailey . I want to see him keep working with Tolle and Early. Whatever they are applying to them is working. Now Bello needs a new voice or strategy to get the most out of him. The development in the minors ( pitching) seems to be at a all-time high.
Crazy thought… If Story, Mayer, Durbin ,ect. continue to struggle and he continues to excel at newly reached AA, can 20 years old Arias make the jump to the Sox???
cdc – hi!
You’re about the 80th person to suggest Arias.
I’m against it, we all saw what happened with KC. And Arias has spent far less time in the minors than KC had. I don’t want Arias getting ruined, especially with such a chaotic environment right now. Press conference is going on now.
FPG- youre right, this isn’t about Story or Arias.
If we go forward with Duran leading off, Anthony third, Mayer playing every day and Ceddane not batting ninth, its a helluva start.
Plus, as an added bonuses starters pitching into the 7th
All I can say is hallelujah
Breslow must be feeling breath on the back of his neck.
Breslow now gets to pick his own manager and staff instead of being stuck with Cora and his buddies.
Skip, thats the biggest asterisk that has bothered me about all the Chaim and Breslow hate — neither were allowed to implement their own coaching staff that better align with their visions and roster construction.
If this team somehow turns it around now, and if Breslow makes a few impactful additions, then that goes a long way to say how much Cora was negatively impacting the output.
Cora was fired. Chaim at least officially, went through the motions of interviews and chose to hire Cora.
Breslow, however, you are correct didnt have that luxury, till now.
GA we both know that the Mookie trade and Cora re-hiring came from above
Mike – That’s probably just his wife standing over him, telling him to get off the damn computer.
That doesn’t change nothing.
That doesn’t change *anything.
are you the Grammer cops or do you agree?
*grammar
Kelsey Grammar
Tossed salads and scrambled eggs
they’re callin’ again!
Well we kind of need him to improve his grammar so we can even know if we agree or not. It’s not like it’s a simple typo, the double negative is saying the exact opposite of what he probably means.
Goodnight Boston!
Yes there are grandma cops here.
So it changes everything, you mean?
or, it must at least change something.
dawg – We are hoping they ended the contract with Driveline too. That would be a huge change.
That would be monumental.
Eliminate that and you’ll see improvement. Sadly, Varitek preached their ideals.
Sell – I don’t fault Tek for that, he’s just doing what he was told to do.
Similar to Breslow doing what Henry told him to do.
Whenever you have a boss, if you want to keep your job you have to do what they say.
It changes EVERYTHING!
It might. We can see that the team is underperforming, and that players tend to get better when they leave Boston. Why? It isn’t all because we’re a relentless fan base.
So what does it change?
Something at least. Cora once Phillies maybe? I doubt Thomson’s seat is that hot. but DD and Cora are buds, according to Smoltz.
padd – The irony of it, Cora forced Dombrowski out the door by tanking the 2019 season.
But who knows, crazier things have happened. Cora has also expressed strong interest in eventually going into a front office job.
Dombrowski hired Cora and gave him his 1sr Managerial job in Boston. They won a World Series together with the team Dombrowski built in Boston,
I thing your problem in Boston is Sam Kennedy and Tom Henry.
Can’t fire Tom Henry,but what about Kennedy?!
Correct batting orders, stopping useless platooning, correct bullpen rotation
Managers dont won a lot of games, but boy, they sure can lose them
Sad – Well said.
It’s like umpires, if they do their job then nobody talks about them.
FPG- I guess Breslow didnt like that Cora said midweek that he was in on all the Offseason moves LOL
Bres wants all the credit for that mess to himself
Sad – Could be.
Also yesterday in an interview he was asked if he felt his job was safe. In a cocky manner, he replied by saying he’s not worried at all. He said his biggest worry was helping his family pack for PR.
That had to rub Henry the wrong way.
Henry just wanted to make sure he had all the time he needed to help them pack.
You want to see some asinine lineups look no further than Kotsay with my A’s. It’s literally so.e of the worst I’ve ever seen and I’ve been watching baseball my entire life.
Disagree with that premise.
Sad- Completely agree. The managers and coaches put the players in the best position to win if they are doing their job well. If they don’t it is an uphill battle. There were definitely a lot of questionable moves this year that I think made it more challenging to get momentum going.
Uncle – Many believe the situation with Bello and what happened Friday night was the tipping point. There was something weird going on that night. Cora going out for the mound visit was highly unusual. Leaving him in as long as he did was also questionable. And Bello was obviously very angry. I’m going to see if I can find out more about that situation.
It doesn’t change nothing, it changes everything.
They say it can change nothing into everything. But in my experience it’s far simpler to change everything into nothing, i.e. Shiva the Destroyer.
Where are fpg and the rest of the cora haters…maybe at the bar celebrating?
FPG is gonna be a Cora apologist now since Breslow fired him
Chief Baseball Officer = bad
Anyone who goes against the CBO = good
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if thousands of voices suddenly cried out in joy and were suddenly dancing in the streets…
Since the players had all quit on Cora anyway, what’s to be upset about?
John Henry decided to nuke the dugout staff coming off that Yankee sweep at Fenway in midweek. It didn’t matter that the BoSox thumped the O’s in Baltimore this afternoon.
The players didn’t quit on Cora, the players just suck in general. You’re implying Cora has something to do with their poor metrics, but what if they just suck? I find it hard to believe they are playing badly just to stick it to Cora.
I can only speak for myself but I can imagine I’m not the only one who chooses to not spend their entire Saturday parked in front of the computer. I’m very pleased with the news though, thanks for asking! Really did not see this coming at all which makes it an even sweeter surprise. Now I just hope John doesn’t meddle with the hiring process. Let Breslow find his own staff, for better or worse. He made a good pick at pitching coach with Bailey. Even if the general consensus is that he isn’t great at the job, you still have to give the guy a fair chance to actually do his job.
Are you implying there is something wrong with being parked in front of a computer on a Saturday ??
Totally fine to spend a little time on your computer, after all I had to get online myself to be able to write that! But yes you should have enough better things to do on a weekend than spend the entire day online. Doing the “where are the (insert group)?” thing within an hour of a story that broke around dinner time on a Saturday is silly. Hopefully they were out in the real world doing other things, I know I was.
Yep! Shots all around. And again when that cheating pos never gets another mlb job.
My message to John Henry: Hire rising indie rockstar Cameron Winter to be the next manager!
Were you in a Boston baaaaar as you were writing that? I’m sure after a few brews he’ll take it under advisement
NO
Why you do this 27 games in is beyond me. Clearing house this early throws in the towel on the season. Absurd
Not necessarily… none of the coaches are playing, they have very minimal impact on the outcome of any game. Players win and lose baseball games, not coaches.
Managers certainly have an impact.
Hank – no one has ever figured out an accepted way to quantify a MLB manager’s impact on the team. It is unknown whether they truly do or do not have an impact, and if there is an impact, to what extent is it the manager versus the players. I think it’s entirely the players.
Take a quick look at the Brewers and see what they did last year with the players they had. Managers have a lot to do with the success (or failure, Mr. Cora) of a team.
Managers and coaches have a huge impact!
I’ve played a lot of baseball. You can teach someone how to play, you can draw up whatever strategies, but at the end of the day, it all comes down to the execution, and that execution is entirely by the players. The manager is the guy who looks good when the players out-execute their opponents, and the manager is an easy scapegoat when the players collectively either fail to execute and/or are not collectively talented enough to win (over the course of a season) no matter what they do. The manager also looks good when something goes right for the team, like bringing in a reliever who gets out of a jam, or a pinch hitter who gets a big hit, but credit where it’s due – it’s always the players.
MLB players are the best in the world and all know how to “execute”. Managers still play a crucial role in several areas:
Creating a thriving environment – Good managers recognize their most important job is building relationships & earning trust. A manager can “lose the clubhouse” quickly if players don’t trust him; Maximizing talent – Even though talent drives winning, great managers help that talent thrive; Game Strategy – Managers make the decisions – lineups, bullpen usage, matchups – that influence outcomes. While players have to “execute”, managers shape the conditions and strategy that allow execution to happen. Alex Cora had one job this winter: Take the roster that was given to him and get the players prepared for Opening Day. He failed. His game management over the years was head-scratching at times and completely ridiculous far too often. He did not seem to relate to the young kids that will make up the core of the Red Sox future. He mismanaged the bullpen, got too cute with his daily lineup adjustments, and seemed to be confused by how to use the ABS system with any competence. My only question is… How did P. Fatse last this long?
I’ve never seen any reason to think baseball coaching has that much impact. They’re about keeping the ship steered in the right direction, not guys whose departure leaves an impossible hole.
Actually, making a change this early leaves time to save the season.
We can only have faith that the Red Sox gel around Tracy. We are only 8 games put in the East and 4 back of a WC spot. There is 5 full months to go.
It’s crazy to think 1/6th of the season is already in the books.
Coaches are just the scapegoats for a teams bad performance usually
They got sick of seeing the same lack of preparation to start seasons, sick of hearing the same ‘we just have to do better’ while not making any changes, amd, not taking any accountability.
You do this exactly after seeing yet another season going down the tubes the way it has so many times in the recent past. Why watch the re-run to its conclusion?
No, it does the opposite. People need to quit pretending there’s no human element to baseball. Can it really get much worse?? This should be a breath of fresh air.
It worked for the Marlins in 2003.
Trader Jack McKeon came back from retirement with his big box of Cigars and lit the fire under the Marlins and rescued them from the outhouse all the way to a World Series Championship!
deal – It’s been known to spark the team.
More importantly, Tracy did a pretty good job managing most of the players in Woosta. It makes sense. As much as I like Tek, he was probably too close to Cora.
Cotillo is saying Tek has been reassigned not fired
Yeah Red Sox official statement is Tek has been reassigned.
Correct fever !! Buffalo Sabres prime example.
Brought in a new coach at the beginning of the season but still struggled.
Fired the GM and brought in someone else and went on immediate tear to first place in the Atlantic. Incredible.
Gary – I don’t follow the NHL that much, but how would Buffalo firing the GM midseason immediately help? Did the new GM make some great moves before the trade deadline?
I’m actually a Sabres fan and I don’t quite understand how it happened. Everything just started clicking. I don’t have another answer than that.
But your point is correct. Make a change in management and it can definitely spark things. Go Sabres !
Gary – I’m not a Bruins fan, so all good ;O)
So who is your football team? It’s the only sport left. LOL
No time for football. Never was attracted to the game.
Sabres fan since 1975 fog finals and my dad complaining that the Flyers were such bullies. We went for the underdogs and been a Sabres fan ever since.
Gary – Well yeah, that’s why the Flyers were called the Broad Street Bullies ;O)
Girardi was let go pretty early in the season with the phillies then they went on a tear and got into the world series i believe that same season or was it just high in the playoffs.
Fly – Yes Girardi was fired June 3rd, and the team went to the WS that same year.
Because Cora’s approach has been completely failing the young core. Whether this team can still be a playoff team like we thought is irrelevant to the timing, the top priority for the Red Sox is making sure they hit on this wave of prospects and Cora’s leadership does not have them on a good footing right now.
Randomly benching Roman here and there. Treating Mayer like a platoon player when he’s at a stage in his development where he needs to play every day and given the trust to try and work through issues. Having Duran swing for the downs every AB which has just resulted in him flailing the bat around helplessly instead of being the XBH machine he used to be. Campbell being stuck in AAA purgatory. Constantly bringing in Weissert to implode in close games. Not reining in all the insanely bad ABS challenges. The infield defense STILL being atrocious despite Mayer and Durbin having good reputations in that department and IKF being a literal Gold Glove defensive specialist. Bello seems to have completely tuned him out and has just been getting shelled this year.
Every additional day spent with these coaches is additional negative development for the younger guys. I’m glad to see they moved with the proper sense of urgency, it was completely unexpected. Maybe the old John Henry is still in there after all!
The towel was already there covering it all up. They are changing the look of the towel. I hate to see nearly everyone lose their job. I would suspect a couple of them were probably fine and possibly beneficial but got caught up in this.
I will not miss Cora one bit. The position and lineup jumbling all the time is a nightmare for players for preparation. I am a huge believer in fine-tuning players at whatever position they have the most beneficial impact to a team and not making them mediocre Swiss pocketknives. Sometimes that involves moving a player’s position, but in that case, you have to commit early in the off season to allow them the maximum time to prepare and acclimate, and most importantly stick to it so they get maximum reps there.
He placed so much value on versatility. There is something to be said for the old days when a player was a solid hitter and was so good at fielding their position that you would pencil them in everyday to play their position and hire another guy with an amazing glove to give people a rest once in a blue moon.
Bullpen usage and construction was always a sticking point with me.
william – Now for the first time in 5 years we will truly find out what decisions Cora was behind, and what decisions the front office was behind.
I’ll be paying close attention. Some think Cora was merely doing what the front office was telling him to do, such as lineups and bullpen usage. Whatever changes from here on out, we will know it wasn’t the front office that was making the decision under Cora.
Fever, you imply we can trust anything Cora says about his tenure. He’s a blame shifting snake. Sort of how i discount most of what Kennedy says, except Cora is worse.
GaSox – My bad, I didn’t word my post very well.
I meant by seeing changes with managerial decisions, not what Cora has to say. I stopped believing what Cora says about 5 years ago.
First thing I will look at is today’s lineup, let’s see where Duran/Rafaela/Contreras/Roman are.
I agree. If things remain mostly the same, we will know that the decision making was coming mostly from the very top. If we see some fundamental past approaches quickly change for better or worse we will see that they were field level choices.
There is so little leeway with offensive pieces for the interim manager.
william – Well whatta ya know, top of today’s lineup is EXACTLY what I’ve been pushing for all season.
Duran – the ultimate leadoff guy, get him back to 2024
Contreras – high OBP guy
Roman – s/b the team’s best hitter
Abreu – best power guy
Story sitting because of what he said?
The stat crunchers running baseball think that your best hitter leading off is great because of the extra at-bats over a full year, and that they really only lead off once. I like the guys that do damage having an optimal chance to do damage with people on base when they do that damage. Different philosophy.
I like speed with OBP leading off and being on base to get pitchers off their game right away, open up the holes for the lefty hitters, and allow your better hitters to drive in a run with a hit from second, and with an extra base hit from first.
william – I keep hearing the stat cruncher excuse of “more PA’s” and every time I do, it drives me up a freakin’ wall.
There was an old article by Bill James that proved the few extra PA’s between leadoff and #3 was not worth the many additional RBI opportunities from the 3-hole, I referenced it all the time …. haven’t been able to find it recently, may have been taken down.
It’s asinine to have your best homerun hitter stepping to the plate with nobody on base every game during the first inning. And with the #8 and #9 hitters batting directly in front of you, obviously not many RBI opportunities.
Fever – its funny, be ause I was thinking to myself as I read Story’s defense of Cora, this is a guy who needs to worry about his own job and lack of production.
Story is not that good of a player, nowhere near it, to be saying he expects more answers put of Breslow and plans on sitting down with him a out Coras firing.
Could very easily lead to being dumped. Story isnt that good to be taking that attitude. Makes me think Cora was deferring to and protecting Story despite his poor performance.
GaSox – I know this won’t change your opinion, but here goes 😉
3.8 WAR last season
Notoriously streaky
Team MVP last year
11 year veteran
5 years with the Sox, longest for a non-pitcher
Team leader who is likely speaking for many teammates
He absolutely has the right to ask questions 😃
Fever – youre right, we’ll agree to disagree on this one.
I liked one quote Story said though…
“If this shows us anything, it’s we’re here to play baseball, and that’s it. We don’t make decisions. We don’t have any input on that,” Story added
Thats it right there Trevor. Know your role and your job, and go do it.
I havent kept tract, but, of his 5 years on the red sox, how much of that time was on the IL? Combine that with his underperformed periods, how.often does he really give value?
Im just counting the days till they can decline his option and move on.
GaSox – What about “They made it very clear that we get paid to play baseball.” It wasn’t said by Story, it was said by another player. Does that put him on your list too ;O)
As for Story, he’s just being loyal to his longtime boss. Even though I’ve obviously disliked Cora as manager for many years, I respect Story for defending him. Over the years I’ve done the same with several of my bosses that were removed.
And yeah, it does suck that so many coaches (particularly Tek) were let go. Quite often it’s strictly due to association only, it happens in the corporate world too.
Not sure if you remember, I went on record as saying they should have traded Story during the offseason when his value was particularly high. I think the chances of him getting traded this coming offseason will be even greater if he puts up comparable numbers to last year.
Agree. Underperformance with visibly diminishing value on a large contract is not a position of strength to argue from.
His time in the league and position of authority as a veteran on the team with experience gives him the right to speak his mind and be listened to, but it isn’t exactly a position of strength.
Also, the shocking revelation that it was pointed out to you that your job is to do your job, and that their job is to do their job comes off as having either an inflated self-value or being blissfully unaware about the order of things of your own profession.
Yeah, people have a voice, but that doesn’t mean your paid for the extra sprinkle of opinions. Thanks for your 2 cents, get back on the assembly line and make your widgets. Management will take it under advisement and do whatever the F we think is best in between cutting your checks.
william – The players, especially those who have been with the Sox for multiple years, simply had questions. Answering those questions would help them deal with the massive change.
Cora and the coaches were the players support system. For more than six months every year, they spend an enormous amount of time together …. travel together, stay on the road together for half the time. It’s a unique bond that is nothing like the corporate world where you say good morning at 9am and then goodbye at 5pm Monday thru Friday.
Look at how much Roman was impacted after just a few months with Bregman. Now imagine someone having the same support system for 5 years.
Yes of course employees don’t get to make personnel decisions. However they do often have valuable input that could assist in senior management’s decisionmaking. Countless times management makes bad, uninformed decisions that result in horrible consequences. The best companies value collaboration between management and staff.
All the players are asking is to be heard, out of respect if nothing else. You can’t expect it to be business as usual immediately after such a massive, sudden firing. In 10-20 years from now when robots replace the workplace then sure, no communication is needed.
But until then, employees are still humans with emotions. Think about all the times successful teams have emphasized “like a family”. There’s a reason for that.
william – A person’s successful track record often gives them a position of strength, even if they are in a monthlong slump.
Think of Yaz and his final few years. He was not very good, as one would expect of a player in his 40’s. You don’t think he still had clout on that team?
What about Sale in 2023, coming off poor and injury plagued seasons …. did he not have a position of strength?
And then you’ve got a 9-year veteran who has won a championship, who is in his prime, who is on a HOF path, the highest paid player on the team, and still hugely productive …. obviously he didn’t have much strength when you look at how he was treated last year.
Current performance is not as big a factor as you think when it comes to leadership and position of strength.
It has nothing to do with me not understanding the player position on the shake up. I get it. It very much looked like he was feigning shock that he didn’t get included in the decision-making process that he has no say in, and that he demanded an acceptable explanation for something that he has no say in.
I didn’t say the players DO NOT have a voice or cannot express it. In the end it is just taken under advisement and the people IN CHARGE that are the ones WHOSE JOB IT IS to make decisions. I pointed out Story seemed to think there was some obligation to include him in that decision or explain it to him satisfactorily.
Our management is horrendous with player communication under the best of situations. They throw players to the wolves (the media and fans) when they want to get rid of them as matter of routine for years. You will rarely see may write complimentary stuff about the ownership and management in regard to how they handle themselves with personnel like broadcasters, players, coaches, etc. That doesn’t mean the dynamics are any different in the end. Go play ball, we will run the team.
As I have said, the players have a voice and are free to express themselves, and they usually do, but not to think that, in the end, they are anything more than employees, or that something above and beyond is owed to them in the owner/player dynamic.
If Mookie was still on the team and hated this mass firing, in what world would that change the circumstances of the already fired coaching staff, the incoming group of coaches you are telling the world you don’t want, and the clubhouse dealing with the fact they just cost a bunch of people their jobs? Everyone in that clubhouse should be banding together trying to figure out to help the next group not get fired because of them as they text the old group saying how bad they feel that they just cost them a job, and probably forcing their families to move.
Here is the short truthful explanation Story and the team seem to think they deserve. “Guys, you got everyone fired.”
william – Where did you see those quotes from Story that gave you the impression he demanded more than the opportunity to ask questions?
Breslow simply doesn’t understand the players are humans with emotions. Many reports indicated several players were literally in tears, including Narvaez and Abreu. Think about that …. grown men crying.
In all seriousness, it’s somewhat of a grieving process they are going through. So if Breslow can help them get through it by simply listening to some questions and empathizing with them, why not? It would help the team because players perform better when they are in a good place.
Breslow admitted after the Raffy debacle that he needed to improve his communication skills …. clearly that hasn’t happened yet.
Story said in the interview that he wanted a more satisfactory answer to why they did what they did and going forward. The answer was obvious why they did it, so not sure what he means by a more satisfactory answer from management. The players fired the coaches with their play. Mystery solved. If they were 10 games up, all hitting and pitching well, my guess is that the coaching staff would be employed still.
So, not sure why he needed a SATISFACTORY explanation. They have no idea what they are doing going forward, or they would have done it before the season, so why ask people with no idea what the plan is to lay it all out for him. Win more games?
“Trevor Story said the Red Sox bosses’ explanation this morning was not sufficient, and he intends to have more conversations with [general manager] Craig Breslow today,” the Boston Globe’s Tim Healey tweeted. I said satisfactory because he used the word insufficient. If its insufficient he needs more to be satisfied.
Ok Sparky. You get the answers you need from ownership and Breslow super star on why exactly, unfiltered, for your benefit, why they fired a bunch of coaches from a high payroll team underperforming for years.
William: I agree with Breslow that the players need to focus on playing baseball and doing their particular jobs well. Sounds like Cora might have been distracting players by complaining about the front office.
william – Thanks. In all fairness to him, the “reason” they gave was brief and vague.
Part of the problem, Cora’s constant craving for acceptance in the clubhouse caused him to treat players like children. He heaped praise on them when it was not deserved, he looked the other way when they messed up, and he downplayed situations that should have been addressed with more urgency and seriousness.
Perfect example is Raffy, who year after year was a poor fielder but year after year Cora said and did things that led Raffy to believe his defense was more than acceptable.
So now the players are probably stunned because they thought everything was hunky-dory.
So if the players truly do have an inflated opinion of themselves, Cora is probably a big reason why.
william – Cora on Dec 9, 2024:
“Obviously people talk about his defense. Actually, I thought last year he did an outstanding job, especially to his left.”
Cora in ST 2025:
“We want Raffy to focus on being the fulltime DH, we told him to put away his glove. Bregman is taking over third base”.
Can you honestly blame anyone getting upset after being deceived that way?
Red Sox management is totally incompetent. When you have an underperforming employee, you bring him into your office and you tell him “This is exactly what’s happening that we don’t like. You have 90 days to improve. If you don’t improve, you’re gone”.
I mean really, how hard is that?
Cora never said such a thing to any of the players, giving them a false sense of security.
Off topic, but one of the biggest stains on MLB is still ongoing and MLB Trade Rumors isn’t covering it.
Bauer was suspended for 2 years after an internal investigation stemming from a case where it was found that a hoax allegation was filed against him. Despite that being the initial reason and publicly and legally debunked, the league declared it was other undisclosed allegations that THEY, not the courts, or police, that had not been charged or found him guilty of, were the reasons.
He obviously appealed and won halving the suspension. The result was a Cy Young award winner with better stuff and control then nearly 3/4 of the league 5 years later still is unemployed at the MLB level. Not a single team for some reason has given him a major league contract, and for obvious reasons that have been agreed to by the league and teams, he will never get one.
4 years ago, Trevor Bauer played in Japan and did extremely well after a nearly 2-year layoff while breaking their attendance records for his outings. Three seasons ago he set a single game strike out record in the Mexican league while being undefeated. The next year he returned to Japan and went 4-10 with a mid 4 ERA. This season he pitched a no-hitter for the Ducks already. At one point before his down year last year in Japan, he was 21-4 with 2.50 ERA with 250 K’s in 214 innings and didn’t get a whiff of a contract.
This guy hasn’t been signed in over 5 years. Remember when both league and team collusion used to be illegal?
William – Agreed, he’s been blackballed much like Canseco and Bonds except Bauer was still in his prime and was guilty of nothing more than being jerky. Crazy how one false allegation can ruin someone’s life.
I dont think its the allegations that did Bauer in, they might have accelerated a process or been a last straw though.
Dont forget his podcast conduct or behavior in general.
You can point to other outrageous guys on other teams, that just means the team is willing to take on that headache. Doesn’t mean every headcase is entitled to have a team deal with them.
His conduct was pointing out blatant cheating in the game for seasons. When baseball refused to deal with blatant cheating in the game he very publicly said he would begin cheating to show the world what kind of an advantage cheating gives pitchers.
He won the Cy Young that very year.
The league finally listened because HE won the Cy Young and changed the rules. No thank you, no mia culpa from MLB. Instead, they changed the rules and procedures to drive him out of the game first, then blackballed him permanently.
What a great lesson for everyone only a decade after the steroid scandal.
william – I think most of us agree MLB lost it’s moral compass decades ago with the departure of it’s last true commissioner.
Remember the sale of the Red Sox was totally corrupt, MLB wanted Henry to own the team.
They then allowed private equity to have ownership stakes, and MLB team owners to own other sports franchises.
And they then got into bed with gambling.
Sleazy immediately comes to mind.
PSA from MLB.
Gambling is bad. Stay tuned for the pre-game gambling lines.
Sponsored by Draft Kings.
william – On Sunday FanDuel’s parlay included Story.
He wasn’t even in the starting lineup, and of course didn’t play at all.
So the Red Sox/NESN/MLB were encouraging people to gamble their money on a wager which was impossible for anyone to win on … FD was the only winner.
It’s ridiculous.
Bauer apologists are sad and more than a bit pathetic. His attorney declared that he did it and said it was consensual. He lost a defamation lawsuit against Deadspin because they said that he did it. He did what he was accused of doing and doing it is against MLB Domestic Violence rules regardless of whether it was a prosecutable offense in a court of law. That there was no court case in what was a he said, she said case is typical.
Baseballisthebest.
The basis was a hoax. The league stated HE WAS GUILTY of violating their conduct clauses and he was punished. The punishment was halved.
So, recap. He did something or somethings (consensually possibly or not), and a group of MLB people thought he should be punished and did so. He served his punishment in its entirety.
Why is it that 32 teams needing pitching don’t have a spot for a Cy Young winner for 5 years? Bear in mind, players that were found guilty by a jury without MVP’s or Cy Youngs were able to find jobs with MLB teams during that same time period. The headache arguments fall flat on a flyer contract when it comes to an extremely talented player.
Everybody knows this is collusion. Also, FYI, I don’t even like Bauer all that much as a person, player, or teammate. I am just not blind to what happened, and why it happened. He embarrassed the league covering up cheating and walked away with a Cy Young to make a point by declaring he would cheat also if the league wasn’t stopping it. He proved without a shadow of a doubt what the advantage was to pitchers cheating by becoming the BEST PITCHER IN THE LEAGUE INSTANTLY by also cheating.
You do it this early to salvage the season.
Rob Thomson will probably be next….
Topper will be fired on the Phillies off day Monday.
Carlos Mendoza will probably join him before by midweek. They can all hang out together.
I hope you are right. I’d like to see Cora replace Thompson.
If that is the case…. get used Schwarber being rested 2 games a week from his strenuous DH position.
Be careful what you are asking for…..
It appears that it won’t happen until the 2027 season. Thomson, is very poor on strategy, and in utilizing his bullpen. Mattingly, will be an improvement, Cora would be a major improvement.
Now do Mendy.
Espada next!!
Who is left to be interim manager? Bailey?
Chad Tracy is coming up from Worcester
Very interesting “call up from the minors”
AAA depth is always important.
Didn’t see this coming at this time. That said, not at all sorry to see him go.
Getting rid of Devers and not keeping bregman and being cheap is sure Coras fault
Being cheap started long before devers
Devers might have been. We’re not privy to how that went down, but it sure looked like Cora lied to him
They mishandled Devers for years, and knew his fielding was trash. He’s an excellent hitter and if they’d gotten him work as a 1B from the beginning of his career all of that would’ve been avoided.
No argument here. Things are looking up a bit defensively. I wonder if Story is going to get moved to second… if Cora was resisting that perhaps? Honestly, I never got signing Story for six years in the first place with Mayer in the wings.
I have to think that Story is moving of SS
I don’t watch the games, I listen. The Wills are talking almost every night about how his arm isn’t the same. I don’t have anything against Story, but it’s time for Mayer.
Ever since his elbow surgery he needed to move off short.
Story’s offensive glory has been mostly garnered in Colorados altitude, he’s been an average player down to earth.
He’s no superstar. His lack of leadership is daunting on this club.
He has a career 30%+ strikeout rate that’s atrocious and should only be tolerated if your clubbing 50+ homers.
Breslow owns the lack performance of this team.
Cora is the scapegoat.
Leadership by players is highly overrated in baseball.
Even if it wasn’t an overrated thing, the “team leader” is usually a washed up 35+ years old bench bat still barely clinging to a roster spot.
I’ve stayed out of commenting until now. Story does lead by example. He has worked well with the young players and should’ve gotten more credit last year. He’s as much of a leader to them as Bregman was in my view.
He WAS an excellent hitter. Not much evidence of still being that way over the last 2 years.
He had a 126 wRC+ last year after the trade. That’s excellent. This year’s still a small enough sample size.
Giant fan here. Devers was ok last year after trade…this year horrible, can’t hit a fastball. He is not an ‘excellent hitter’ these days…
Some may disagree but a leader would probably have told the press that this was internal decision making and that he would try to discuss some things for clarity with management, but he is aware the players caused the firing with bad, sloppy play and they would discuss things in the aftermath.
Or….
You air the laundry and tell the press you have no idea what the team is doing and where it’s going, that you demand answers because YOU didn’t like what they told the team, and management thinks we are just non-human meat puppets.
If a player is young, self-involved, and doesn’t know any better, you can understand them picking option 2 out of ignorance.
A leader will pick option one, even if he wants to air the laundry because he is pissed. He picks option 1 to not make things worse than they are, to show a good example of how a leader handles things publicly and then if he feels he needs to, he closes a door and has private discussions about it to share with the team after. I know Story helps the young guys and is a good teammate. He would never get a “C” on his uniform from me though if he didn’t have that private discussion with management first before airing the laundry.
They got rid of Devers on June 15 when they were one game over .500. They finished the season 16 games over and made the playoffs. So not clear trading Devers was a problem. But if it was, Cora bears a lot of responsibility for it because he totally mismanaged th Devers/Bregman situation.
Banning Apple Watches hurt Cora (probably, allegedly).
The the baseball is dead guys call this?
Did the baseball is dead guys call this?
Wow, it’s really their fault? Breslow totally set this franchise back years
It isn’t any of the coaches faults, none of them are throwing pitches or batting or fielding or running… they are just the scapegoats for poor team construction and the trickle-down affect of many poor decisions over recent years. Probably too early to make an overall assessment of the roster build… could easily just be variance… I’d say this is how a poorly run franchise operates.
Luke- have you seen the lineups or the bullpen rotation Cora has used so far this season? Hes certainly responsible for some of the poor play
Is he though? Or are his players not performing to expectation? When a manager puts a reliever in, they can only hope the reliever gets outs. Every relief pitcher in baseball is capable of throwing a 1-2-3 inning in any given outing. But, no one has a 0 ERA because pitchers get hit periodically. So, claiming it’s his fault for bringing in a reliever who gets hit in that appearance… how is that his fault? If the guy is on the roster, it’s presumed he is there because he is worthy enough of that spot, therefore. he has to play to some extent. And, as far as a line up goes, that makes far more of a difference over the course of 162 games than any individual game, and that difference is nearly invisible to a spectator and can only be realized in the stats over a large sample size. Even if he put his best 3 hitters 7-8-9, they can still win any given game, but if he did that every game, they’d score fewer runs per game on average and that would surely impact them over the course of the season. But, he wasn’t doing that.
Luke… Tell me you don’t know baseball without telling me you don’t know baseball
No, tell me… what did I write that jumped you to such a conclusion? I just reread what I wrote, I’m failing to see where you’d draw such a conclusion.
A couple of points. When you see such abysmal situational hitting on top of the poor performance that is 100% the manager. The players are either not aware of the situation and what the goal is (managers fault), don’t care about the situation (managers job to make them care or sit), or they simply cannot execute (managers job to find a major league hitter that knows, cares, and can execute situational hitting).
On the pitching side it is not about Cora not executing pitches on behalf of the pitchers, but the organizational approach, which he does have control of.
I can usually predict pitches and location during games for our pitchers before the sign goes down. I am not some genius pitching savant. I am just observant. I know most times what is coming and where because there is an organizational approach that is consistent and has become predictable. It is almost universal for all the pitchers despite their individual differences.
I don’t get paid to observe that, but every team in the league has people paid to pick up on that stuff, and if I can, you can bet the bank they can. Bello, with all his stuff, looks like he is giving hand signals to the catcher for what pitch is coming. He is that predictable to hit off of.
Luke, you obviously don’t have much of an understanding of what a coach’s job actually is.
Talking out your behind.
You proved you don’t know what a coach’s job is with your comment. Its not something that is in question. When called out on it, you try to spin with a childish take of “talking out your behind”.
No, it’s true, you just don’t see it yet. But, since you challenged, let’s talk it out. What MLB coaching experience do you have? None, right… so, what do you know about it? As much as I do. Except, I don’t make foolish claims, like yours alluding to you having an understanding of a manager’s or coach’s job at the MLB level. What I wrote that caused you to lash out to begin with… what, exactly, did I write that jumped you to such a conclusion about my lack of MLB coaching knowledge?
Luke, it seems like you never played any organized sports to not know the impact a coach has on a team, let alone a professional one.
I played a lot of baseball… no coach ever took an AB for me, threw a pitch for me, ran bases for me or fielded a ball for me. Sure, I had coaching on how to play the game, but the execution was entirely on me and everyone else on the team.
I played professional baseball. I coached in professional baseball for a 2 decades until I decided I wanted to pursue something closer to home. Traveling on a bus and staying in cheap hotels is bad for the back. Now I own and coach at a baseball academy that has produced major league players.
Now what are your qualifications?
“coaching on how to play the game”.
But you assume that stops once you are a professional apparently.
Everything you have said so far is off the mark and that is the point. You don’t understand what goes into being a coach so you should shut it.
Please explain then, how would you, as a coach, have an impact on the outcome of the game that could be attributed to you – not the players?
Luke: Please read my earlier comment.
Skip: On the importance of a good managers, I got your back… Not that you need it.
Cora should have been banned from baseball years ago, so this makes me happy.
Get over it. Move on.
No. There was no meaningful accountability for 2017, so it’s hanging around. Take down the flag, remove Beltran from the Hall, and permanently ban Hinch, Cora, Beltran, and maybe a few others and we’ll let it go.
Beltran was voted into the Hall of Fame in spite of everything being brought to light.
Also, you sound like a Dodgers fan. You’re welcome for Mookie, now kindly stow it 🙂
Nah. Just mute the whiners.
cheap – The fact Cora got only a 60-game penalty, during a joke of a season, is a travesty. It equates to 2 months, that’s it.
@ cheapseater None of those things are going to happen so get over it.
Why? Why would someone “move on”?
Did the facts change or should everyone just forget that the guy led a team to steal a WS?
Why would you hold onto that anger or hate? It’s burdensome. The results of that World Series are never going to be changed. It is accepted fact that Houston won. MLB is never changing that, nor will there ever be any future punishments coming to anyone involved. And, what loss did you suffer personally as a result of it? And still hanging onto it all these years later? For what? Whatever you think it was that made you feel this way, it doesn’t matter. Therefore, PhantomStrike is correct: you should move on from it.
Who says I have anger or hate?
I think him, and everyone else on that team, should have been held accountable. I think they should have been banned for life honestly.
Dude, just because I don’t think that things that people do should be forgotten and forgiven with zero consequences doesn’t mean I have anger or hate. It mean I live in adult world.
Cheating, and especially to win a WS, shouldn’t be let go like nothing happened. It was wrong then. It’s wrong now.
“Let it go” is how it happens all over again. No consequences leads to more of that behavior. It’s rather simple.
You can’t fight city hall…
Don’t get started on that or be prepared
to defend all the roided up teams that “won championships”
During Bud Selig’s STREROIDS AND OPENLY DOPING ERA
Bro, you think Houston, Boston, and New York were the only teams doing it? Absolutely nobody benefited more from electronic sign stealing than Cody Bellinger. He won an MVP and then got cut when he didn’t know what pitch was coming. If you live in the adult world you could use some critical thinking skills and realize why the players weren’t “banned for life.” Most of the league would have been banned. Instead you punish the organization and you have a fall team. It’s baseball’s MO.
Yeah, it all worked out in the end. 3 chips including back-2-back, Stros back to being irrelevant, and a jobless Cora. Yay 🥳
No he shouldn’t have, and he’ll have another managerial gig before you know it.
That’ll be great for team morale
The front office F@#*ed up this team.
The only way to send a message to the management is to stay home.
I bet Cora is relieved to leave this dysfunctional organization.
Cora just said that he was a part of every offseason move. So you are saying Cora f’d up this team?
No, I am not.
Cora is a part of management; hence he would be in on every move made. It does not mean he agreed with the moves or authorized them.
Moving Devers was John Henry, not signing Bregman was Breslow’s colossal blunder.
Cora said that he agreed with the moves and was part of the decision making. That none of the moves were made without his agreeing to them. He said he did exactly what you are saying he didn’t do. So you are saying Cora lied? That I can believe.
Moving Devers was necessary and it was Breslow’s call. Henry, Kennedy, and Breslow all talked about that. That may be Henry setting up Breslow as a scapegoat if the decision went wrong and obviously a move of that scale would have to be discussed with ownership, but Devers was a cancer, and expensive cancer, that needed to be excised. It was a good move for the team both short term and long term.
If not signing Bregman was a mistake, it was one made above Breslow’s head. Henry is the one that says how much money can be spent, not Breslow.
Not overpaying Bregman was smart.
Which was why I said “IF not signing Bregman was a mistake”.
I think a lot of people need to re-evaluate Bregman’s power. Paying him what the Cubs paid him would not have made the Red Sox a better team in the end… K. Schwarber was never leaving Philly, P. Alonso isn’t exactly crushing the ball and neither is Devers. The Red Sox have enough pitching, defense and the ability to score runs to get them into the playoffs. Let’s see what C. Tracy can do.
I’m not a local and don’t have the benefit of the Boston newspapers, but you seem to have quite a bit of insider access. Can you show me where I can read the statements you’re making about Cora’s compliance with the moves made, as you state.
I’m thinking Joe Maddon is getting the gig. It he doesn’t know it yet. His phone is off. Him and the wife are watching the Michael Jackson movie… Tito get me a tissue
If he was really seeing the Michael movie, that poor of judgement should disqualify him
I mean its not what I was expecting to hear after the sox literally slaughtered my O’s today.
Sox couldn’t even follow business protocol by firing a guy on a Friday afternoon so he can be free for the whole weekend.
Meaning, with this massive win today, they already decided to do it, but waited until today for some reason lol ?
Maybe because Henry was busy on the golf course yesterday and didn’t have time to prepare or make a statement publicly ?
Definitely goes down as one of the more weird firings timing wise for sure lol
GASoxfan made a good point elsewhere. Today’s start time probably had a lot to do with it.
scruff – It’s only fitting, considering Cora got his 3-year extension on the day they lost 20-7 in Colorado.
Gary- considering they moved today’s game up to noon from 4pm they probably didnt have time prior to today’s game to get Tracy to Baltimore
Yes, exactly Sad sox
They fired him on the road. It said “We don’t even want to see you walk back into our clubhouse. Peace. Out!”
Cora got the axe before Thompson or Mendoza? Wow.
Fatse the hitting coach getting fired is probably the best news of the whole thing. The hitting approach needs to change.
I wonder if it was the we have a bunch of kids and we’re still learning comment that he made that finally broke the camels back?
BOOM…..Shots fired!!! Wow!!!!
Bres the stiff better hope this works or he’s next in a couple of months!
Finally. I hate the Red Sox, but I hate Cora even more. He doesn’t deserve to coach. This was A LONG TIME coming. Should’ve stayed fired after he got caught and fired in 2019.
Keep crying.
lol a thousand identical replies to this article and you single me out? Why?
I saw yours second I think. Then saw so many more it would take me all night to reply to them all lol.
Because we are tired of hearing how you all hate Cora and how he as no business coaching ever again. He’s a cheater , blah, blah!
Nobody cares, MLB does care so move on and let it go. Why? Because A) it’s in the past and B) Cora will definitely be coaching again.
Don’t you have some angry rants to make in your lifted S10 about how the world is changing and how much that frightens you?
Finally got what he deserves. Cheater from Houston days. Good riddancd
He hasn’t really done anything since 2021 so I guess I can see the move
Red Sox have been spinning their wheels since the Mookie trade.
Was waiting a long time for this
He was nothing but a cheat to me
Seeing as he has previous ties to both the Red Sox org as a player and with Craig Breslow when he was with the Cubs in the FO, I wonder if David Ross is a candidate to be their next manager here.
That’s the name I’m expecting to see get some play. But I don’t know if that will happen during the season, since they’ve announced that Chad Tracy will be the interim, bringing him up from the manager job in Worcester. Plus they might want a larger candidate field after the usual 8 or 10 firings once this season is over!
Yes. Exactly. Breslow will absolutely want to pick from an assortment of manager candidates that got fired for not doing their job well with another team.
Managers who are fired from one team often get the same job with another team. It’s a matter of matching voices and philosophies to a group of players and to a front office disposition. The “change of scenery” thing, but in this case for a manager, not a player. Also, there are undoubtedly some candidates who would prefer an interview and hire once the season is over–start with a clean slate, as it were. I left that part out, but that should be obvious. So, yes, 8 or 10 firings is likely to create a larger candidate field, and not just because 8 or 10 ex-managers are looking for new jobs.
Definitely a strong connection there. The guy I’d really like to see though is Mike Lowell.
There it is.
Sorry to see Tek go, but this needed to happen
Tek’s being reassigned within the organization.
shoulda been fired immediately after the astros scandal became public!
AND
sox f’ed up ROYALLY when they traded away devers
Because Devers is hitting so well?
Devers has an OPS of .565 and has struck out in 32% of his ABs.
he was a superstar with redsox. 1 of the most feared hitters for a decade.
SF has turned him into a pedestrian.
hope boston’s happy!
incompetent leadership did this.
his career is over. and they’re in last place in the al east
Devers and his negative WAR and 62 OPS+?
SF is rumored to be seeing him as more a permanent DH and coming back off 1B going forward on his deal
If they move him off 1B his WAR will sink further.
Who cares about WAR? No defense is better than bad defense
The inside scoop osnthey think he’d do better focused only on hitting preparation, and, not spending as much time on defensive stuff
Its not lack of focus
Jesus
Do any of u actually follow baseball or spend all day looking at WAR and OPS+ and abcxyz?
Since barry bonds (before most of you were probly born) SF has produced the following players with MORE than 30hr in 1 season:
Salem – devers is hitting .213 through most of a month of the season.
Its not like he has a .290 batting average, and just isnt getting balls out of the park. He’s not hitting properly in general, not even singles.
WAR = value provided towards winning games.
Devers has a -1 fielding run value. That is not bad. It is a little below average. Moving him to DH would negate any value he provides on defense and lower his WAR.
Teams care a lot about winning.
Salem, I am sorry that you don’t understand what any stats mean other than counting ones like # of HR. Here is some info for you. I will make it as simple as possible and I do hope you can understand it.
WAR = WINS above replacement level. A replacement level player is the next guy up from AAA.
Having a negative WAR means you are costing your team wins compared to what that minor league player would provide. Devers WAR is -1.0
Having a 55 OPS+ like Devers does means that the player is hitting 45% below average. I won’t even go into wRC+. Just know that RC = runs created.
Devers has a .501 OPS or on base percentage (OBP) plus slugging percentage (SLG). MLB average OPS is .716.
On base percentage (OBP) is a measured by how many times a player gets on base by hits, walks, or HBP including with HR as a percentage of their plate appearances. MLB average is .323. Devers’ OBP is .225.
SLG is a measure of power. It is determined by measuring how many total bases a player has reached per at bat. The more extra base hits (XBH) a player has, HR, doubles, and triples, the higher their slugging percentage. MLB average SLG is .393. Devers has a .275 SLG.
What all that tells you is that Devers is the worst hitting 1B or DH with at least 60 PA in MLB in 2026.
Did I break that down enough that you could understand?
You can’t use any stat alone, WAR, batting average, slug, OPS, OBP, etc. However, WAR is a valuable stat. WAR shows how good you play all around baseball.
Mike Keenan available? Alive?
If you’re going that far back, maybe just Scotty Bowman
As a Hawks fan I can say without hesitation stay away from anyone in the Bowman family.
Toe Blake?
Eddie Shore!
maybe go in a different direction and bring Belichick back to Boston
Should have banged some trash cans so Cora would know it was coming.
ITS ABOUT TIME!!!!!!!
After 27 games they are already panicking. Good grief!
Good ‘ol’ Charlie Brown
As they should be !!
And it’s not 27 games.., it’s been 5/6 years.
There is a God
Look at me I’m your manager now
They should Hire Brandon Hyde…. but if not, David Ross .
Last night I dreamnt the angels traded for Luis Castillo of Seattle.
H E double hockey sticks YES!
Oh wow. That’s all I have to say about this.
Freaking cheater. Good riddance
Not sure this was the smartest move letting all the coaches go. Especially this early in the year, and it makes you wonder who will be at the helm as an interim manager. Tec might have possibly turned the job down so he was prolly moved on. A lot of holes to fill. I guess we will find out!
They’re bringing up the Triple-A manager at Worcester to be interim. Varitek wasn’t about to become skipper with this housecleaning.
Veritek was part of the housecleaning.
They’re bringing up the Triple A manager to manage a Triple A Team
Duran
Rafaela
Abreu
Contreras
Story
Durbin
Mayer
Narvaez
Yoshida
Anthony
I don’t see any AAA players there
Crochet
Suarez
Gray
Early
Bello
Chapman
Whitlock
None there either.
To me that is an extremely talented team that is underperforming. If its one or two players, that is on those players. When its almost everyone, that falls on the coaching. That just cost Cora his job.
Per bWAR,
Duran-0.1 WAR
Rafaela-0.1 WAR
Abreu-1.4 WAR
Contreras-0.8 WAR
Story-0.1 WAR
Durbin-0.1 WAR
Mayer-0.2 WAR
Narvaez- -0.4 WAR
Yoshida-0 WAR
Anthony-0.5 WAR
Crochet- -0.6 WAR
Suarez-0.3 WAR
Gray-0.1 WAR
Early-0.6 WAR
Bello- -1 WAR
Chapman- 0.3 WAR
Whitlock- 0.4 WAR
This is the Red Sox WAR for the season. I agree the Red Sox are extremely talented, but a lot of them have been playing like an AAA team.
It’s early… A +1 WAR at this point is a rate that puts you on the All-Star team. There are some solid contributors on that list – but also some who have been absolutely terrible.
That’s wild lmao
Cora should have gone a while ago. That 2018 team was an absolute unit to say the least and I don’t think Cora played much role in that championship. He certainly didn’t have any convincing success afterwards
Kinda sad Varitek doesn’t get a chance to take the manager reigns
Yeah I felt Varitek ended up being collateral damage to be honest, out of the group he probably deserved better than what he got.
I’m bummed about Tek, and stunned about Cora. So much for that front office job that never made sense to me.
This also makes me wonder what he actually said on the mound to Bello last night.
Cora could have been fired before but in Family Feud he wasn’t the to answer on the board. John Henry can’t fire himself for what he did a complete 360 as an owner after 2018. Alonso signed for a solid deal and they didn’t get involved. They didn’t get involved in Cease. When they didn’t make a serious attempt at Ohtani I knew something was wrong. They use to want to dominate the Japanese market and did well when they had Dice-K. Even though he was a one season wonder they made a ton of money grabbing the biggest star from Japan at the time in the Japanese market.
This ownership is reaping what they have sewn. They have gone from trying to be a consistent winner and raising revenues anywhere to building an entertainment company and putting the franchises they own second.
Truth. Fenway Park is a tourist attraction. As long as fannies are in the seats, Henry is happy.
At last! Now for Rob Thomson and Carlos Mendoza to do the same.
Hallelujah.
This going to spawn countless new user names and name changes.
Guy was so bad even being a cheater couldn’t help him win 🤣
Cora is a big effing cheater
That’s one way to celebrate scoring 17 runs!
This is absolutely a case of.., fire the field manager before I get fired lol
The desperate last attempt of a condemned man.
Henry should fire himself.
Yep. Called it.
Where are all you “Jason Veritek is amazing and will be the next Red Sox manager” folks ??
Didn’t you argue with me last year that he was the heir apparent and an automatic hire because you didn’t want to lose him to some other team?
Well, here’s mud in your eye you were wrong for lambasting me over questioning something that was yet to be decided. To you though, it was a foregone conclusion.
Tek not only didn’t get hired, but he actually got fired today !!
Gary – cite to Tek being fired?
Everything i see says he’s moved to a new position. Arguably could be a promotion.
Its possible Tek didn’t want to take over mid season, with no time to develop his own coaching staff
Seeing reports that Varitek was reassigned.
Reassigned for preparing how to deal with Breslow’s communications skills, or lack therof.
I see what all you guys are saying but if you’re removed from your position and you’re not quitting, it means you’re fired from that job.
If the company likes you, they’ll keep you around and have you do something else but you’re still fired from the job you were doing.
Granted, we all like Tek and we’re glad he’s sticking around in some capacity, but he got fired. There’s no wordplay here.
Gary – Not sure you heard …. per Cotillo/McAdam, Tek was never actually offered a reassignment and he doesn’t plan to stay with the organization. Also his wife’s tweet sure sounds like he’s leaving the organization.
Now once his emotions settle down he could change his mind, but it sure does look like he was fired and management lied about it during the presser Sunday.
Ok fever.., wow !!
Well he was “in charge” of game planning and run prevention. Yeah right. But I think he actually just caught a stray by being part of the Cora group.
👎
👍🏻
He didn’t get fired. He got reassigned. Which means they felt he was part of the problem in the MLB dugout, but he might still be able to impart some knowledge elsewhere in the organization. Maybe as a roving minor league instructor.
I think he’ll get an interview this winter for the managers position. That’s unless of course they hire a permanent guy between now and then.
No, it meant that outright firing one of their most beloved franchise icons would have hurt their propaganda machine even more.
I was waiting for them to DFA or option Bello and fire Cora. Someone told me Henry would never fire Cora and would promote him to front office. Glad they were wrong.
Bello isn’t getting DFA’d because they owe him a lot of money. He’s got one or two more starts to right himself before it’s the bullpen or Worcester for him. Tolle is here to stay.
Or IL and rehab stint
I really wonder how much of that is manipulated. It can’t be the case that every pitcher that goes out there and sucks is the worthy of the IL.
Maflabass…. Bello problem is in his head, and the reason stems back to Cora not having faith in him and pulling him after 28 pitches in game 2 of the Yankees playoff series…. again, as a player who would trust a Manager that doesn’t have faith in him. I said then, that Bello was going to be problem this year because of that situation.
Bello’s problem is that he can’t repeat his mechanics this season and because of that he can’t get his sinker over the plate consistently. Everything plays off that sinker.
Last season that sinker was one of the best in MLB. This season its the very worst.
So if the players “gave up” on Cora then what is going to be their motivation as a 10-17 team to run through a wall for the AAA manager?
Cora is a self serving blow hard, who thinks hes smarter than the game.
If Tracy makes Anthony and Mayer comfortable, plays and bats them correctly, moves Story off shortstop and overall isn’t Alex Cora its an improvement
Mayer needs to play everyday. Duran needs to lead off everyday, Anthony should bat third. If I had to guess, thats what we’ll see
A lot of these guys sent time playing for that manager, and, did well under him.
When I think of all the young and homegrown players, I expect they relate to and play harder for the AAA boss than Cora.
The big ‘losers’ here are coral favorites who get more playing time than they deserve via performance. His ‘favkrites’ are probably a little worried tonight, as they should’ve been a long time agi
GASoxFan- agreed.
Hopefully this is all about Anthony. Hes gotta move out of leadoff and play everyday in the field
Sad – Roman’s throw to 2B tonight was pretty good, that’s a good sign. But he has to get his bat going, the lineup desperately needs 2025 Roman.
And I don’t want to bury in my closet the Roman jersey I just bought!
Another excellent point GASox fan !! (regarding a lot of these guys played for this AAA manager, and are thus comfortable with him. Great move bringing him up to Fenway with all the young guys playing right now.)
The GM should join them
I remember Alex was a highly respected field manager, back in the days before he played a lead role in the character assassination attempt of a homegrown hero.
Usually, in Boston, they’re all about getting rid of that ‘Prima Donna’ in favor of someone ‘gritty’.
Times change I guess
What homegrown hero are you talking about?
Big Papi is about to put on the manager jersey.
Lol !!!!!!!
Manny for bench coach!
Scoreboard operator. He knows where the door is.
Breslow runs Devers, out of town (not his signing) then his, replacement leaves after one year and he puts the load on Contreras. Red Sox lost their way before Breslow but he should have been fired before Cora.
It all starts with ownership. Cora is the scapegoat here.
Bingo!!! We got Bingo!!!
Scapegoat? No way…. it’s about his inability to develop the young guys… that is why Chad Tracy is the interim. It’s about playing the young guys everyday and developing them and not playing Utility guys in there place. It’s about knowing how Manage a game within the game, how to use the bullpen properly, when to remove the starter, how to Manufacture runs etc….
I guarantee that there are guys in that room that are relieved he is gone, because now maybe their roles will be more defined.
Devers this season – .221/.257/.308/.565 and a 62 OPS+ with a negative 0.9 WAR. The Giants are 15 games under .500 since he joined the team. Devers was an expensive cancer that needed to be excised from the Red Sox.
His replacement this season is Willson Contreras.
.239/.362/.398/.760 and a 116 OPS+ with a positive 0.8 WAR
I’ll never understand the people who hated the Devers trade. Look at his numbers and tell me when has he ever been an ELITE player? He’s been a good player but never one who deserved that contract.
That’s just silly. He was one of the top bats in all of baseball from basically the time he got called up. He wasn’t going to age well, and looks awful now but this is just slander.
Giant fan…Devers bad this year. Can’t hit a fastball.
Devers has never been a top 10 OPS+ hitter. His best season he was 17th. Disregarding 2026, since he became a FT player in 2018 he is 33rd in OPS+.
He is a very good hitter, but not elite. WW’s question was “when has he ever been an ELITE player?”
The mediocrity predates Breslow. Yes, his trades alone should put him on the hot seat. But to say Cora shouldn’t have been the first to go is silly. Other teams have been doing more with less talent and payroll for years now.
Lime – You know what really sucks?
I see this all the time in the corporate world.
New manager comes in.
New manager forces out longtime employee.
New manager leaves shortly after doing all the damage.
It’s the same thing with Breslow/Raffy, absolutely criminal.
Whoa
At least he won’t have to spend hours in the Canada Customs lineup next week….
Pretty sure people flying on private jets with agents and team management skip those lines and have customs agents basically checking them on the tarmac to make sure they are who they say they are and have equipment and whatnot checked with equipment managers. All they need to get cleared is their personal items, which for a 3 or 4 day trip across the border isn’t much. Might actually take more time crossing back into the US.
Fire Breslow and Kennedy
I don’t think Kennedy can be conventionally fired. Isn’t he a part owner?
I’d love to have Theo exclusively back, but I also bet he wouldn’t do it.
Pretty sure Kennedy’s a partner so I don’t think we are ever getting rid of him, unfortunately.
17 runs was too little to late apparently.
This was inevitable. Cora’s resistance to change was going to bite him at some point and the team has had many instances of looking totally unprepared. During the post game show the other night Tom Caron, Jim Rice, and Will Middlebrooks asked if players are being taught to play Baseball at the MLB level. This is an organizational issue across the board
One blowout dub wasn’t gonna undig the hole he put them in.
This decision was made before today’s game. They just delayed the announcement based on start time and other factors.
The Decision was made after the Thursday Night game… but really stems back to the game vs the Twins when he hung Crochet out to dry.
I said it then, I turned to the Twins feed because I couldn’t handle listening to Company Man Dave O’Brien making excuses and inability to even address how pathetic Cora was in that game not getting anyone up in the pen until it was 10-0. That Twins announcers were absolutely torching Cora. The next Day one of the guys on the MLB radio lit him up as well. Cora was finally being called out.
Yet, MLB Network just had that moron Jared Carrabas on and him and the talking head from MLB Network were stunned???? What for, dude had completely lost this team.
The most surprising thing to me is that Dillon Lawson got another MLB job after his Yankees stint
Thank god
Team sports are a game of chemistry. Those who say that managers and coaches have nothing to do with wins and losses can’t actually believe that baseball is purely a combination of talent and luck, because if that was the case, no managers would ever separate themselves from the pack, as consistent winners.
Managers and coaches are the clubhouse psychologists, they read the room, pick up on the vibes, and know who needs encouragement, who needs a kick in the butt, and who needs to be left alone, to figure things out for themselves. They recognize the respected voices in the locker room, and which players command attention, and they work the interpersonal relations, to get everyone in the best state of mind.
Those of you who say the manager is irrelevant must never have worked for a great or lousy boss – good management sets the tone for the workplace, assures that the focus is on the right tasks, and can identify the workers who aren’t carrying the load.
Like anything else, a staff in place for too long gets stagnant; “it’s always worked this way”, “these are my top guys”, routines that are no longer effective.
Alex Cora and his coaches have not been out on the field, but there is no sign that they are effectively supporting what has been. So it’s time to change. Breslow, and his role – entirely different issue, and will be addressed separately.
Well said
Kidding Right…..Well said…. and spot on.
Cora’s a cheat and should have been out of baseball long ago. Permanently ineligible. Not that this completely amoral league is capable of a judgement like that anymore.
This was my post hours ago on the Opener about the Orioles:
After seeing the score today, I came here to see how many people the Red Sox had fired.
I was kind of joking at the time.
I’ll be in charge of concession sales !!!
olm – We need Chicago Deep Dish Pizza on the menu, make it happen!
4 more days!!!
Granted, he’s interim, but I want to see how Chad Tracy does. He’s actually a pretty good manager. I’m glad to see him getting an audition.
I am not a Red Sox fan but a baseball fan. Maybe there’s something I don’t know but this seems like a terrible overreaction this early in season . I realize they’re off to a bad start but I’m sure they will bounce back . Win what 17-1 today . I’m a Cards fan . We have Oli Marmol. See things could be worse
Mike- yes, theres a bunch of stuff you need to catch up on….
Its not an overreaction early this season, its an overly slow reaction for the past five years
Tracy was named Manager of the Year in 2009, only the second manager to win the award after being hired mid-season, joining Jack McKeon for the Florida Marlins.
Like father like son?
Hmmm.
What took so long?
Red Sox ownership taking decisive action, meanwhile Astros ownership wait for ….who know what ?
Waiting for Cora, perhaps
The golden boy has crashed
“You scored 17 runs today. Congrats, you and your boys are canned.”
Maybe this will light a fire under the boys behinds! I thinks it a combination of players underperforming and player we had probably too high of expectations for….Either way I’m glad to see Cora go too may bad decisions hanging Pitchers out to dry when they just didn’t have it, bringing the wrong reliever ext….
The problem still lies in the sox brass upstairs, can they fire themselves please.
Is this a good job? Is travel required? Asking for a friend.
Chad Tracy and Clayton McCullough were teammates at East Carolina University during their playing days (along with current ECU Head Coach Cliff Godwin). Now they’re all in significant leadership positions in baseball. Pretty cool…
He’ll be the Yankees bench coach soon.
Watching the past three games with the Yankees, after all, the camera shot of Cora, the only take I came away with, was the face of a man who felt he was already going to get fired and didn’t give a crap anymore.
No player is going to follow that kind of leadership.
Hal Steinbrenner are you listening here? This is exactly what Steinbrenner should have done to Boone and Cashman 3 yrs ago! Steinbrenner’s problem is he scared of change and does not want to deal with having to gain trust in another GM who will run the ship. Steinbrenner content on just a winning season, make the playoffs and done! Championships not in his blood unlike his father!
Anthony longs for the good old days when George fired managers on what seemed like a yearly basis. That may have been great for the NYC tabloids but it exposed the Yankees as a ballclub no serious free agent or front office executive wanted to be with.
Hal craves stability and the Yankees, under his direction, are a model of a stable ballclub. Can’t say that for the Red Sox or especially the Mets.
Damon? Boggs? Nomar? Ortiz? Martinez? Clemens? Pedroia?
Probably not Manny, though that would be entertaining.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Completely objectively speaking, Cora got lucky with the 2018 squad and has been a mediocre manager overall. He’s had some shrewd moments I was jealous of for his brutal precision in pulling pitchers and swapping guys out and etc.
But he clearly lost his touch.
When a team has been faltering a bit for a few seasons and is now just plain awful, it might not be the manager’s fault, because they can only do so much with the roster they’re given, but when a company’s stock value drops even through outside forces beyond a CEO’s control, ownership brings in new blood, cleans house.
That’s what this was. A very obvious gesture of acknowledging what the Sox are doing isn’t working.
I would guess they try to blow up the team and tease pieces away, rebuild through the draft over the next half decade or so, hope to contend again in the 2030’s.
2030’s lol !!
They made the wildcard last year. That’s contending.
Sox HAVE been rebuilt, they just need to play well. Great pitching and a lot of youth in the lineup. Next comes a great manager and away we go.
2030’s LOL !!!!!
Just looked it up: they have been bad for nearly eight seasons now. Most teams clean house at that point, even if the manager is considered a legend riding high on their old championship glory.
There’s a lot of reasons for the teams overall failures over the last 8 seasons.
One was Chaim Bloom’s errors.
Another was Alex Cora’s failures.
A third comes from upper management/ownership putting individual player spending restrictions in place.
2 ot of 3 have slowly been addressed.
It has only been 7 seasons since 2018. I don’t think Bloom was trying to contend during his almost 4 years in Boston. I think his main objective was to rebuild the farm system. So, I think he fielded teams with a small chance to contend, but which would likely fail leading to high draft picks.
Suit, I was including thr failed start to this season in there as well to get to 8… thus using past and not passed… although, I can see it being confusing outside my head LOL…
We’ve talked a bit about bloom and his philosophy. You can make that argument, I know weve discussed it. Then I bring up blooms mismanagement letting guys walk instead of flipping them for prospects. Then you’ll talk about a soft tank approach… so on so forth.
We.really have had the discussion a few times havent we LOL????
One thing I think we agree on is the MLB roster was left by Bloom an unbalanced shambles, wrong guys were extended and wrong guys let walk, he loved collecting dh-only types, and he mostly disregarding building pitching.
Bloom wouldve been better in boston as an AGM under someone else to work on what he wanted to, if your theory was true …, but, I guess he doesnt leave TB for that.
GA: You are right that Bloom made a lot of mistakes, but I doubt he ever intended to contend until after he rebuilt the farm system. Yes, we have been down this road before.
It is telling how differently he has acted in StL. I think he did possobly learn from the BOS mistakes, although, he is making another one in trying to reacquure guys from when he was here…
I get that he liked them before, so, he should like them now. But id also think he might get more upside out of guys who hadn’t shown most of their ceilings already.
WOW.
I thought this was a delayed April Fool’s joke when I read it.
Wow
Should have done this years ago.
I don’t wanna work- I just wanna bang on the can all day!
no question that Cora had a role to play in the last few topsy turvy Red Sox seasons, and middle management always gets thrown under the bus when things go south, but he shouldn’t be alone in being ousted. Alas, those who should also get the boot own and run the team.
as John Lennon would’ve said- “I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round…”
we’ll always have 2018, Alex. Thank you for your part in that.
Luckily Cora wasn’t alone, and a bevy of coaches joined him since the Fatse philosophy wasn’t working
I think it’s possible David Ross gets a look. Probably why Jason Varitek was let go or reassigned.
Tek is like.., why him not me?
They likely have too many former Cardinals on the team.
I like how they fired him after he started losing, not because of his role in the sign stealing scandal that all of baseball allegedly hates.
He was “fired” but the evil empire still brought him back
Fortunately he didn’t hear this one coming. Good to get one of the real pieces of garbage out of baseball. The amount of hate guys who were young Astros receive because of him is disgusting. Zero accountability. Good riddance.
I will still always wonder about how that Red Sox team was a 90-93 win team then suddenly exploded to an all time great 108 win season in his first season and then went right back to being a 90-93 win team again. If he was doing stuff in Houston, why would anyone assume he wasn’t doing the same stuff in Boston? Glad Warren Morris walked him off in ‘96 and he cried about it on the field.
Maybe a new scandal is coming out soon and this out of left field firing is the Red Sox getting ahead of it?
Not all of baseball. Just some crying fans who can’t get over it.
No surprise here
Cora supporter here to say I’m ok with this as long as breslow and Kennedy go too. But that’s not happening
Get Joe Gerardi
And Cora’s Operation Scapegoat begins!
It’s about time.
I hate Alex Cora.
Cora will be the Phillies manager by the end of May. He and Dombrowski are tight.
Cora is under contract with the Red Sox until the end of the 2027 season (or he will at least be paid until then). I wonder if a team with need to to send money or a player to the Red Sox if they want to hire him before the end of 2027.
Suit, he was fired. Unless they re-assign him another role in the organization, and, assuming his contract allows that…. its probably more like an outright release?
Maybe they should send him to one of their Latin American development programs?
🤣😂💥
Frankly bizarre for the article’s author to cite Rafaela as a significant problem with this roster. He has made substantial improvements with chasing bad pitches. He has driven in the game winning run in two of the ten wins. He is one of a small handful of players who are IMO unarguable as positive features of the roster.
Sadly, most of these writers are not close to the team and do not do their homework and are just as misinformed as most of the outsiders are that think Cora actually was a good Manager, where the truth is far from it.
The of/dh situation is a joke .5 guys trying to fill 4 positions.Cora was put in a tough situation.I think if he had his way Rafaela,Abreu and Anthony would be in his of.He has no use for Yashida.Imagine paying 18.6 million for a less than part time player.He never should’ve been saddled with this.If the Sox really wanted this guy they would have said he’s the Dh.But hey let’s keep him on the roster even though there was interest from other teams.But Henry wouldn’t eat the contract as they still owe Yashida 33.1 million dollars.He tried with Duran but Duran is damaged goods.
Now what is Sullivan Tire going to do now that their star Manager in their Commercials got the axe?
Can’t wait for the suck ups, like Dave O’Brien…. how are they going spin things. At least Merloni, was somewhat critical at times of what was going on.
BoSox have dipped into their farm system for 2 new coaches. Chad Epperson, the manager at Double-A Portland, is the interim third base coach. Worcester hitting coach Collin Hetzler is joining the hitting staff in Boston.
I came straight to the comments section. Boston fans have been wanting change for a long time, and I’m curious to read their thoughts on the move(s) the team made.
This is exactly the type of situation I set extra popcorn aside for.
Haven’t been able to want good things for Boston since they hired Cora after his time in Houston.
Oh what a glorious day! The cheater is finally done, may he never find a managerial job again.
It’s like checking the engine when you have a tire puncture.
“he is regarded as one of the top managers in the game”
Why does anyone regard him that way?? I’ve been watching Cora make horribly stupid in-game decisions for a loooong time. Bad lineup decisions and some of the most consistently bad bullpen decisions of any manager. The team is perpetually unprepared to start the season every year. Never matters who’s on the field, the fielding is always bad and no one seems to know what to do in the most basic game situations on the field. Been that way for years. Sure, the players like him, he’s known as a players manager, is not heavy on the discipline and just lets players do whatever with no repercussions. But he’s not the brilliant baseball mind that he somehow has cultivated a reputation for.
That 2018 team was literally like an All-Star team. It was a phenomenal roster put together by Dave Dombrowski. Literally anyone I know could have guided that squad to 108 wins. Heck, if it weren’t for Cora, they probably would’ve won 120. They were that good. But he made bad bullpen decisions that year, too. But the team was so good they got away with it most of the time. When the roster was less good (when the owners stopped spending big $$) in the seasons since, a lot of Cora’s crappy decisions have led to losses.
Ultimately where the Red Sox stand today is Breslow’s fault probably more than Cora’s, but Cora has been bad at managing for several years now so it feels appropriate to fire him
I feel like breslow is responsible for the various lineups and pinch hitting. I could wrong but I don’t remember him managing like this years ago. Analytics are ruining baseball
keep the intern rest of the season .. then steal cash from the rays
Not Surprising to me!
Was Expecting a Shakeup.
Red Sox had gone “All in” with trades and free agency.
For some reason, Cora was not able to get the most out the team’s new mix of players.
Seeing the Red Sox in last place and fading fast when they
were supposed to contend for the playoffs and World Series
it was obvious to me that the team was scuffling, underperforming
and that a major shakeup was imminent.
once reporters started referencing 2012 cora’s days were numbered. breslow finally gets to pick his guy. as a yankee fan i hope this means the org’s reliance on driveline only increases
also didn’t help that the team looked completely unprepared to use ABS coming out of spring training
I have the perfect candidate for the Sox job. Derek Kelly/Don Shelton, sorry I can’t tell the difference between the 2, you can have Kelly.
YOU’LL ALWAYS HAVE THE TRASH CANS, Alex, and a city that didn’t give a flip about the trash cans.
Trash can Cora gets Canned.
So what’s next for the guys who have social media accounts under “Fire Alex Cora” or a website to that effect? Do you just plug in the next manager and keep on truckin’?
Run him out of baseball. Along with anyone else in that 2017 team
Why? It wasn’t against the rules for the teams themselves until September of 2017. It wasn’t something that players could be punished for until 2018. Just let it go.
Wow! I thought they should have done so a couple years ago, but to do it less than 30 games into the season says a lot about how badly he must have lost the team. Good luck Red Sox fans. Hopefully the new manager can instill a more workman-like approach to the basics than Cora seemed to require from his players. We are seeing that here in Anaheim from Suzuki and its a welcome change for us, but we don’t have the level of talent you guys do on that roster.
It’ll be interesting to see if they get a bump from this or if the issues run much deeper. There are a few teams that need to keep a close eye on the Sox results over the next 15-30 games.
Funny. He’s not as good without his cans. In fact he’s quite terrible on his own.
Everyone calling this stunning and a surprise hasn’t watched Red Sox baseball this season. It’s been bad. I watch almost every game and I’ve turned a few off. After being down 2-3 runs you just know it’s over. No hits.
As a Sox fan I am thrilled with this. While Cora steered the ship on our 2018 championship I am a firm believer and have been since 2020 that he should have not been brought back after his suspension from Major League Baseball. That was a bad call on the front office staff. I do not condone cheating and it was almost like Henry and Co. were like no problem….well keep the seat warm for you.
As for the other coaches I could care less, but Varitek should have been given the Interim Managerial Tag and Andrew Bailey should have been fired along with Cora. Our offense is god awful and our pitching staff isn’t much better.
I know Henry and Co. love Breslow as we’re now on our second low level GM in a row. His time is running out just like Bloom’s will. This team was not put together very well at all. Breslow has sold us on the idea that all these moves are great but we did a horrendous job in Free Agency and big deal we helped our old GM destroy his new club by adding his aging stars. Bravo Breslow. I am not saying we all need to be the Dodgers but you need to spend money to win in MLB and I do not mean Ranger Suarez as your big ticket signing.
Breslow has also failed in the trade game on another level, the outfield situation is ridiculous and it’s now year 2 of that disaster. I do like all of them however we do not need all of them. Yoshida should have been cut because no one was taking that deal in a trade. And Duran should have moved for a top of the line starter. I wanted Cora gone but Breslow didn’t do him any favors with that situation.
Henry if you’re listening, you’ve made 2 horrible calls on your last GM’s and a bad one in bringing back a suspended manager that you fired once already. Fire Breslow, hire a REAL GM that knows how to build a contender and manage a good young core and hire a proven Manager.
The Red Sox are a Ferrari an this front office takes it to get serviced at Jiffy Lube. Get it right this time, idiots.
I know everyone is eagerly waiting for my opinion since I have followed this team since 1963.
1. This is the only successful ownership team in the history of this team. Sure they won a bunch back in the early 1900’s but they also built the first Yankee dynasty. Its hard to forgive them for that. I know, a lot of different owners in the early 1900’s.
2. Alex Cora is indeed a good manager but unequivically it was time for the change to be made. It’s good that it’s still April and by no means are they out of it. They have an excellent roster and should be a lot better going forward.
3. Varitek is apparently a TBD. He has always wanted to be part of the Red Sox and deservedly so. I would like to see him take over at Worcester to replace Tracy but they haven’t made that move, yet.
4. I like Breslow and Bailey, and really hope they can turn the pitching into what it could become. There’s no reason they can’t have an elite rotation and a solid bullpen.
5. Please locate a hitting coach ASAP. I don’t have anyone in mind but the offense needs to improve a lot. The talent is there to support the pitching.
6. Defense and speed are two other areas of potential. Maybe some hard position decisions need to be made both in terms of fielding and lineup.
7. I won’t be surprised by whatever happens next. Winning, losing, trades, whatever nonsense comes down the pike. But as always, we’ll see.
I’ve been following this team since 1954 and I wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to think that everyone is waiting for my opinion. I remember Lou Boudreau and Pinky Higgins. I remember when the Sox didn’t have the talent to compete. This team does.
Cora had to go. He lost the team and the fan base. The only ones he had left were the talking heads, the so-called experts who if they really knew what they were talking about would be running a team not talking about someone else running a team.
Every player on this team was lost at the plate. Totally lost. That’s a coaching/management problem.
Furthermore, Cora has never had his team prepared to play at the beginning of the season. There is no excuse for that.
Henry made the right call.
I was being very tongue in cheek in that first sentence. I fully realize that nobody cares what I think. But I do totally appreciate your position and find it impossible to disagree with.
I was waiting for whyhayzee to comment here.., and he did not disappoint. I like your comment as well PK. Many excellent observations !!
I’ve been following the Red Sox in a major way since 1978. I suppose I’m the youngster here lol 😃
One thing I know for sure is that many look forward to what I write. But that’s because I stick my foot in my mouth way more often than I provide a decent opinion lol
Gary, in 1978, I lived in a town in New Jersey that shall go unnamed. Let me just point out that in that town also lived Bucky Dent and Goose Gossage, the two players who ripped my heart out in 1978.
Yup 1978. I came home from school in San Diego not realizing that the Red Sox were already on television that afternoon in the Yankees one game playoff.
I missed Buckys Homer, but saw Yaz pop out to third in his final at bat.
Not so bad as I thought they would be back the next year with that excellent team.
My big heartbreak was 86. Calvin Schiraldi, one strike away.
86 almost ruined my marriage. We celebrate 40 this year. I’m still in love, I hope she is.
They should have traded Duran for a haul while they still could. He’s been losing value for 2 years.
Some of us were after that big time after his MVP type season at age 27.
When things slowed down after the aberration, we could see his fluke year would probably not happen again. A 30 year-old who wants to get paid but has a game built on speed and athleticism alone, won’t produce by year three of that proposed new five year deal.
But here we are. He can still get it done if he shakes this mental part of the batters box struggle.
Other Teams, POBs and GMs saw that Duran had a career year and has regressed since then. They were not offered “a haul” by any other team because his one good year did not justify it.
If Duran had 2-3 consistently very good to great years, then I would agree with you!
Duran has been losing value because of the way he has been used. Hit him in leadoff, not 6 different slots like this season. Play him every day. Play him in one position whether that is LF or CF. Problem solved.
His 4.7 WAR last season was still exceptional. No one was better as a LF. Bellinger had a higher WAR, but he played more games in RF and CF than LF.
Carlos Mendoza next?
Somehow one of the more surprising and yet least surprising moves I expected. Cora’s firing seemed inevitable… Bigger surprise is they cleaned house. I expected them to give Vasquez a shot, not bring up Tracy. hough as I think about it, Tracy seems like the better move if they’re going with someone the kids already know and respect.
Cora and Ramon are basically attached at the hip. Im not surprised they went together.
Breslow consolidates his power. He now has a short widow to turn this around. Stay tuned.
Funny he just lost his scapegoats and you think his power has concentrated? His head is next. The rope just got shorter. Henry turns over this position every 4 years. Breslow was hired in ’23…
totaly agree
Cleve, I think you’re both saying the same thing.
Without getting into the merits of Cora, our hitting approach looked really bad. Story, Durbin & Duran are all about 200 points behind 2025. I think Fatse had to go.
I was expecting Fatse to be fired after Fridays game to be honest. I was shocked to see them go right for Cora and the rest of them all at once.
Seems like a panic move to me unless there were some real clubhouse problems. Wholesale housecleaning is for the offseason. There’s no time for resets during the season with games every day.
Cora’s demeanor this whole season, including spring training, indicated he knew he wasn’t going to finish the year with the Red Sox, he didn’t care, and wasn’t very interested either. Not a good look for Red Sox fans. Good effing riddance…
I dont think this is an accurate statement at all. Why would he think he wouldnt finish the season? This is an ownership problem above all. Henry apparently is in Baltimore but couldnt be bothered to show up to the press conference today. He is the real problem.
Henry avoids press conferences these days, even at the winter festival he avoids the panels.
IIRC his excuse is that what he says gets picked apart and twisted into things he didnt mean… but I dont buy that, I think he means what he says and just doesnt like the appropriate reactions from fans.
Breslow and Chad Tracy spoke to the Red Sox players this morning — Henry and Sam Kennedy were present but did not speak. Per a report by Boston.com, players were not allowed to ask questions about Cora or the Saturday night housecleaning.
It’s funny, everyone says we need to run the government like a business, we need to run education like a business, entertainment and sports like a business. Um, there are a lot of businesses that can’t run themselves effectively at all. And they fail. Quite often. So maybe doing everything like a business ain’t so hot after all. Huh. Maybe there’s another piece to the puzzle that creates a successful organization. Huh. I wonder how many organizations have figured that out? Just random thoughts of a Monday morning QB.
Nothing about that 2018 team was special except the results. Four position players were below average and the catchers were abysmal. Only two starters qualified with 162+ innings and one had a barely average ERA. The bullpen was not that great and Kimbrel was not as good as usual. So, they were not some powerhouse team. But what they did have was a new manager. This team doesn’t always succeed with new managers but there is a precedent.
Wondering when they informed him, before or after the game?
I assume after. I think once that’s it that’s it. I think some managers are fired the morning of and an assistant manager or a minor league manager is brought in for that day’s game post haste.
There were some quotes from cora after the game talking about going forward. He didnt expect anything to happen that afternoon
Cora and the coaches learned they were out when they got back to the team hotel from Camden Yards. Saturday’s game was moved up to noontime as rain was in the forecast.
About time !! Amen
Umpires: HP: Alex Tosi. 1B: Cory Blaser.
At quick glance I saw Alex and Cory and thought, wait, he’s umpiring now?
Karma for a cheater.
Then why are the Dodgers not losing?
No ESPN is not bias. The Top 3 stories on their website is the firing of Cora or something related to the BoSox… SMH.
6 PM Eastern on Sunday: ESPN has NBA Playoffs first, Stanley Cup tournament second, NFL Draft third.
It is the biggest news in the game.
While I don’t think it will change the trajectory of the 2026 season, it was long overdue. Since he was hired Breslow has had to try to conform to Cora’s style of managing instead of Cora conforming to Breslow’s style of team building.
Bringing a team together was not a skill Cora possessed. The team cohesiveness was lost without Bregman as it had been the last few seasons before Bregman. Hopefully Breslow finds a guy that can instill that us against the world, we are playing for the guy next to us mentality.
I think Cora is over rated by the media and his peers….that said this team has many flaws besides him. Ultimately I think the front office egos are so big and most people cant stand them. Good luck finding any top candidates for any red sox positions. Breslow is an ivy school grad with zero personality and he knows he is the smartest guy in the room, but what good is that in baseball! There is this new term in college sports kids get paid for and its called Likeability….sox front office is worst in the league in likability and until they sell the team its not goin to change!
Maybe trevor story needs to look in the mirror before running to the media. Hes hitting under 200 and on his way to being among the mlb leaders in errors again this year his play as much as anyone is a reason the coaches were fired…he didnt opt in for the love of the team and cora he did it because he knew he wasn’t getting close to 50 million anywhere else yet he wants to question the person “giving” him 50 mil for basically nothing?
Does this set the tone of moving players at the trade deadline? We shall see.
They won’t if they’re 10 games over 500
It all boils down to what the front office thinks of this roster. If they sat on their hands, the conclusion could be that they don’t think the team is very good, and it’s ok for them to lose. This sends the message to the players that they need to start playing nearer to their potential. They don’t have to play .700 ball, but they do need to start winning more games like yesterday. Tolle and Early need to be part of the rotation, and Bello needs to show something. They can go six when necessary but an actual six man rotation is only when you must. It’s really about having six starters share the load over the season, giving guys a rest break when they need it to keep them fresh and not overworked. Now the hitting? Well, an established lineup might help that. It’s all about situational hitting, good at bats, a long lineup. Home runs don’t wear down pitchers that much. In fact, they often end rallies. Don’t get me wrong, they’re great when there are men on base, nothing is better. Let’s see how the second month of the season goes for this team.
The Phillies and the Mets are now both 9 and 19. Maybe they will have a bidding war over hiring Cora? Who knows, it would be fun to watch.
The White Sox need to let Venable go, and bring in someone, that knows what they are doing!
Ventura, Renteria, Grifol, Anderson at the major league level, you do not want on the job training. Reinsdorf and Guillen should settle their differences, and put Guillen.back as the manager.
Venable is like a deer in headlights, the Sox need direction, and of course TALENT, and how and how not to use the talent.
Jerry does not want to increase payroll, then if he does not bring in Ozzie, maybe minor league coach Pat Listash, as a lame duck, until management hires an experienced manager.
Is Jerry going to hire someone inexperienced to coach the Bulls?
cbssports.com/mlb/news/why-craig-breslow-fired-ale…
This article changes the way I felt about Cora getting fired. I am sure I will get backlash but I don’t believe Cora was the problem. As I had been saying the FO and their analytics were huge problem with the team.
2-0 since the change. Change in approach at the plate already. Tracy is a self professed “strong adherent to modern, data-informed player development”. An analytics geek and a baseball rat that grew up around the game his entire life.
Cora could write out a lineup card as long as he never had to change any names on it other than the starting pitcher. Once Breslow was hired Cora fought tooth and nail against having to change the lineup. He said over and over, “the roster is the roster”.
What is telling is the line in that article, “Instead of relying on established stars at set positions, Cora was tasked with maximizing the entire roster.” Cora didn’t have that skill. That skill is what it takes to win in today’s game unless you are the Dodgers and outspending the rest of baseball by $100 million.
Not a stunning move. Team was underperforming.
However, calling up their triple A guy to run the show is a bit surprising with most of the other staff let go. Quite a storied franchise to make that bold a move