By Jordan Long
The Boston Red Sox have decided to bring back manager Alex Cora. The financial terms of the deal weren’t announced. This ends his one-year suspension for his role in the Houston Astros sign stealing scandal.
Cora was the Boston Red Sox Manager from 2018 to 2019. During that time, the Red Sox were successful under him going 192-132, a winning percentage of .593. Boston made one playoff appearance, 2018. They ended up winning the World Series that year.
When the Astros won the World Series in 2017, Cora was the bench coach. They allowed players to use a camera feed from center field to a television behind the dugout. They would smack a trash can for the batter to know what pitch was coming. Cora and the rest of the Astros staff failed to stop it. For this, he was banned for a year for his role and Boston parted ways with him.
The Red Sox hired Ron Roenicke as their Manager this past season. He was part of Cora’s staff in 2019. It didn’t work out. Roenicke went 24-36. Boston missed the playoffs for the 2nd year in a row. Boston decided one year was enough.
The Red Sox are taking a gamble. They know how good a manager Cora is but his cheating past will always be with him. They must hope Cora learned from this incident and hopefully it will never happen again.
Cora wants to lead this team back to the playoffs. They last made the postseason when they won it all with him in 2018. The Red Sox are anticipating the same results. Boston needs to do more this winter other than hiring Cora to become a playoff team if there is a season in 2021.
Boston was one of the better hitting teams this season with a .265 average, 3rd in Major League Baseball. They smacked 81 home runs, 12th in the league. Those aren’t bad numbers, but it couldn’t hurt them to add another bat in the lineup to make this offense even more potent.
The reason they didn’t earn a playoff spot was their pitching. Roenicke waited too long to take pitchers out. By the time he did, the game was pretty much over. The total team ERA was 5.58, 28th in all of baseball. Cora knows how to use his rotation and bullpen better. The Red Sox might look at signing a free agent to bolster the bullpen or the starting rotation. Hopefully, all these moves will make Cora’s job easier and earn a playoff spot once again.
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