Thursday evening was one of the few times that former Red Sox manager Alex Cora has spoken publicly since the club fired him in late January. At the outset of the offseason, no one would have expected such a horrid outcome for Cora, who was wildly successful during his two years as Boston’s skipper. But Cora found himself embroiled in a couple of scandals – one for the Astros’ sign-stealing violations from a World Series-winning 2017, when he was its bench coach; the other came as a result of Boston’s sign-stealing from the 2018 campaign, in which Cora was a rookie manager who helped the team to a championship.
The Red Sox felt it was best to part with Cora as MLB was deliberating his fate. After months of reviewing the evidence, the league decided in April to suspend Cora through the 2020 postseason. However, it only banned Cora for the role he played as Houston’s assistant in 2017, not Boston’s manager the next season. Cora has since acknowledged the errors he made with the Astros, including when he took responsibility on Thursday (via Marly Rivera of ESPN.com) and said: “I deserve my suspension and I’m paying the price for my actions. And I am not proud of what happened.”
The 44-year-old Cora went on to admit he’d eventually like to return to baseball. It’s anyone’s guess whether he’ll get back into the game in any capacity, but if teams are willing to believe he has learned his lesson, he could re-emerge as a managerial candidate down the line (perhaps he’ll first have to prove himself again as an assistant). Cora did hold his own in that position in the pressure cooker known as Boston, where he guided the team to 192-132 regular-season record and the aforementioned championship. With that in mind, do you think some MLB franchise will ever give him another shot as a manager?
(Poll link for app users)
leaning no, simply due to the double instances. If the Sox didnt do anything the i could more likely see him back, even if it is still a big question mark in that scenario.
You don’t own a team so your opinion doesn’t matter.
Totally unnecessary and Dickish comment, even by my standards.
I hope you copy and paste this for every other commentor then. The point of this post is to speculate about whether he comes back, which is what dark side is doing
I personally think it comes down to how he handles himself in the coming years. If he finds a way to mine goodwill and seem really contrite then he has a chance
Seems you’re on the wrong site.
Either do you so why should yours matter?
That’s right! Down with The Man! /s
Imagine being as stupid and braindead as Simone mike is
Imagine having a name thats a tributes to free government handouts, such as EBT. Hmm, must be a positive contriuting member of society….with an opinion that has zero value.
Wow you are a piece of….
Clarification: clepto you are the piece of….
Let me count the ways I care what you think.
First way – You replied.
Clepto, we can have a heart to heart if you’d like. The concern is your logic is so flawed it is restricting your ability for rational thought.
Your problem is you assume too much, there jerky.
Your opinion means nothing. Teams don’t like to deal with too much drama these days so no
Simon Ike tries to be funny and gets I pwn’d
Simonmike dang fat fingers
Simon is a classy guy. An idiot but classy nonetheless.
um…okay then? Why did you need to say that?
Of course his opinion matters. What do you think the comment section is for?
well the entire point of this post was asking people’s opinions… so uh… Yeah his opinion does matter… that’s the ENTIRE point of this article. If you didn’t want to see people’s opinions on the topic then you obviously clicked on the wrong article to read…
I don’t think he should manage again but I have the feeling some team will be desperate enough to win EVENTUALLY to snag him unfortunately.
Agree Doug. Sox ownership for whatever reason still thinks highly of him but needed to downplay any speculation of him returning in the near future. I personally don’t want him back but if the team doesn’t win again in say four years, I can see ownership turning to him then provided no bombs come out.
Manage? No. Batboy? sure
He’s the 2021 Red Sox manager. Just wait.
No. The “Cora will manage the 2021 Red Sox” people need to take off the tin foil hat. Why would Bloom want to re-hire someone who wasn’t his guy and had to step down in disgrace? Its not happening.
Do you think Ron Roenicke is there guy long-term though? I don’t think it’s impossible, just very unlikely to extremely unlikely
Joshua you are correct. Lame duck season equals lame-duck manager. We’ll see what happens the next off season when the Sox can spend again and let’s see who they hire.
Nope, but Bloom will hire his own guy. Not the last regimes cheater.
its very likely Boston’s 2021 manager is neither. just because its not Roenicke doesnt mean it has to be Cora. Also agree with AFK here, Bloom would likely want his own guy.
Under Henry, outgoing managers have historically caught some tar and feathers on the way out. Didn’t happen here and Cora’s staff remains essentially intact.
I can’t stand his demeanor and body language in the dugout. Personally I think he sucks!
Not a fan, but he did win the Series and 196 regular season games. Most teams would sign up for that “suckage.”
Cheated! End of story. “But he did win.” Cheated, geez.
Agree totally! Cora is very arrogant, even if he did not cheat i would not want him back.
There were more than a few games you would swear he was Pete Rose almost trying to loose in 2019. I watched almost every Red Sox game and remember saying to myself “why the hell did he make that move!”
I love Cora and his moves.
Yes cuz otherwise social injustice
Pete Rose can be his hitting coach.
I’d watch that team.
My guess is he’s a bench coach within 3 years. McGwire was a hitting coach, Bonds is a special instructor, and ARod may own the Mets. Cora and Beltran will be back.
Not funny. Try again.
Ditto to you
Why not funny? I’m serious. Think back to all the players that people have railed against and said they’ll never be in major league baseball again. It seems like half of them have returned to baseball in one form or another. Roger Clemens owns part of the the Astros’s farm system and I think he has some kind of official position in their front office. But even some that are blackballed are more gone because of hypocrisy. According to a recent article I read one of the real reasons why Sosa isn’t invited back to Wrigley Field is because Ricketts is demanding he admit and apologize for using steroids.
So Cora and Beltran returning? I’ve heard of stranger things happening in baseball.
He’ll be back as soon as people get outraged by the next thing, whatever it may be. He’ll probably have to eat a little crow at the first press conference, but after that it will be forgotten by most fans. As long as his team wins that is. Winning in sports has a tendency to make people forget a lot of bad things.
Absolutely !!
He’ll be back when Shoeless Joe Jackson is in the Hall of Fame.
Don’t want a rat or a weasel as my manager
Good thing you aren’t on the team then.
Good thing, yes! I can’t hit a slider anymore.
But I can hit the ice cold beer.
Awesome response. Thanx for taking it the right way.
I don’t think he will manage a team but I don’t think he’s finished in baseball.
I hope he’s not. What else is the guy qualified to do for a living?
screw this rat. ban 4 life.
Who cares about Alex Cora?
Just hire Ozzie Guillen.
Exactly
I don’t see how he can. You can argue why he should, but the fact you have to argue is almost proof enough that he won’t. Teams can and will find other managers that embrace advanced stats, former players, or a combination of both as time goes on. That would probably be preferable to justifying a decision that goes beyond just baseball to those that are against the decision. I doubt there will be a large portion of a fan base to appease demanding Alex Cora get hired.
But maybe he has a super large family located in one area that could have that kind of sway with teams. Like a million Cora march on the stadium
I wouldn’t want to hire him… and nice name! Made me lol
Thanks, it just felt right. I applaud your name as well. Is it Italian?
Nah, just some dumb wordplay with “winning” and my favorite player, Tony Gwynn. It just felt right, too!
Ha I got the wordplay, I was just making a stupid joke.
I was too stewpid to get it!
They should have banned him from working in baseball
Bonds was blackballed and is one of the most controversial players in history, regardless of your stance on him he got a shot as a hitting coach. Big Mac was the same. He may not manage but he’ll get a shot somewhere at some point.
There should not be an absolute permanent punishment for Cora, when he was not the only one responsible for sign stealing. The former GM, the former manager Hinch, the players who used different methods to steal and relay signs to each other, the personnel who operated the specific camera. He was more or less used as the scape goat, since the GM has the money and influence. People quickly forgot that he led the Red Sox to a World Series title without cheating. It was the scout/replay guy who developed and continued the sign stealing. Cora had nothing to do with it. So he wasn’t an accessory. Had he known at the start, he certainly would have stopped it. How many players have done more serious offenses? Especially at the height of the steroid era. Bonds, Manny, A-Rod, Clemens, Sosa, McGwire. All of them were allowed to continue to play or be hired by teams in various capacities.
What are you, Cora’s mother? He would have stopped it? It was his idea for goodness sake!
His nose is to long wont get another job
Your ‘too’ is too short.
I don’t think so with the way baseball deals with problems. Single out a couple of people for league wide problems and blackball them from the league or the Hall of Fame and I think AJ Hinch, Jeff Luhnow and Alex Cora will pay for their roles in the Astros’ cheating system even though something like what they did probably happens in many ballparks.
I don’t think he manages again in the majors.
let’s hope not
I would be ok with Hinch or Lunhow being part of my favorite teams well before Cora. Cora was definitely hands on involved in all of it. Lunhow and Hinch could have stopped it, but we’re more just the fall people.
Will Dusty Baker manage the Astros in 2021?
when pete rose gets in the hall of fame
where’s option C: Who cares?
you didnt need to come here and comment if you didnt care
MLB is so unfair in the way they punish some people so who knows hes a minority if any important enough owner wants to hire hell manage again. He or Carlos Beltran should never hold any type of job in MLB they cheated the game to me a million times worse than what Pete Rose did.
It would be interesting to see if Pete Rose ever bet against his team….if he did and made moves to make it easier to loose than he deserved the ban as manager. If he only bet on his team to win then no problem. Even assuming Rose cheated as a manager imo he should be in the HOF as a player. (Can’t stand the arrogant sob, but he deserves to be in the HOF)
1) He won. What went on in boston didn’t equal houston, and he won. Winning goes a long ways.
2) he handled pressure cooker fan base and media
3) he developed strong buy-in from players and had positive relationships with them
4) bi-lingual and analytic focused
Add that up and, after some die down, I think a team somewhere eventually gives him a shot.
And, oh yeah, he cheated.
yes, the sky is blue
Cora will manage the Las Vegas Vipers or Portland Lumberjacks.
These dilemmas always fascinate me from an ethics perspective.
Rose was banned for violating straight forward gambling rules that had zero impact on the integrity of the game. Cora develops a cheating scheme in Houston and then looks the other way allowing another one in Boston. Both of these brought the integrity of the game into question.
Yet Cora is allowed to “learn his lesson” and potentially be apart of baseball again if someone will give him a second, scratch that, third chance. Not sure what to make of this, just wanted to throw this out there and see if anyone had any thoughts on the matter.
@harms1124
“Rose was banned for violating straight forward gambling rules that had zero impact on the integrity of the game.”
Sorry, but that’s impossible to prove one way or the other – even if he only bet on the Reds to win – because as soon as he makes a decision based on a bet and not to – say – save the arm of an over used reliever, then the integrity is gone. And there is no way of proving this one way or the other.
Add that to the almost inexorable amount of time (just the 15 years or so) it took Rose to actually “fess up” despite damning evidence and “Pete Rose” and “integrity” shouldn’t be used (IMHO) in the same sentence. (This all before the jail term for tax evasion and questionable personal life)
Nevertheless, I don’t think I’d be hiring Cora in a hurry (in the unlikely event I become a GM) – or for that matter AJ Hinch. I just think the amount of mud slinging will outweigh whatever they can bring to the table.
Well the truth is we can’t really prove Rose’s integrity. He’s told multiple different stories about his betting and even the one where he only ever bet to win does still make one wonder if he ever made a call to a give up on a game in order to line things up for the future. In other words, did his gambling decision ever play a roll?
You also have to remember the history of baseball. Gambling was the first major disaster in baseball and i’m not just talking about the 1919 WS which was the tipping point. The point being gambling is a more sensitive subject in baseball because of this and will be treated as such.
Imagine being as stupid and braindead as Simone mike is
looked in the mirror lately?
Imagine if there was a boy born who could swim faster than a shark
Imagine being so narcissistic that you cant see how stupid the comment was….the first time.
There are 30 of these jobs on the planet. He was fortunate enough to be given one of them. He decided to do what he did with it.
Thank you Mr. Cora, you may go now.
Go get a real estate license in South Florida and make a life for yourself , like the rest of us.
Jim Crane says YES!
Dusty Baker found a gig this year, yes Cora will be back eventually. He’s young, well liked and had success. Even 10 years from now he’ll still be one of the youngest managers, assuming it takes 10 years, I give it 5 years max until he’s running a clubhouse again.
Absolutely. He will manage the water bottles, the poop for the grass, maybe even the clubhouse music.
Manage an MLB team? No.
yes .
with recommendation from big papi .
Who also cheated?
one cheater to another!
I don’t know…. if one thing americans are known for is to carry a grudge ans never forgive a “cheater”, plus he’s latino, so… I’ll say no
Cheater. 2 teams. Never again. You had a chance to live your dream and you cheated your way out of it. Go obsess over what could have been for the rest of your miserable life.
This is so classic Mets. Only the Mets would find themselves selling the franchise in the midst of a pandemic.
I’ll trade ya Scott Servais for Mr. Cora? The Servais us miserable Mariners have received so far is less than acceptable.
I’d say no. Ozzie Guillen hasn’t had a taste of MLB since his firing from Miami (the Fidel Castro comments, among other things). And that was in 2012. I would think Cora would be more of a poison to GM’s and owners than Ozzie.
But who knows, if a team is desperate enough, they may take the gamble with Cora. I just don’t see it though.
No, I don’t think he will.
Personally I’d even like to see the Sox bring him back next year. I understand what he did was wrong — but he’s been punished for it and he really is a great manager (or at least has the potential to be… his in-game management skills combined with his ability to get through to players AND handle the Boston media with ease all make him the perfect guy for the job in Boston) — it’s just unfortunate he made such a (big) mistake while serving as the bench coach for the Astros. I completely understand and respect everyone’s opinion that think he shouldn’t ever get another shot to manage again given how egregious the cheating system was in Houston. But at the same time… he’s been punished (or is by being suspended this year) and he’s still young. So I don’t think he should continue to be “punished” for the rest of his life — and as a Red Sox fan… I really do think he’s got the perfect combination of skills to succeed long term as their manager. So personally I hope they give him another shot — though I understand that might be a real long shot at this point.
Yankees cheated:
nj.com/yankees/2020/06/judge-to-unseal-letter-that…