The Red Sox conducted first-round interviews with at least nine candidates and advanced to second rounds with at least four more than Cora: Phyllis Player Information Coordinator Sam Fuld, Pirates Bench Coach Don Kelly, Yankees Bench Coach Carlos Mendoza and Marlins Bench Coach / Offensive Coordinator James Rowson.
On Oct. 30, Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom and GM Brian O’Halloran traveled to Puerto Rico for a face-to-face meeting with Cora. That meeting was significant, but did not mark the end of the process, as team officials met with another candidate on Monday.
But as the week progressed, the Red Sox continued to shoot their pool shots, narrowing down their decision on three candidates by Thursday – main-league sources said the team’s finalists were Cora, Fuld and Rowson. Eventually, most of the conversation focused on Cora and Fuld, before the team chose to bring Cora back for a second term – a decision that was to become popular throughout the organization.
Ron Ronick led the Red Sox in 2020 and they went 24-36 and finished last in the American League East. The team announced in September, on the final day of the regular season, that Ronick would not return as management for the 2021 season.
When he was hired as interim manager in February, Ronik was given the responsibility of the group moving away from the organizational changes of the earthquake.
Ronikke’s job was further challenged by the unprecedented effort and protocol to organize during the epidemic – which limited contact and communication between the manager and his coach as well as the players. All of this, Sox said Ronik – who previously managed in Milwaukee from 2011-15 – proved to be a skilled leader against an unsettling background.
Cora’s two-season stint with the Red Sox – which included the appointment of a historic title in 2018 – suddenly stalled in mid-January. He and the team agreed to take part in the MLB’s 2017 Astros sign-theft investigation, which found that Kora played a key role in using the close-circuit video camera as the championship team’s bench coach. Steal signals and relay them to heaters by banging on trash. At the time, the Red Sox were also under investigation by the MLB for using a video replay monitor to steal a sign sequence in 2018.
The MLB has not yet fined Cora – the league was waiting until the 2018 Red Sox investigation was completed – when the decision to split was made. But the Red Sox said their curriculum was shaped by the MLB’s findings about Cora’s role in the Astros’ breach.
But in April, the MLB determined that Cora had no role in violating the 2018 rules with the Red Sox and thus hit him with a season-long suspension until 2020 based solely on his behavior with the Astros. Once the MLB cleared Cora of malpractice in the Red Sox investigation, the possibility of his possible return to the Red Sox became a constant topic, especially his relationship with the broad cross-section of members of the Red Sox organization – players, owners and front office fee officials.
In the wake of that decision, team president and CEO Sam Kennedy suggested he believed Cora should get a second chance at the game.
“He does not have to go through a rehabilitation process. What he did was wrong. He accepted it and apologized for it, “said Kennedy. “But I have great faith in other opportunities. We all wish him well. ”
After replacing John Farrell, Cora led the Red Sox to the World Series Championship in his first season as manager in 2018. The Red Sox beat the Dodgers in five games to set a record-setting season in which they won 108 regular-season games, the most for a single season in franchise history.
Alex Spear can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter alexspeier.
