Alex Cora Hired as Manager (10/22/17)

It took just 11 days but less than two weeks after John Farrell was fired as manager of the Boston Red Sox, they have found his replacement. Former Red Sox infielder and current bench coach of the Houston Astros, Alex Cora was named as the new manager of the Sox.

                                                 Welcome back Alex

The decision to hire Cora is based on his ability to coach younger players. John Farrell clearly was not getting through to Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts and some of the other guys that completely underperformed in 2017. Cora's ability to keep Carlos Correa, Jose Altuve and the other Astros in check was a huge reason why he was available as a managerial choice.

When Farrell was first hired in 2013, he was inheriting a team of veterans and some holdovers from the 2007 Red Sox, primarily his former pitchers Clay Buchholz and Jon Lester. In the last 4 years all the veterans and holdovers with the one exception of Dustin Pedroia are gone. The Sox inablity to perform in the playoffs cannot entirely be blamed on Farrell, but it sure didn't help that a lot of players regressed in 2017. Not just Betts and Bogaerts but Hanley Ramirez fell apart as well. Going into the season Andrew Benintendi was supposed to be a shoo-in as rookie of the year but Aaron Judge blew him out of the water. The pitching staff performed admirably but offensively the Sox underperformed and it was time for Farrell to go. Someone had to take the fall for back to back no-shows in the playoffs and it made sense to can him.

The Sox will be banking on Cora to right the likes of Betts and Bogaerts but how he handles the pitchers will be his real challenge. As incompetent as he was with pinch hitters and batting lineups, Farrell has proven he can get through to pitchers. Drew Pomeranz was a huge bust up from the moment he was traded here until the moment Farrell gave Pomeranz a huge tongue lashing against Oakland. After that, Drew became one of the best starters in the American League, winning 17 games. Can Cora get through to him to keep up that kind of streak moving forward?

                                                             Cora at the plate

Whether or not the Sox sign some free agents or make some trades is up in the air at this point, but the Sox had to move on from Farrell and with the Sox going with a young core of Betts, Jackie Bradley Jr, Benintendi, Bogaerts, Christian Vazquez and Rafael Devers, they needed someone they could connect with. With the New York Yankees vastly improving, the Sox need to get their heads out of their collective asses from ownership on down if they want to keep their stranglehold on the AL East title.

Cora was apart of the 2007 Red Sox world championship team and the Astros are on their way to becoming champions so Alex does bring some championship pedigree to the table. If nothing else, 2018 should be interesting to see what he can do. After all, he can't be any worse than Bobby Valentine....right?