This is sensible. If the players aren't responding to him, then it's probably time for a change. But the earlier stuff about the team falling apart down the stretch -- was he supposed to manage differently so that their rotation, which gamely hung in for four months being duct-taped together, finally blew apart? I don't think the pitching staff failed because of management. I think it was more bad luck and some underwhelming level of quality to begin with.
Cora's history of this is up and down. 2018, great. 2019, not good at all. 2021. . .hard to say, but I think we should spot him full credit in that the result was hard to argue with. By the same token, 2022 and 2023 have had results that are hard to get enthusiastic about. Sometimes players take steps forward, but I think it's a hard lift to say that the team played fundamentally good baseball this year but were hamstrung by injuries.
2019 all of the pitching was delayed in spring training. Last two years were both just mass injuries. 2020 was pointless and 2021 it worked well into mid-October. I still don't think much of that is on Cora.
Oh, yeah, the defense seems like one thing you can pin on the manager. The hitting inconsistency, maybe some of that too (although last year the injury bug decimated the offense too).
But the 2019 “take it easy in spring training and be strong when it really matters“ was an intentional strategy that really didn’t work. How much of that was Cora, who knows. I blame most of the inaction at the trade deadline the past few years on the front office but do wonder if Cora sulking about it had an impact on the clubhouse. Even if not on the same page as the front office, it may have helped to act as if he was.
Nope. I think it’s important for the manager and GM to be on the same page. I’m nervous that we’re going to bring someone in and stick them with Cora. If they don’t mesh it might be a factor in us enduring year 3 of major league crumminess.
Not sure which stats your recollection prefers; Fangraphs thought he had good defensive years in 2015 and 2017 (sandwiched by bad years), statcast agrees with 2017 (and didn't do defensive stats in 2015), and DRS thinks his first good year was 2022.
I mean, those teams are winning more often than not. I genuinely don't know because I don't watch them, but do other teams in last place in their divisions seem to be having fun?
Not sure. But the Sox have been not great and had fun in the past I felt. Devers used to be so jovial out there.
Well, you may be right, hard to know. One last thing about 2019, I thought it happened because everyone was so worn out after the WS that they were just all on a slower track? Anyway, the recent results are what matters more, since unlike 2019 they include some of the very players Cora is expected to manage next year.
Devers is also now the face of the franchise. Fair or not, that likely brings a lot of added pressure on a team that has performed so poorly. Some guys welcome that, other guys may not or might prefer to spread that out a bit more. It's noticeable, perhaps even magnified when his bat disappears for pronged periods as it sometimes does and his defense does him no favors. IMO that is a factor in Devers seeming less jovial.
Yes it's possible and as far as I'm concerned, "next PBO should pick their own manager" means just that. Whether he or she is confident in Cora and the current coaching staff or not should be their call to make, it shouldn't be dictated by ownership as some seem to suggest it will be.
Just thinking out loud here...If ownership is indeed going to let the new hire decide Cora's fate, what advantage is there to making that announcement now? I get that everyone is curious and it makes for good discussion, but there is no advantage or disadvantage to making a definitive public statement about the matter. I think the fact that it has not been announced leans toward the idea that the call will be that of the incoming PBO.
Yeaaaaah. . .I think that reduces the scope of the hire to making trades to get the team Cora wants/can coach/can play. And even there, I'd be hesitant to bring in pitching this year with the Sox's recent track record. I mean, do you just get good pitchers, or do you have to get pitchers with a specific skill-set that is Cora-friendly?
It's not just Cora though. It's the pitching staff, the hitting staff, and whatever collective field staff input there is re: organizational approaches to things (E.g., "throw more strikes, regardless.")
This. However the staff has been coaching - particularly the defense, base running and to a lesser extent pitching - has not yielded the desired results. Time to try a new approach.
Yeah, this sounds like a typical shrewd answer from Cora. Now if he gets fired, they can't credibly say it was a mutual decision. And he knows that negotiating in the media is a really bad idea. So...how else is he really supposed to answer this question?
Disclaimer: I don’t like Cora and wish he was going / gone
I’m probably reading into it, but there clearly seems an implied ,”Now that Bloom is gone, We’ll be good with me allowed to run it how I want”.
I want him gone too. But he has a contract. I don't think you have to say you hope you're back to honor your existing contract.
You can’t let a guy like Butch Hobson get away. If we don’t promote him to the big league manager spot, there are many other teams that would love to have him
