3 Reasons Red Sox Need to Fire Alex Cora
By Tyler Maher
There’s a saying in baseball that every manager is hired to be fired. Even the best managers outlive their usefulness after a while, and they’re often the first to lose their jobs when things go south. After all, it’s a lot easier to fire a manager than it is to rebuild an entire team or front office.
Unfortunately, it appears the Red Sox have reached that point with Alex Cora. We’re now five years removed from his 2018 World Series title, and the club’s underwhelming results lately under his watch suggest it’s time to move on.
Here are three reasons why Boston should fire Cora.
3 Reasons the Red Sox Should Fire Alex Cora
1. Declining Results
When Cora first took as Red Sox manager in 2018, he could do no wrong. The team raced to 108 wins during the regular season (a franchise record) before storming through the playoffs, capping off their charmed season with a World Series title and a duck boat parade.
Since then, however, things have slowly started to go sour for Cora and the organization. The team slipped to 84 wins and missed the postseason in 2019, then Cora was suspended for the 2020 campaign due to his role in the 2017 Astros’ sign-stealing scandal (evidence of cheating was also found during Cora’s 2018 season with Boston).
The Red Sox “parted ways” with Cora prior to the 2020 season, but re-hired him for 2021 once his suspension ended. Cora rewarded them with 92 wins and a playoff berth, but things started going wrong during the second half and have never really improved. Since July 29, 2021, the Sox have been four games below .500 during the regular season. They finished last in the AL East in 2022 and are last again in 2023.
It’s now been more than two calendar years of bad baseball for Boston under Cora, which has been defined by an endless string of mental lapses and defensive/baserunning miscues. At various times, the Red Sox have lacked focus, determination and hustle under Cora, requiring him to discipline players and shoulder the blame for their poor performance.
Alex Cora "In the end it’s on me. I’m the manager of this club and we’ve been sloppy. It’s not about pointing fingers, right? The roster is the roster and we have to play better baseball. But I’m the manager of this team and defensively we’re not good. We’re not.”
— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) June 4, 2023
Whatever Cora’s doing to fix these preventable errors clearly isn’t working, so it’s time to find someone new who can get through to these guys.