How Alex Cora is able to keep his job managing the Boston Red Sox, the Trevor Story situation, and other thoughts about a team that's now five games out

Monday 4/6/26

The Red Sox lost another yesterday to fall to 2-7. Ranger Suarez was poor again. I'm seeing a guy who doesn't have much. His pitches are waiting to be crushed if they aren't right where they need to be. The only reason the Sox were ever in the game--and had a rare lead at that--is because Walker Buehler was doing his best to take care of his old friends in the Red Sox' dugout.

The Sox stand at five games out. They're already in real trouble. You might have a disaster of a season on your hands here. A 2012 type season, but at least the Sox were competitive for some of that year.

The team has a big Trevor Story problem. He's hitting .112, which is the same as his OBP because he has zero walks through nine games. He's been abysmal in the field, too. Had an error yesterday and should have had one the day before, too, were it not for the alms of the hometown scorer who chose to make the pitcher unfairly pay instead.

The front office plan, such as a plan existed, was for the players on last year's team to get better and/or stay the same, and to plug holes with reasonable approximations of who and what had been in place there previously.

The Sox bat Story in the two-hole, and that kills them. I don't know what they should do, but they can't have this kind of line-up again. Anthony isn't doing much of anything in the lead-off spot. Duran isn't doing anything either and he never has against lefties, but do you put him there and move Anthony down a rung?

It's becoming clear to me that 2024 was Duran's career year and he won't be reproducing the likes of it again. I thought he'd come out strong this season with a fresh start and a clean head space, but I was wrong.

The Red Sox front office treats the concept of defense like something it just doesn't care about, almost like it has no bearing on wins and losses. The same with fundamentals. This team is so ineffectual offensively and strikes out so much that you actually welcome at-bats from Yoshida, and he's not even any good. But at least he'll put the ball in play and sometimes hit a gapper.

He had to come in on a sinking liner from his position in left field yesterday and I was on the verge of wincing because he can't really play the field. I find that baffling that you can be sufficiently hapless defensively that there's nowhere for a team to hide you out there. But this was part of your outfield plan? A plan of rotation, which means more bad defense. Duran is bad out there himself.

This team obviously lacks for leaders. I saw a post-game interview with Anthony, and he said that they aren't playing with enough energy. That's a concerning remark to me. I mean, I can see what he's saying is true, but when a young ballplayer who is slightly more than a rookie is saying this, because it's that plain to him and he knows this is a long way off from how it's supposed to be--and this isn't a veteran of fourteen seasons and lots of clubhouses--I am all the more concerned.

NESN had Craig Breslow make an appearance in the booth during the broadcast. That was painful. He thinks he's much smarter than he is.

The Red Sox actually have the sixth biggest payroll in the league. Doesn't feel like it, though. This is a combination of two factors in my view. The first is that they aren't contenders for the big free agents, which they used to be. The Red Sox were once a team that would sign the biggest star in all of baseball. That was on the table for them.

Secondly, Breslow and company put together rosters that aren't structurally sound. It isn't as if they're Scrooge nickle and diming Cratchit. So when a front office gives you the sense that they are, and I think many people have that feeling, and it's hard not to, that also means they aren't evaluating talent well.

When Breslow is relieved of this job, he won't get another in this sort of role. Or if he does, it won't be for a while. Only the Red Sox would have hired him. And if you are a GM or manager, why would you want to come to Boston of all baseball places, if ownership isn't giving their all to win? You'd take the job if you were an up and comer, or you couldn't get another like it. But you wouldn't come here if you were the guy, and you wanted to win titles. Not right now.

Wilyer Abreu has been one of the best players in baseball to start the season. He has 1.1 WAR, which is impressive for nine games. So they have that going for them at least.

I don't understand Alex Cora. His continuous employment. Here was a guy who was suspended a whole season for his part in a cheating operation. He's on his third general manager. What manager survives multiple GM changes? How many survive one? He has one division title in Boston and two last place finishes and a nice start on a third.

After winning 108 games with a loaded 2018 squad that he over-managed the hell out of in the playoffs to try and horn his way in on some glory and was bailed out by the team's role players, he has a season-high win total of 92 and that's the only time he's reached 90 wins.

His teams start slowly and put themselves in a hole nearly every year. They are, in short, not ready to go. His teams are poor fundamentally. They strike out constantly and put no pressure on the defense. They don't do any of the little things right. Players forget how many outs there are. That isn't a rare occurrence here.

So how has he managed to keep this job? I think it's that John Henry prefers a steward who is the devil he knows at this juncture of his life, in which the Red Sox are simply an investment, part of the portfolio. The ballpark, the day out in Boston, takes care of his bottom line. Historic baseball jewel, yes, but tourist trap as well.

Not that I ever want to see it go. But if the Sox didn't have this beautiful ball yard from 1912, it'd be harder for ownership to get away with what ownership is getting away with. They're also helped out by the truth that the popularity of baseball isn't what it was. Football is king in idiot America, including in Boston, where baseball has meant so much.

He's won, the team has won, and they don't need to win anymore. If they do, that's nice, if not, same difference. And I know what someone wants to say: "If the Sox let Cora go, he'd be picked up in seconds..." Okay. That doesn't mean he isn't trash. He's also moody, manipulative, and passive aggressive.

I wrote this before, but do you think Cora would be the manager right now if he hadn't won in 2018? I bet your answer is "no." So that means he has this job, at least in significant part, because of something a loaded team did eight years ago. Does that seem like sound baseball thinking to you? Would that kind of thing fly in your workplace? How would that work out for you?

It's working out pretty good for Alex Cora, though. I think he likes it here, he likes the absence of pressure and having to win, his family likes it here, and he has designs on a bigger role with the team and within their power infrastructure, which is an ego thing for him. The guy has a big ego.

The Sox start a series tonight against at Fenway against a strong Milwaukee Brewers team that is off to a nice start. This could get worse before it gets better. It'll get some degree better. The question is how much.