Cora’s the perfect fit
NEW YORK — While the Red Sox were interviewing their third and potentially final managerial candidate, the perceived front-runner was getting a crash course in one of the job’s primary requirements.
He was trying to beat the Yankees.
RED SOX BEAT Chad Jennings
Astros bench coach Alex Cora was in the dugout for yesterday’s Game 5 of the American League Championship Series, and, beyond the bench, he’s seen throughout much of the industry as the leading candidate to replace John Farrell.
The Red Sox interviewed former Twins manager Ron Gardenhire yesterday and former Tigers manager Brad Ausmus on Monday, but it’s the inexperienced Cora who’s become perhaps the top managerial prospect in baseball.
“I knew Alex for a couple of years before getting a chance to work with him and had tried to recruit him to work a few years ago, and he had other options,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. “To watch him develop relationships with the players, he’s all about baseball. He’s all about the competition and small advantages within the game. One of the brightest baseball intellects that I’ve been around.”
There are four teams looking for a manager, and Cora reportedly has interviewed with three of them: the Tigers, Mets and Red Sox. He’s never managed in the majors, and this is only his first season as a bench coach, but Cora’s interviewed for managerial jobs the past two offseasons. He was among the finalists for the Diamondbacks position last winter before they hired Sox bench coach Torey Lovullo.
Getting a job seems only a matter of time. It might as well be now, and it might as well be in Boston.
Cora turned 42 yesterday, he’s well-versed in baseball’s expanding set of advanced metrics, and he still was playing in 2011. He spent four seasons in Boston, including the championship of 2007, and he’s already developed a reputation for outstanding communication skills within a clubhouse.
In other words, he checks every box except team president Dave Dombrowski’s stated preference for a manager with experience.
“Alex brings a lot to the table, my friend,” Astros veteran Carlos Beltran said. “He’s a guy that always is looking for information that he could use against the opposite team. And . . . he provides that information to the player, which is great. He has good communication with the guys, respects the guys. He’s always in the clubhouse getting to know the players, getting to know which buttons he could push on each player.”
Dombrowski confirmed he interviewed Gardenhire yesterday. The longtime Twins manager served as Diamondbacks bench coach this season, and the interview “went well,” according to Dombrowski.
“We are still deciding if we are going to interview additional candidates,” Dombrowski said in an email to the Herald.
It’s entirely possible Gardenhire was the last of three finalists for the job. All have been interviewed in the past four days, and all three fit the mold of a Dombrowski manager.
Ausmus brings familiarity, having been hired by Dombrowski four years ago in Detroit. That familiarity can’t be dismissed given Dombrowski’s history of trusting known quantities.
He drafted Cliff Floyd while general manager of the Expos then traded for him in Florida. Dombrowski also traded for Gary Sheffield in Florida then traded for him again, 13 years later, in Detroit. Dombrowski traded for David Price in Detroit then signed the lefty as a free agent in Boston.
Even his history of managerial hires carries a tendency toward familiarity. He twice hired Jim Leyland — once in Florida, once in Detroit — and he twice moved John Boles from the Marlins front office into the manager’s office. So Dombrowski’s comfort with Ausmus can’t be ignored.
Nor can Gardenhire’s age and managerial layoff be considered deal-breakers.
Gardenhire turns 60 this month and hasn’t managed since 2014, but Leyland was 61 and hadn’t managed in six years when Dombrowski brought him to Detroit. Leyland wound up with the Tigers the next eight years with significant success.
But this young Sox team had familiarity and experience when it had Farrell in the manager’s office, yet the end result was a young, energetic roster that often felt joyless and restricted.
The Red Sox lacked the exuberance that Cora’s experienced in this ALCS between the similarly young Astros and Yankees. This is a new kind of Red Sox team, and it deserves a new kind of manager.
“(Cora)’s relatability skills to players, his baseball intellect, all impressive,” Hinch said. “And his transition to coaching has gone well. I think his name will always be in the middle of the conversation until (a team finds) the right fit for him. He will manage. There’s no doubt in my mind.”
His best fit is with the Red Sox.